Total solar eclipse
Well, I have to say that finally getting to see a total solar eclipse really ranks up there with some of the best experiences I have ever had. There is no way to describe it and no way that a photograph or video can do it justice. It's one of those things you just have to be there for, to be in the moment. TOTALLY awesome experience. Even with glasses and filters it has been burned into my mind.
I cannot even imagine how prehistoric man thought about these events as there was no way to predict them. It just happens. The sky darkens somewhat as totality approaches but It's more or less a similar experience to a dark cloud passing in front of the sun. But then, just BAM!, and it's gone and there are these flashes, and the ring of fire, and the corona... and then a few minutes later everything is back to normal. I'm sure it must have been terrifying.
I was up at 2am and out of the house shortly thereafter. It took me about four and half hours to get to my first-choice viewing location and since there was plenty of room there I did not have to bother with any of the others. I had a list of nine locations to chose from, picked out from Google Maps, that lay along the path of totality, which I had planned to investigate in succession until I found one that was uncrowded, and I would be able to set up my gear at. Everything worked out perfectly with only some high, thin clouds moving in around midday, and I stayed for the complete event, first contact through fourth contact.
I used two cameras to shoot with, my Nikon D850 with a Sigma 150-600mm lens, and also my Nikon D750 with a Nikon 18-200mm lens. I had the big lens set at 400mm for close-ups, and the smaller one at 18mm, hoping to capture the progression of the event as the sun and moon moved across the sky. The D850 was shooting 7 frames at a time in bracketing mode. One shot at the selected exposure and then one each at -1, -2, -3 and +1, +2, +3. Outside of totality I was shooting every 5 minutes. I tried to shoot every 10 seconds during totality but something happened and the image got shifted out of position. I did not want to screw around with it and miss "seeing" the event, since it is so brief, so I just fired some shots manually. I am not disappointed. Some of the totality images are very similar except for the exposure. Some show the corona better and others show the prominences better. I am not disappointed.
I had intended to trigger the D750 manually every 5 minutes as well but I got caught up on things and I missed a few of these. I have not done anything with these images yet and need to figure how to try and merge them all together with a landscape shot that was taken just before the start of the eclipse.