Colin - thanks for your insights. Do you really think it's feasible (possible?!) to use multiple cameras for the one sequence? Not only would you need identical optics, but surely with wide angle shots alignment would be a royal PITA?
I don't see any reason why the ISO or aperture would need to be modified (in general). For example, set the ISO to 400. As long as you can expose fast enough during the partial phases (?), this would make the exposures times quicker during totality. You could shoot, say, 1/16s and 1/2s exposures (with the intent of blending the landscape/sky portions) in quick succession not by changing the shutter speed (slow), but just sticking with bulb mode controlled via serial cable. From memory, bulb can be accurate to as fast as 1/30s (??? any ideas here).
It still doesn't combat the issue of the ~5-10 minutes pre/post totality. It could work out to be easiest to shoot three sequences:
1. Main partial
2. 5-10 minutes pre/post totality
3. Totality (incl +/- 1 minute either side)
And then cross fade them. Sequence #2 could be a fixed exposure, hopefully with enough latitude to allow smooth transitioning using LRTimelapse for example.
Phil - interesting idea and crowd stuff is definitely worth doing too. I am *relatively* new to timelapse, from what I have read (e.g. Timescapes forum) using ML to auto expose doesn't work that great? FYI, check a video I made of TSE 2010 in French Polynesia:
https://vimeo.com/13611368
Ignore the boring stuff (skip to about the 3:00 mark!), but it includes two time lapses taken by myself & Joe Cali. This is old school time lapse, however. Joe (the fisheye wide angle one) was using a video camera with an automatic timelapse function, whereas I was using a compact digicam (Olympus uTough) on HD video mode, and just sped it up. Interestingly the video cameras auto exposing works surprisingly well.