2017 Total Solar Eclipse

Photobug

@Dissent - nice totality shot. Well worth all that driving. Looking forward to seeing more photos.

Photobug

dissent

I settled on shooting at 500mm on the D500 as it would give a little over 3 solar radii from to top bottom of the frame; but mostly because I could not seem to get sufficiently sharp focus with my TC14II attached so going longer was not an option. Then on eclipse day my first few brackets even at 500mm were not that sharp, so my C1 shots were fuzzy. But with some delicate futzing on the focus I managed to get something that was reasonable.

dissent

There's a cool video clip at this link.

https://petapixel.com/2017/08/26/solar-eclipse-looks-like-weather-satellite/

mcammer

Finally back home and able to edit/post. My favorite shot:



Lessons learned:

weather- still the most important factor. We had clouds at the Hermitage (east of Nashville) before and after totality. Downtown had them during. I got lucky. From radar, Hopkinsville KY looked more likely to be clear, but with family in tow, I didn't want to jump in traffic. Others I know had to bail off the interstate escaping cloudy SC.

settings- that Mr.Eclipse site was spot on with settings. Huh, a retired NASA astrophysicist gets it right, go figure... I bracketed +/- 1 stop during partial and +/- 2 during totality. Exposure during partial is very predictable, unless there are clouds/haze. Despite my practice, I couldn't change the ISO settings in the dark, so the range of exposures captured during totality was less than I wanted. Thank goodness I had preset U2 with settings good for capturing flares (the most interesting part for me). I was able to get more of the corona by adjusting in post proc. The really dramatic shots showing the corona out to 1 solar diameter are stacked composites, an achievement that exceeds my ambition, sad to say.

movement- I might go with less tele and more cropping next time (used 500mm and 1.4TC on D7000). It took frequent adjustment to keep the sun in frame.

filter- you absolutely need a strong filter until just before and after totality. Compare these pics no filter vs 0.001% filter about 2 minutes before totality:





Even a tiny sliver of raw sun overwhelms the camera (and eye). That said, none of these unshielded photos (including some more extreme ones) did any damage to my sensor or lens.

tripod- understanding the cost of cheaping out here. A pain when the head doesn't lock down with a heavy lens. A tracking mount would be ideal.

dissent

Nice shot mcammer! Glad you had clear viewing. It was magnificent, wasn't it!
I was in Hopkinsville, on the Old Bypass Road on the west side of town. Just some high very thin wisps of clouds here and there, so no issue for visibility that I could see.

I agree on the tele range - I think 500mm on a crop sensor is just fine, at least if your idea is to maximize corona capture, which will extend out over several solar radii. I was shooting 7 shot brackets, and I was just fine with my exposure on the partial phases. But I left myself with too short exposures during totality; needed some longer exposures, but that's life. I also programmed a 2 sec shutter delay, but that was probably a mistake; reduced my number of brackets and the frame rate, especially at the beginning and end of totality. Will have to try some shooting without the shutter delay and see if there is an effect.

On my tripod I used a gimbal head and it worked out fairly well; wasn't too much work to keep the sun towards the middle of the frame; small rotation and elevation adjustment both required. A tracking mount would be a real improvement, however. Things happen pretty fast over that few minutes of totality.

The next one in 2024 has around double the totality time, but may be a challenge to find a sunny spot in early April.

Photobug

Pretty consistent on exposure with mine...+/- 2 f-stops. I also used the 200-500+1.4III and was constantly refocusing. Next time, I will drop the 1.4XTCIII.

mcammer

I think key to the next eclipse is the margaritas. Go where the sun is.

To be serious, I'm not sure how long of an exposure you can take and still see crisp shots of the long streamers of the corona. Will 1/8 second work? If not the streamers themselves, atmospheric distortion has to come into play. That's why I was monkeying with ISO instead of shutter speed.

I also used a 2 second delay with the remote, primarily to offset wobbliness in the tripod. In 2024, I'm sure my equipment will be better, and my eyes worse....

dissent

Cool images there Betelgeuse. Well done.

That was one advantage of the Thousand Oaks mylar solar filter I had. It just fit over the end of the lens (snugged up slightly with some bits of adhesive foam they supplied on the inner surface of the filter holder), so it came off pretty easily at the start of totality and went back on again easily too after C3. Kind of a delicate thing though; have to be careful you don't poke anything sharp through the mylar.

NSXTypeR

Really nice shots everyone!

I unfortunately had work and was indoors during the entire eclipse. It didn't matter though, I didn't have the glasses.

In case anyone likes video, there's this one from Smarter Every Day who was able to photograph the ISS passing by the sun and the total eclipse. Supposedly Wisconsin was the only place to get both the transit of the ISS and the total eclipse.

Photobug

Fun video and the space station passing through the shot was great.