I took over 500 pics during our 6 days up at Palm Cove, and have attached a very small selection from the day of the eclipse, when my wife and I perched ourselves on the beach from 4 am onwards.
All shots are uncropped, with minimal processing in LR. I don't know how to do HDR, so I haven't attempted to combine my three corona pics.
Using my imagination a little, I think that I can see first contact in the sunrise photo.
The next photo shows my wife at the controls of her camera (just left of centre), and my tripod and ED80 with camera on her right.
The large cloud bank in pic#7012 did not give anyone on the beach a good feeling. At least it wasn't raining, as the forecast had suggested it would!
The beach scene in pic #7036 was taken at 6:17 am, and beach scene in pic #7061 was taken about 10-15 seconds after 3rd contact, hence the strange lighting.
The beach was a great place to witness the event from, but a higher vantage point would have been good for other reasons. Next time(?), I would like to try to automate the cameras, as it's just too much of a challenge to make all the adjustments quickly enough. The 500 mm telescope was not solid enough on the camera tripod, so I did not attempt to use the camera on continuous shooting mode. For the same reason, I was very thankful that the wind abated overnight.
It was great to meet some fellow IIS members afterwards; only sorry that I didn't catch up with more of you.
All in all - a fantastic experience, and I've already been studying the world map showing eclipse paths for the next decade!
Thanks ourkind - as I said, I need to get some more processing skills for the corona so that I can combine 3 exposures. I didn't even notice the guy on the beach with the flash, but I guess that it may give some indication of the reduced ambient light.
Thanks Deeno - glad that you liked them.
And thanks too Stephen. The event was certainly a lot more than just the two minutes of totality.
Thank you for sharing your impressive images, I too was at Palm Cove and your images have helped build my memories of the eclipse. From one of your images I can see myself a stones throw or so to your right!
You did a terrific job of capturing that extended corona, I love your work! Well done!!! The other images are fabulous too!
