Diamond Ring at third contact (seconds after totality)
Critique Style Requested:Standard
The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
With tracking, I was able to shoot sequences of aligned images. I used an intervalometer to shoot the partial phases every 5 minutes with the solar filter. About 15 seconds before totality I stopped the intervalometer, went from 1/500 sec to 1/2000 sec SS and Ted removed the solar filter. The camera was set to 3 fps burst rate and I held down the release button on the intervalometer (which acts as a normal shutter release instead of as a timer) until the moon completely covered the sun. Then I started shooting an exposure bracket for the corona, changing SS on the laptop with LR tethered capture, going up to 2 sec and then back down.
At the end of totality I was back to 1/2000 sec and used the button on the intervalometer to shoot another burst. About 10 seconds after the sun peeked out, the filter went back on and I went back to 1/500 sec and hit Start on the intervalometer again for exposures every 5 minutes on the last partial phases.
Specific Feedback
All comments welcome!
Technical Details
Canon R5, RF 100-500 lens at 500mm. ISO 100, f/6.7. These are exported from LR as the unadjusted raw files, cropped to 9% (yes!) of the full frame. The corona extends well out and I needed 500mm to cover what I could capture of it. The corona image posted previously was cropped to a square – 72% of the full frame.
Very cool images, Diane. Planning does pay off and it’s nice to have an assistant. You’d think by now one of the tethering programs would let you program that whole sequence except for the filter removal and replacement. Of course, that would remove some of the adrenaline rush.
It would be nice if LR tethered capture had that capability! There are programs to do sophisticated exposure sequences, geared to astrophotography. I use a programmable ASIAIR mini-computer with the tracker for deep sky objects but it is way too slow writing files to use for the eclipse. It is a Raspberry Pi board (about the size of a deck of cards) that looks like a high school science project, programmable with a smart phone or tablet! C’mon, Adobe!!!
Amazingly, it also contains a database of the sky that lets it examine a picture after a GoTo command (to a subject) and then refine the composition precisely! That boggles my mind. It also does that to refine polar alignment, which becomes more critical as objects are smaller.
The camera/lens was the best for the eclipse, along with the tracker’s hardwired hand controller to do an approximate GoTo to the sun and let me slew the composition with keys for declination and azimuth as needed. The sun is not easy to find – you can’t just sight down the barrel like you can for a bird. This clever thing was a vital accessory:
@Diane_Miller, you continue to outdo yourself! You have managed to capture every aspect of the eclipse. I especially like the diamond ring at third contact with the prominence shooting out of the “diamond”.
Words can’t seem to express how pleased I am with your success photographing this eclipse. I thought I was reading my schedule of photo sequences upon reading your description of the sequence of photos you made. That was nearly the exact sequence I had written down for my D850 with my 400 mm. My second sequence for my D2x with the wide angle lens was going to be running on the internal intervalometer and the 4x5 with the wide angle was going to be manually tripped. I practiced the whole symphony at home several times to make sure I would be able to execute it all in the 4+ minutes of totality. When I realized my plans were evaporating I started hoping that someone here at NPN would do it justice and so far many have, especially you. Thank you for sharing these great photos with us.
I am amazed at how quickly that main prominence in the C3 diamond ring grew from what it was in the C2 diamond ring. It has to be about 2 earth diameters in size at C3 and about 1 earth diameter at C2. That is crazy that it was in that much flux in just 4 minutes and that you captured it in those stages. Did you notice if you have any other stages of it during totality? It might be cool to see a sequence of it growing.
Wow! That is amazing. The images are stunning and you captured everything perfectly. I am jealous because the last portion is what I managed to miss. I am always amazed at seeing different images of the eclipse because I never get tired of seeing them. Stunning, absolutely stunning.
Thanks, @DeanRoyer, @Youssef_Ismail and @anthony! I was amazed at that prominence. In a quick look at the other exposures I didn’t see its growth. The HDR sequence swamped it quickly. I’ll look again at the 10 seconds or so of 3 fps bursts for the diamond ring, but I doubt they are long enough to show much change.
I’ve seen better diamond rings – mine is a bit flattened / stretched out. Anthony got a good one. Somewhere a couple of years ago (?) I saw an absolutely awesome one – maybe here but I couldn’t find it.
Thanks, @DeanRoyer, @Youssef_Ismail and @anthony! I was amazed at that prominence. In a quick look at the other exposures I didn’t see its growth. The HDR sequence swamped it quickly. I’ll look again at the 10 seconds or so of 3 fps bursts for the diamond ring, but I doubt they are long enough to show much change.
I’ve seen better diamond rings – mine is a bit flattened / stretched out. Anthony got a good one.
