Shooting the Eclipse

While this website will primarily focus on the greatest fans in the world, I take photos of lots of different things that might interest you.  So occasionally I’ll throw in a photography post unrelated to UK sports.  Shooting the eclipse will be one of those posts.

I had to work the real physician job on the day of the great American eclipse August 21, 2017.  Had I known that my photos of the grand celestial event actually were going to turn out pretty good, I would’ve definitely taken the day off and driven the 3 hours (or 10 hours returning as most of those that went were stuck in horrendous traffic afterwards) to totality.  As it stood, I remained in Lexington where the moon’s coverage of the sun was maximally about 94%.

I’d never really tried to photograph an eclipse before so I continually referred to Canon USA’s website for technical advice and recommendations.  I put together my longest lens, my trusty 300 mm, with a 2x extender, giving me the equivalent of a 600 mm lens, I was worried about potentially frying my camera’s sensors so I “borrowed” my son Griffin’s 7D which I had just given him a few months ago,  The 7D is also a crop sensor camera so it gave me even greater magnification than my current full-frame equipment,  I had ordered a silver-black polymer sheet from Thousand Oaks Optical to use as a solar filter and attached it to the front of my lens with rubber bands.

Here’s how I looked trying to find the sun in the viewfinder without actually looking at the sun (much harder than you’d think it would be):

After spending a good 15 minutes trying to find the sun in the viewfinder, I finally got it in sight and started adjusting my settings I was ready to go by the time the moon started making its appearance around 1:15 pm.

And another:

Until maximal coverage in Lexington, KY at 2:28 pm:

And gradually moving past the sun:

Here’s the scene as it played out on our back porch:

And finally, my composite of the entire event:

If you’d like to purchase a print, you can go to my Smugmug link here.  The square prints are available in 8×8 on up to 20×20 with or without the text. I’d recommend the 8×8 (only $15) as you can easily find matted frames at Michael’ s or Hobby Lobby.