Photographing a landscape during a total solar eclipse

Messages
7
Name
Lee
Edit My Images
Yes
Hi there

I'm new to the forum, as well as to DSLR photography, so forgive me if any of my questions have obvious answers. As some of you may know, on the 21st August this year there will be a total solar eclipse which sweeps right across the continental United States. I became aware of this 3 or 4 years ago, and since then have been planing a photography-oriented five week road trip around the country's national parks, with the eclipse very much a focal point.

I'm curious what people's approach to shooting would be during an event like this? Both compositionally and technically.

Anything you read seems to be focused on how to use a solar filter to get as good a close-up as possible showing the solar corona, but I'd rather take the opportunity to get an unusually lit landscape. Another question mark is setting up the camera. It's not something that's easy to practice, and in a two-minute event of a lifetime, I don't want to spend most of it playing around with different exposures. I want to frame it, press a remote shutter at the right moment and enjoy it. Would you perhaps go for moonlit night settings with auto bracketing? ND Filter or not?
 
I witnessed the 1999 total eclipse from a yacht off the French coast, right on the centre line of totality, and as I remember it, it doesn't get really dark. I don't know if you've ever seen a total for real but if you haven't, it's nothing like it appears on the tv. I remember the light being a sort of late dusk. The late partial phase light was just weird - you know the sort of light you get when there's a storm approaching, except there was no storm? The Sun itself was just amazing. The disc was so perfectly black it was like a hole punched through the sky, and the corona and prominences were so clear. There are so few sunspots at the moment there may not be any good prominences but again they don't show up well in the images you see on tv. I deliberately didn't take any photos of the eclipse I saw, first because it was back in the days of film so you could bracket as much as you liked, still get it wrong but not know till it was way too late, and second because I was on a 30 foot yacht and the English Channel doesn't make a steady camera platform. I can't offer anything specific but my advice would be to spend the time before the eclipse learning how to get your camera out of the fully auto modes and into the modes where you have full control. You certainly don't want the camera to cock things up for you. Go out at dusk and figure out what settings give you the sort of look you want. That will give you a starting point to bracket around. If your camera does autobracketting then use it - anything to minimise the time you have to look away from the Sun. If you find yourself getting too hung up about the camera just leave it alone and watch. I guarentee it's something you'll never forget. I certainly don't regret not taking a camera, though I did make sketches all the way through. Good luck with the weather - that's what you can't control. A lot of people missed the 1999 eclipse through being in the wrong place weather wise. Out of 4 of us on the boat we had 2 sailors and 2 pilots, so between us we knew a bit about weather, and with a bit of luck with where the boat was based we were able to get ourselves in the very best spot. It also turned out to be directly under where Concorde went supersonic.............
Remember it's not safe to look directly at the Sun without eye protection (mylar 'eclipse glasses') until the very last moments of the partial phase, but once it's almost completely covered it's perfectly safe. The bright arc you get going into totality and the 'diamond ring', both caused by the sunlight shining between the Moon's mountains, last literally a split second, so don't blink! You don't need a solar filter for the corona. You only need one (for the camera as well as your eyes) in the partial phase and the corona is only visible during totality, but it's only worthwhile trying to get that sort of shot if you have a long enough lens. I use a 600mm lens on a crop sensor camera for solar photography, but a 300mm is okay for the partial phase. You can easily knock up a solar filter to use then with a sheet of mylar, thin card (I use cereal packets), double sided tape and a few staples to make sure. The partial phase lasts ages and you can mess with the camera to your heart's content. You can also autofocus on the Sun, though I do it on the edge to grab the contrast.
Good luck :)
 
Thanks for that very detailed account Jan. I saw the partial a year or two ago but never a total.

Yeah the weather is obviously a concern. I think I'm going to base myself at Grand Teton national park, near Yellowstone, which the totality line passes right through. The eclipse isn't until about midday so I'll be up very early checking weather maps with enough time to cover probably 250 miles in any direction if needed. I have a home-made solar filter for the 30cm telescope I have at work (I'm a physics teacher with a degree in astrophysics), including one on the spotting scope which would probably fit a lens fairly nicely so I may take that. I think the telescope itself would probably exceed my luggage allowance a bit!
 
As Jan said, don't worry about missing the shots, you will have plenty of time to experiment, it takes nearly 2 hours for the moon to pass across fully. The only part where you are slightly time limited is during totality, when you want to be focused on the sun anyway, that is not the time to be taking landscape shots, it just gets very dull, not even very dark.
If you go out at sunset, wait until about 10 minutes after the sun goes below the horizon, that's about how dark it gets, or to be more accurate how it feels.
The best landscape shots will come from the shadow spreading across the land, so ideally you want a bit of elevation to be able to see it clearly.
Hopefully the weather plays ball, but don't write it off if it is a bit cloudy, it was here in 2015 and it was still possible to see most of it through the clouds, though the shadow wasn't that sharp due the diffusion of the clouds.
 
One sequence of shots I saw taken during and eclipse was done by taking a reading before the eclipse started and keeping the desired aperture and shutter speed fixed during the eclipse. The sequence was help by the fact that it was fairly cloudy so there wasn't much sun to see but it was interesting to see the view darken and then brighter through the sequence and to see shots of an eclipse that did not include the sun at all.

Dave
 
Back
Top