u/ja_hurtado

I shot a moonrise on 30 June 2026. The Moon is blindingly bright and the landscape around it is dark, so no single exposure holds both — either the Moon clips to a white blob or the landscape goes black.

Lens was a Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 (adapted to the fp's L-mount). I bracketed every frame and merged to HDR — 5 shots per frame, all at f/2.2:

• 6 s · ISO 640
• 0.6 s · ISO 640
• 1/20 s · ISO 640
• 1/250 s · ISO 100
• 1/400 s · ISO 100

One bracket set every 20 s. Each set merged with HDRMerge, then graded and retimed in DaVinci Resolve — the grade to keep detail in both the Moon and the shadows without visible noise.

The bracketing and the interval were driven by a small open-source controller I built on a Raspberry Pi that fires the camera over USB — code's on GitHub (MIT): https://github.com/jahurtado/fp-lapse/

I created a custom intervalometer using a Raspberry Pi that works for the Sigma fp (also for my Nikon D5600, and it may be easy to adapt to other cameras that can be controlled over USB).

I made it with the total solar eclipse of 12 Aug 2026 in mind: you need bracketing, two very different setups (partial vs totality), and a way to switch between them mid-timelapse without breaking the interval cadence. It handles all that, plus scheduled unattended start (fire right at totality) and Wi-Fi setup on the device.

How it was made (plus a real-world test): https://www.elcacharrista.com/en/articles/intervalometer-raspberry-pi-eclipse/

Code (MIT): https://github.com/jahurtado/fp-lapse/

Timelapse test (moonrise, HDR bracket): https://youtu.be/8lsBzhjCesQ

Feedback welcome — especially from anyone who's wrestled the fp's USB/PTP control.