300mm full manual off a tripod. Basic Moon photos are always tough, since the Moon is MOVING, and it is so bright compared to the background. Eclipse photos add the twist that the exposure changes drastically during the event, so you are constantly shooting brackets and evaluating. I used from ISO 100 to 3200, shutter from 1/125th to 2.25 second, and f/4.0 to f/5.6. I was interested in capturing some sharp stars and I found that with THIS lens on a non-tracking mount, *1* second was as long as I could go before the stars became little “-” marks… Also, by 10:15 MST, the darn moon was approximately 60 degrees above the horizon, so it was harder and harder to see the viewfinder and manage the camera. I ran out of head adjustment, and started shortening a tripod leg!
Julie and I drove up through Colorado to stay in Riverton Wyoming the weekend before the eclipse. On the way we encountered a brushfire that stopped traffic for a couple of hours:
Once checked into our hotel, we explored the area, looking for high ground near the centerline of the eclipse track. Here is a time-lapse movie of a drive we took up to Thermopolis – really beautiful land:
Later that evening, we backtracked to some beautiful painted rock formations – I used the drone to make some photos:
Monday morning we checked out early and headed to our spot on a plateau in the Wind River Reservation. Car-campers had stayed there overnight, so we took up a position behind them, in the road. We were quickly joined by many cars and RVs – we had picked a popular place!
We set up cameras and I picked a little mandolin to pass the time – a really nice morning…
First contact was 10:20 or so – I started one camera shooting exposures at 3 minute intervals. Everyone on the site was using eclipse glasses:
I clamped a GoPro to the rear hatch and made a time lapse video of our doings as totality approached, and after – here it is (totality happens about 9 seconds in…):
Here is a still photo I made during totality:
I sent the drone up a couple of minutes before totality, and parked it at 400′. I hoped to see the shadow race through, but high cirrus clouds, and the fact that the edge of the shadow is not razor sharp meant that the event is kinda subtle. But the 360 degree sunset phenomenon is pretty cool, and it DOES get very dark!
We folded up our tripods at about 1PM and headed south, but ran into epic traffic getting out of Wyoming:
This is a composite image of 3 minute interval shots (58), and one shot of totality:
We went to a lot of trouble to witness 140 seconds of total solar eclipse, but it was totally worth it. Photos do NOT do it justice. There is something indescribably intense about it – I hope you witness it. Thanks for reading – more star-related photography here.
I tried to use iPhone app Sky Guide to predict where the moon would rise on the horizon – it was off by 10 degrees or so… We were set up behind Taos Mountain, so by the time the moon peeked over the mountain, the sky was really dark (which makes exposure tricky). And boy, it REALLY rises fast (approximately one moon-diameter every two minutes).
This image: tripod, cable release 70-200 at 150mm, 1/100 sec f/10 ISO 200 extreme crop.
We set up cameras and I picked a little mandolin to pass the time – a really nice morning…
