There’s Always 2010

I spent an hour tonight trying to take pictures of the awesome lunar eclipse and all I can say is that I have nothing to show for it.

I don’t have a fantastic telephoto lens for my camera so I borrowed Christian’s camera while he was at rehearsal tonight. The eclipse started at 7 and ended at 8. I wanted to climb up onto my roof to set up and take pictures, but I had to work later than I thought I did and didn’t have a whole lot of time to get ready before it started. I quickly grabbed the ladder and leaned it against the side of the house to do a trial climb first before I decided to hoist the camera and tripod up with me. It was a good thing I made that climb because when I made it up to the roof, I panicked and didn’t know how I was going to get down without tipping the ladder over. I fearfully clung on to the roof for a few minutes like a kitten stuck in a tree and then slowly inched my way over to and down the ladder. I nixed that idea.

I jetted back inside, grabbed the camera and tripod and headed outside to set up in my driveway instead. By this time, the eclipse had started so I was rushing to mount the camera and struggled trying to attach the stupid remote control. Once I finally figured it all out, I started tinkering with the settings and the focus and took a few shots. I spent a good couple of minutes fumbling with the camera trying to figure out how to review the pictures (because I was stupid and didn’t bring a flashlight so I could see the camera controls) and then tinkered with a few more settings. I tried to figure out how to zoom in on my preview pictures just to make sure they were in focus, but because I wasn’t able to see any labels on the camera, I never figured that one out. So I took a gamble. I wasn’t about to leave the camera outside unattended while I ran back into the house to hunt down a flashlight. Nor did I want to break down the camera set up and take it all back inside because I was already late. So I stood outside for an hour taking pictures that I thought were in focus. I was so wrong. And now I’m so mad.

Hopefully, by 2010 when the next lunar eclipse comes around, I will have purchased myself a nice telephoto zoom lens and can avoid using Christian’s camera – nothing against it – it just hates me.

And now I’m going to go eat my cold dinner that I prepared while I was trying to get everything set up (in case you need a point of reference, that was after I was done working and before I got stuck on the roof).