Post your eclipse pics here!

[Steve Foss]

OK, anyone who shot the eclipse, here's a thread for the pictures!

I'm downloading now and may or may not get to posting tonight, but I bet someone else will.

It was brutal out there. No matter what, a person still had to put bare or lightly gloved fingers against metal lenses and tripods in -10 weather. Perfect clear conditions, gorgeous coppery red moon, but DARN was it cold, right on the edge for equipment and photographers alike if you were stuck shooting outside.

[finnbay]

My total eclipse shots need some work. This is one from early in the evening. Sorry about the '06 in the signiture - I've been working on another project from then and it just came out!

[Dbl]

Well I made it out but I struggled. I may get to a few yet tonight. It was darn hard to get clear shots, I was over 800 ISO, darn moon was moving to fast. Good start Ken.

[MARINERMAGNUM]

I had to pull up stakes and move inside,then I only had time for a couple shots. This was thru my kitchen window right at the start.

[Moose]

Heres some early ones

- <xml>

- <file path="C:\Users\Tim\Pictures\100_0417.JPG">

<Aperture>4.8</Aperture>

<ExposureTime>0.00625</ExposureTime>

<ISO>100</ISO>

<FocalLength>70.2</FocalLength>

<Program>Tv</Program>

<Bias>-1.33</Bias>

</file>

</xml>

file path="C:\Users\Tim\Pictures\100_0416_opt - Copy.jpg">

<Aperture>4.8</Aperture>

<ExposureTime>0.00625</ExposureTime>

<ISO />

<FocalLength>70.2</FocalLength>

<Program />

<Bias>-1.33</Bias>

</file>

</xml

Enjoy, Tim OOPS forgot the frames

[Dbl]

A couple of quick ones. I know the first one is a bit large but it needs to be for any detail at all.

[Steve Foss]

Here are a few quick ones without a lot of post processing. I may do some multiple exposure photoshop exercises, but we'll wait and see about that tomorrow.

All with Canon 30D and Canon 100-400L IS from tripod with remote shutter release and mirror lockup, manual exposure settings and manual focus.

iso500, .6 sec at f7.1, 400mm

iso500, 2 sec at f7.1, 400mm

iso200, 1.3 sec at f7.1, 150mm

[mmeyer]

Great shots everyone. It sure was cold out there. I was out from 7:40 til about 11:00 although I was standing in the garage with the door open. A friend came over and he lasted about 30 minutes.

Here's a couple that I did so far. Most of mine haven't even uploaded yet but it's a start.

[Steve Foss]

This looks like a lot of nice work so far.

When you all have time, could you please post your exif and other info like tripod or timer or remote release? Lots of different ways to do things, and it's a great learning tool to see how each photographer may approach things in different ways.

[bassNspear]

wow, awesome stuff here guys!!!!!!!!

[gopher_nation]

Great pics all, that sequence one is sweet Dbl.

[Tom Linderholm]

Almost better than the real thing! Great job guys!

[Dbl]

Here are my final shots along with the two I posted earlier. All shot on tripods with remote releases. I had two cameras set up one with the 17-40 which gave me the composite shot. The other camera had the 300/2.8 with 1.4TC. I took a shot every 10 minutes with both cameras.

These were taken at French Regional Park so I could get away from trees and powerlines. After the eclipse had happened I went home and shot some more from my driveway of the moon coming out the other side of the eclipse. Won't post any look for the most part like these.

I really tried to keep all the shots less than 1/4s shutter speed due to the earths rotation, there was a fair amount of motion blur in shots that got longer than 1sec or so.

#1 ISO200, 1/125s, f16.0

#2 ISO200, 1/125s, f16.0

#3 ISO200, 1/100s, f16.0

#4 ISO400, 1/80s, f16.0

#5 ISO400, 1/60s, f16.0

#6 ISO800, 1s, f16.0

#7 ISO800, 1/4s, f5.6

#8

[JohnK]

Sadly the clouds were so thick during most of the show I couldn't even see the glow of the moon. It did clear up when there was maybe 1/4 still in shadow and since this opportunity won't come around for at least 2 more years I thought I'd get what I could!

Just a quick crop and slight sharpen with these, handheld ISO 100, 1/320th, F/8:

[Deitz Dittrich]

Wow, Handheld johnk.. that is amazing...

[Paul]

sadly since it was -24 last night, most of my shots were no good. I just couldn't handle the cold anymore after working in it the last 3 days outside. I will post later if any turned out.

THe stuff I see here so far is amazing.

[yakfisher]

Well, it turns out I over exposed almost every shot that I took. That darn LCD looked so good out in the cold. But these are the better shots that I got.

Tripod, remote release, F9, 1/80s, ISO 200, 230mm all on manual with manual focus.

Tripod, remote release, F10, 1/2s, ISO 400, 300mm all on manual with manual focus.

[yakfisher]

I decided I may have been too overzealous in the post process, so I went dumpster diving and found out that because I shot raw I had a lot of room to make adjustments. Here is one that I took out of the trash. Sorry it's a little big but I wanted you all to see the planets as well.

Tripod w/ remote release, f10, 1 sec, ISO 400, 155mm focal length

[Steve Foss]

Now that's a bunch of great stuff there, folks. It was a tremendous spectacle, and there were times I wished I wasn't pinned frozen to the camera but could just look through some nice binocs from the comfort of my office window.

Congrats on all your successes last night (and avoidance of frostbite), and keep 'em coming if you've got more!

[Steve Foss]

Here's a final one from me. This was done just toward the end of the eclipse but before the moon started emerging from the earth's shadow. I left the camera framed the same, with the moon starting in the lower left corner and tripped the shutter at regular intervals to get the progression, later putting them all together in photoshop.

[Dbl]

Looks like there were quite a few frozen photographers out last night. It also looks like everyone had great results! As JohnK said these don't come around all that often so it is nice to get even a few shots.

I parked my truck right next my cameras so I stayed semi-warm and my outside camera stayed warm with the cooler trick so it wasn't all that bad. I did have a lady show up for about 15 minutes, she was taking a photography class and was shooting 400ASA film and had no idea what settings to use so that was my longest stretch standing outside.

The thing that came back to me from the last one of these I shot way back in film days was how short your shutter speed had to be. I have some that I experimented with a bit longer exposures and I just didn't have any success with that. The earth is rotating a lot faster than you think. I used the general rule of thumb of 300mm/per second shutter speed.

So, if you have a 300mm lens on your camera you can use a shutter speed of one second without movement visible in your shot. It seemed to work out about right.

Lets see some more results, you know there were more of you out there reading this who snapped off a few shots. The next one for us is Dec. 21, 2010 so lets hope its a bit warmer!

[Nate McVey]

WOW! Great work everyone! I had the chance to watch it from my window, and it was amazing!

[fisherchick]

Hopefully this wasn't already asked, but why do all of the calendars that I look at say the eclipse is tonight, the 21st?

[Steve Foss]

Dan, I had pretty much the same experience, although I was able to go to 2 seconds at 400mm and get acceptable images a couple of times, but most of those longer exposures went in the trash. Pushing ISO to 500 and exposures of one second were the cat's meow for me.

In bracketing some of the moon shots that still had bright slices of moon and very dark portions in the shade, I set my AEB 2 stops apart so it would automatically take three shots in succession, one properly exposed, one two stops under and one two stops over. None of these sequences is usable because each of the exposures is about one second, and in the time it took to take three of those the moon moved enough that they can't be effectively blended in photoshop.

At any rate, it was a great, though chilling, experience, and it was gratifying to be able to get those cool coppery-red shots, particularly since the eclipse last year that delivered those colors to people in Europe was a fizzle in my part of the country.

Again, great work everybody!

BTW Dan, that poster is great!

[Dbl]

Thursday morning, February 21, 2008 in Europe and Africa; Wednesday evening, February 20 for the Americas

I am glad I wasn't the only one to have the exposure issue Steve. I have the one shot posted at 1sec but that might have been the only one that was usable at the length.