Eclipse Four
The Actual Taking of Pictures
This was a very, very demanding and difficult shoot. And a very rewarding four to six weeks.
One needs to make myriad decisions about camera gear and settings, and then practice. Oh and research and read tips and tricks. Hence the time frame.
I have a D80 Nikon, old DSLR. For lenses, I have two that could work, and I bought a 2X teleconverter, to double my focal length. And I made two filter gizmos, one for each of the lenses.
The problem I have is, or was, vibration, and focus. My big lens is heavy, and it sat awkwardly on the tripod, and that introduced a lot of movement. So, I figured out to mount the lens on the tripod, not the camera, and that helped a ton.
Second, I lowered the tripod to put the camera about a foot off the ground. Splayed the legs out wider (there's a setting for that on my tripod) and used grass instead of cement or deck boards for my base.
I won't go into detail about third, fourth, fifth, and so on. Suffice it to say, there were many adjustments and accommodations that had to be made.
Practicing, I got some decent stuff of both the moon, and once I made the filters, the sun:
I had selected these settings, first working on the moon, then on the sun, based upon a chart showing that for my camera (as with all others, pretty much), the lower the ISO, the better the resolution. But I was fighting that vibration issue, so I couldn't let my shutter speed get too slow.
I also added a viewfinder magnifier, a $25 purchase, that I might get a better look at the object in question, in order to better focus.
Armed with this sort of photo production in practicing, I was more confident about shooting the eclipse. I will say after 50 or 60 frames of poor focus I was very discouraged, but classmate Rob Shipman made a couple suggestions and I went out and tried them, and with his support, I was back on track. Thanks Rob!
I got lucky in submitting my DIY filter construction story to Improve Photography Podcast Facebook group, and Jim Harmer was kind to publish it at his website. Thanks Jim!
I did have some trouble finding the sun in practice sessions. Well, one time I had forgotten to take off the lens cap. But even after that, it's hard to put that ball in the viewfinder, what with all the blinding light everywhere but in the viewfinder, which is pitch black until you find the sun. And if you put on the glasses, you can't see the camera to "eyeball" an approximate aiming. And yes, I did try the trick of looking at the shadow of the camera and trying to line it up that way.
At Carbondale, that was my undoing, not being able to locate the sun. An hour before the start of the event, I was on the grass setting up. I spent the next 45 minutes trying to find the sun. And I failed.
I switched to my backup, my zoom lens, and was able to zoom out, find the sun, and zoom in, with the filter on.
But by that time, I was physically spent. Laying horizontally on the ground, trying to peer through the viewfinder by jacking up my head, then rearranging, and scanning the sky up, down, right, and left... left me drained. Totally sweat-soaked and exhausted. And of course, freaking out that I'd fail to get anything of value captured.
To be clear, the ambient temperature was 98 degrees.
Of course, the lens switch required significant settings changes for the camera, and that resulted in some really crappy photography. Had I not been so tired and nervous, perhaps I would have gotten the settings correct.
Perhaps.
In any event, here's the reveal:
That's the sun, dead center, no filter needed due to clouds and percent total eclipse.
So, we were reduced to 20 seconds of viewing totality, out of a perfect-sky potential of two minutes and twenty-one seconds.
I was in full panic mode. Camera settings. My head was prepped for the 500mm fixed f8 lens at all-manual. I was going to monitor the exposures in the playback window on the back of the camera and adjust accordingly. I had bracketing set up on the camera, so it automatically gave me a frame at my setting, then a frame 0.7 stops over, and another 0.7 under that setting, at three successive shutter releases.
But in switching to the 70-300mm lens, things went off the rails. For some reason, I'll never know why, the auto exposure function kicked in and locked my shutter open for a second. I thought my camera had frozen. This happened several times until I figured out what was happening. I fixed that issue, and was still exhausted physically, and now getting there emotionally. Can I add in, mentally?
In any event, this was shot late in the pre-totality phase, in a break in the clouds. No post-production, no cropping:
This was a very, very demanding and difficult shoot. And a very rewarding four to six weeks.
One needs to make myriad decisions about camera gear and settings, and then practice. Oh and research and read tips and tricks. Hence the time frame.
I have a D80 Nikon, old DSLR. For lenses, I have two that could work, and I bought a 2X teleconverter, to double my focal length. And I made two filter gizmos, one for each of the lenses.
The problem I have is, or was, vibration, and focus. My big lens is heavy, and it sat awkwardly on the tripod, and that introduced a lot of movement. So, I figured out to mount the lens on the tripod, not the camera, and that helped a ton.
Second, I lowered the tripod to put the camera about a foot off the ground. Splayed the legs out wider (there's a setting for that on my tripod) and used grass instead of cement or deck boards for my base.
I won't go into detail about third, fourth, fifth, and so on. Suffice it to say, there were many adjustments and accommodations that had to be made.
Practicing, I got some decent stuff of both the moon, and once I made the filters, the sun:
The moon shot was Aug. 11, the sun August 15.
I had selected these settings, first working on the moon, then on the sun, based upon a chart showing that for my camera (as with all others, pretty much), the lower the ISO, the better the resolution. But I was fighting that vibration issue, so I couldn't let my shutter speed get too slow.
I also added a viewfinder magnifier, a $25 purchase, that I might get a better look at the object in question, in order to better focus.
Armed with this sort of photo production in practicing, I was more confident about shooting the eclipse. I will say after 50 or 60 frames of poor focus I was very discouraged, but classmate Rob Shipman made a couple suggestions and I went out and tried them, and with his support, I was back on track. Thanks Rob!
I got lucky in submitting my DIY filter construction story to Improve Photography Podcast Facebook group, and Jim Harmer was kind to publish it at his website. Thanks Jim!
I did have some trouble finding the sun in practice sessions. Well, one time I had forgotten to take off the lens cap. But even after that, it's hard to put that ball in the viewfinder, what with all the blinding light everywhere but in the viewfinder, which is pitch black until you find the sun. And if you put on the glasses, you can't see the camera to "eyeball" an approximate aiming. And yes, I did try the trick of looking at the shadow of the camera and trying to line it up that way.
At Carbondale, that was my undoing, not being able to locate the sun. An hour before the start of the event, I was on the grass setting up. I spent the next 45 minutes trying to find the sun. And I failed.
I switched to my backup, my zoom lens, and was able to zoom out, find the sun, and zoom in, with the filter on.
But by that time, I was physically spent. Laying horizontally on the ground, trying to peer through the viewfinder by jacking up my head, then rearranging, and scanning the sky up, down, right, and left... left me drained. Totally sweat-soaked and exhausted. And of course, freaking out that I'd fail to get anything of value captured.
To be clear, the ambient temperature was 98 degrees.
Of course, the lens switch required significant settings changes for the camera, and that resulted in some really crappy photography. Had I not been so tired and nervous, perhaps I would have gotten the settings correct.
Perhaps.
In any event, here's the reveal:
Aug 21, 2017.
The moon moved from the upper right across the sun, to the lower left, from our lat./long. So this was part-way leading up to totality. Note the hint of angry clouds on the sun.
The clouds were the next issue I encountered. As we moved to totality, a huge cloud bank moved in, and just as totality began, obscuring the whole shebang:
Aug. 21, 2017.
That's the sun, dead center, no filter needed due to clouds and percent total eclipse.
So, we were reduced to 20 seconds of viewing totality, out of a perfect-sky potential of two minutes and twenty-one seconds.
I was in full panic mode. Camera settings. My head was prepped for the 500mm fixed f8 lens at all-manual. I was going to monitor the exposures in the playback window on the back of the camera and adjust accordingly. I had bracketing set up on the camera, so it automatically gave me a frame at my setting, then a frame 0.7 stops over, and another 0.7 under that setting, at three successive shutter releases.
But in switching to the 70-300mm lens, things went off the rails. For some reason, I'll never know why, the auto exposure function kicked in and locked my shutter open for a second. I thought my camera had frozen. This happened several times until I figured out what was happening. I fixed that issue, and was still exhausted physically, and now getting there emotionally. Can I add in, mentally?
In any event, this was shot late in the pre-totality phase, in a break in the clouds. No post-production, no cropping:
Aug. 21, 2017
My lone semi-successful totality shot, filter off, is below. No Photoshop or Lightroom shenanigans. The full frame, not even cropping. Light bounced around around in my lens and created that flaw. But hey, it's my pic, right?
Aug. 21, 2017
And last but not least, with the big cloud finally moving on (but still problematic), I was able to get a decent after-totality shot. This one is cropped but otherwise untouched:
Aug 21, 2017
So that one might see the issues, here's the camera roll of approaching and moving through totality. The three all-white frames are filter-off, searching for the sun which is obscured by the clouds:
So there's the photography. A very tough shoot. Draining.
But, a word about experiencing totality: Indescribable.
The stillness, the temp drop... I just can't describe it.
On balance, a remarkable journey of learning. Why do this? I think, for me, in large measure, because it's there. Being comfortable behind a camera, OK, but just catching up to Photoshop and Lightroom, less that two months prior to the eclipse? Learning why one would shoot in RAW? Getting immersed in all things photo, learning I have decent, but very outdated gear, and then playing catch-up... well worth every moment.
It's a journey I'll continue.
And yes, I still hunt both the sun and moon, and wonder, can I get a decent shot of that?
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