We’re only four weeks out - now’s the time to lock in your photographic plan for the eclipse!
In this session, we’re going to concentrate on detailed planning for totality, with a focus on telephoto stills shots.
We’ll delve into the second-by-second planning for the period from one minute before second contact (C2) to one minute after third contact (C3).
We’ll discuss the detailed timings, camera settings, and equipment considerations you’ll need to have in mind in order to photograph these phenomena:
Diamond Ring (or Double Diamond Ring)
Baily’s Beads
Chromosphere
Chromospheric Beading
Solar Prominences
Corona
We’ll be using Photo Ephemeris iOS to guide us through the timings, in conjunction with the Photo Ephemeris Eclipse Simulator to identify the phenomena we can expect to see.
This webinar is for anyone planning to photograph the April 8 Total Eclipse using a camera with a telephoto lens. You should have a basic familiarity with photographic technique and with the key stages of solar eclipses.
Very well done and informative, Stephen. I was glad to see that I am on track for most of the things I have already addressed, and gotten some ideas for the things that still remain.
Should anyone who does not have an iPhone ask, there are apps for Android that are intended for interval exercise routines like HIIT or Tabata that are customizable and can be programmed to do notifications at specific time. As far as I know they can’t be triggered by particular clock times, but if you program them relative to a particular start time (like 30 minutes before C2) they could do the same thing. I used one during the 2017 to remind me to take a shot every 5 minutes during partial, and I plan on making a program that will announce the events surrounding totality this time.
Watching your video now. One thing I have done in the past, and will do again on April 8th is to set up the first 9 eV bracket to Memory Location 1 (M1). I set up the longer 9 eV bracket to M2. I set up my single exposures for filter-on images in M3.
When C2 approaches, I simply go to M1 and start firing the shorter brackets. Once in Totality, I can switch to M2 and take the longer brackets. I will continue to hop back and forth from M1 and M2 during totality. As C3 approaches, I will make sure that I am back on M1 for the shorter brackets for BB, DR, etc. Once those are over, it’s back to M3 for the filter-on shots.
Just FYI. Your mileage may vary. I do this because in the heat of the moment, it is easy to get flustered changing the shutter speeds for your brackets. This takes all the stress out of it
On Sony, you can program each of those memory locations with complete control. Aperture, shutter speed, ISO, bracket, timer, etc, etc. Pre-program before the eclipse and just switch from one to the other. Take a lot of the fumbling out of the process
I think in Nikons the “Photo shooting menu bank” is the equivalent of the custom shooting modes in Canon, Sony and, I think, Fuji. I am not familiar with them and from what I have read they don’t seem to be as user friendly and easily enabled as the other ones, but they may be worth looking into.
I am also programming the three custom modes of my Canon for Partial, Transition and Totality. They also allow one button to be assigned to toggle through them, so I should only need to press that button to move from one to the other.
