NikonMan09
Senior Member
My wife and I were fortunate to have relatives in Simpsonville, SC, that we could visit for a long weekend and view the eclipse in their backyard. I was able to successfully photograph the eclipse with my D7200 and 80-400 G AF-S zoomed out to the max. Shown below are some of my photos of my setup and the event.
I am not into astrophotography and I did not spend much on equipment for the event. I purchased from B&H eclipse glasses for all of us, a large diameter Daystar cardboard solar filter for my 80-400 G, a pair of a smaller diameter version of this filter for my 10 x 42 Bushnell binoculars, and for my Manfrotto 055CSPRO4 tripod a new Manfrotto MVH500AH fluid video head that Rudy Pohl recommended to me a year and a half ago as a cost-effective alternative to gimbal heads for bird photography with non-exotic telephotos. I fired the camera with a Nikon wired remote shutter release. My setup is pictured below.
In the days prior to the trip I browsed the Astrophotography Forum where there were many posts with links to sites that gave exposure settings. I tried to follow one of these, but it went out the window when it didn't give me a proper exposure of the sun with the solar filter on (which I stuffed in my sunshade and taped with electrical tape to plug light leaks, this for quick removal and re-insertion after totality). Therefore, for the rest of the event, I adjusted exposure settings manually, based on getting a reasonable image on the Liveview screen. I did all my focusing manually (with VR turned off) using magnified live view to get a sharp edge and I had to reframe the image from time to time. I did a refocus shortly before totality. Shown below is one of my better framed shots before totality.
When totality arrived, it was a bit chaotic, because I was also responsible informing my family members when to take off their glasses for totality and take off my sunshade w/solar filter. My first picture of totality was a bit off center:
Therefore, I readjusted the framing, but was still off center. I also adjusted the exposure to show more of the solar prominences. This was challenging due to the darkness preventing me from reading the camera settings on the top plate LED; I had to turn it on!
I didn't adjust the framing anymore during totality, and what follows are three shots with the exposure progressively varied to show more corona. The next shot I thought most closely approximated what I saw with the naked eyes:
In this next shot, when viewed at magnification, notice the light bleed in the northeast direction:
I mentioned the "light bleed" in the above shot because that is where the sun will re-emerge at the conclusion of totality.
I determined that I would photography the diamond ring effect at the conclusion of totality, and in so doing I was rewarded with a bonus. The bonus is the shot below, which shows the Baily's Beads effect, caused by the rough contour of the moon's surface. I switched to a faster shutter speed for the end of totality.
Finally, I got a big diamond ring! Totality was 1 minute, 59 seconds at our location.
My last shot is of the post-totality partial phase. You can see some sunspots at magnification, and I understood based on viewing some higher resolution shots posted elsewhere on DPReview.com, that rightmost speck in the middle is actually the International Space Station!
I shot my images RAW + JPEG so I could quickly distribute JPEGS to the relatives and what I have shown are the OOC JPEGS. I used the Standard picture control with +6 sharpness and +1 saturation adjustment from default. White balance was set to 5400K. Please feel free to offer any post-processing suggestions.
I consider myself very fortunate to have been able to witness this event with both my naked eyes and get some great pictures, my framing shortcomings notwithstanding. I felt very comfortable handling the Manfrotto video head to adjust framing, despite it requiring two hands. The framing shortcomings are entirely my fault. I can't imagine operating an ordinary ballhead at the extreme angle. I needed a mirror to help me see the Liveview screen; a movable screen would have been nice. I did not bother with programming exposure bracketing sequences or using mirror lock-up options. But, all things considered, I felt my equipment performed superbly.
In closing, I feel this experience will enable me to work with my own exposure protocols, were I to photograph a future eclipse, based on my OOC results and what I will learn doing some post-processing adjustment of exposure in the RAWs. Thanks for viewing!
My Flickr album for the eclipse is here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/10733817@N05/albums/72157685770106983
--
Fred
Shot Minolta SLR/DSLR and Sony DSLR 1978-2008. Switched to Nikon in 2009.
I am not into astrophotography and I did not spend much on equipment for the event. I purchased from B&H eclipse glasses for all of us, a large diameter Daystar cardboard solar filter for my 80-400 G, a pair of a smaller diameter version of this filter for my 10 x 42 Bushnell binoculars, and for my Manfrotto 055CSPRO4 tripod a new Manfrotto MVH500AH fluid video head that Rudy Pohl recommended to me a year and a half ago as a cost-effective alternative to gimbal heads for bird photography with non-exotic telephotos. I fired the camera with a Nikon wired remote shutter release. My setup is pictured below.
In the days prior to the trip I browsed the Astrophotography Forum where there were many posts with links to sites that gave exposure settings. I tried to follow one of these, but it went out the window when it didn't give me a proper exposure of the sun with the solar filter on (which I stuffed in my sunshade and taped with electrical tape to plug light leaks, this for quick removal and re-insertion after totality). Therefore, for the rest of the event, I adjusted exposure settings manually, based on getting a reasonable image on the Liveview screen. I did all my focusing manually (with VR turned off) using magnified live view to get a sharp edge and I had to reframe the image from time to time. I did a refocus shortly before totality. Shown below is one of my better framed shots before totality.
When totality arrived, it was a bit chaotic, because I was also responsible informing my family members when to take off their glasses for totality and take off my sunshade w/solar filter. My first picture of totality was a bit off center:
Therefore, I readjusted the framing, but was still off center. I also adjusted the exposure to show more of the solar prominences. This was challenging due to the darkness preventing me from reading the camera settings on the top plate LED; I had to turn it on!
I didn't adjust the framing anymore during totality, and what follows are three shots with the exposure progressively varied to show more corona. The next shot I thought most closely approximated what I saw with the naked eyes:
In this next shot, when viewed at magnification, notice the light bleed in the northeast direction:
I mentioned the "light bleed" in the above shot because that is where the sun will re-emerge at the conclusion of totality.
I determined that I would photography the diamond ring effect at the conclusion of totality, and in so doing I was rewarded with a bonus. The bonus is the shot below, which shows the Baily's Beads effect, caused by the rough contour of the moon's surface. I switched to a faster shutter speed for the end of totality.
Finally, I got a big diamond ring! Totality was 1 minute, 59 seconds at our location.
My last shot is of the post-totality partial phase. You can see some sunspots at magnification, and I understood based on viewing some higher resolution shots posted elsewhere on DPReview.com, that rightmost speck in the middle is actually the International Space Station!
I shot my images RAW + JPEG so I could quickly distribute JPEGS to the relatives and what I have shown are the OOC JPEGS. I used the Standard picture control with +6 sharpness and +1 saturation adjustment from default. White balance was set to 5400K. Please feel free to offer any post-processing suggestions.
I consider myself very fortunate to have been able to witness this event with both my naked eyes and get some great pictures, my framing shortcomings notwithstanding. I felt very comfortable handling the Manfrotto video head to adjust framing, despite it requiring two hands. The framing shortcomings are entirely my fault. I can't imagine operating an ordinary ballhead at the extreme angle. I needed a mirror to help me see the Liveview screen; a movable screen would have been nice. I did not bother with programming exposure bracketing sequences or using mirror lock-up options. But, all things considered, I felt my equipment performed superbly.
In closing, I feel this experience will enable me to work with my own exposure protocols, were I to photograph a future eclipse, based on my OOC results and what I will learn doing some post-processing adjustment of exposure in the RAWs. Thanks for viewing!
My Flickr album for the eclipse is here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/10733817@N05/albums/72157685770106983
--
Fred
Shot Minolta SLR/DSLR and Sony DSLR 1978-2008. Switched to Nikon in 2009.
