ChrisM
29-03-2015, 12:13 AM
Just arrived home from Spitsbergen (largest island in Svalbard) last night, so starting to look at 3,500 images taken over a period of a month in the Arctic.
As Joe said, the -25 C temperatures made photography difficult for both the equipment and the operator. I had trouble focusing on at least one occasion, and I didn't take nearly as many images during totality as I had intended. My water bottle froze in my pocket, so imagine how cold my fingers felt every time I took off my outer mitts!
However, in clear skies and great scenery, the eclipse was beautiful. Just as the Moon looks bigger when it's near the horizon, the Moon and Sun at totality looked bigger to me than I recall them looking at Palm Cove in 2012. Shadow bands on the snow were very evident.
Due to weight limits, I limited myself to two DSLRs and two lenses - no telescope this time. Nikon D7100 with 17-55 mm f/2.8, and D7000 with 70-200 f/2.8
The first image below is from a single exposure: 1/15 sec at f/6.3 and ISO 250 at 200 mm. The image is cropped and has a few minor adjustments made via Lightroom.
The other images show:
- the diamond ring (1/250 sec, f/6.3, 200 mm)
- the mass gathering of about 300 people -approximately one third of whom had not witnessed a TSE previously. Note the large marquee.
- general scene about 5 minutes before totality
- general scene during totality. Jupiter can be seen at top left, and lights on the mountain-top mine can be seen also.
- view behind me during totality (towards higher mountains)
Our eldest son said that he'd pay me $1 if we saw an aurora during totality. Well - we didn't; there was a lot of reflected light from the snow, so it didn't go nearly as dark as it did during totality in 2012. But we got to see some great aurorae in the preceding weeks; the brighter ones would easily have been visible during totality had they been there.
Cheers, Chris
As Joe said, the -25 C temperatures made photography difficult for both the equipment and the operator. I had trouble focusing on at least one occasion, and I didn't take nearly as many images during totality as I had intended. My water bottle froze in my pocket, so imagine how cold my fingers felt every time I took off my outer mitts!
However, in clear skies and great scenery, the eclipse was beautiful. Just as the Moon looks bigger when it's near the horizon, the Moon and Sun at totality looked bigger to me than I recall them looking at Palm Cove in 2012. Shadow bands on the snow were very evident.
Due to weight limits, I limited myself to two DSLRs and two lenses - no telescope this time. Nikon D7100 with 17-55 mm f/2.8, and D7000 with 70-200 f/2.8
The first image below is from a single exposure: 1/15 sec at f/6.3 and ISO 250 at 200 mm. The image is cropped and has a few minor adjustments made via Lightroom.
The other images show:
- the diamond ring (1/250 sec, f/6.3, 200 mm)
- the mass gathering of about 300 people -approximately one third of whom had not witnessed a TSE previously. Note the large marquee.
- general scene about 5 minutes before totality
- general scene during totality. Jupiter can be seen at top left, and lights on the mountain-top mine can be seen also.
- view behind me during totality (towards higher mountains)
Our eldest son said that he'd pay me $1 if we saw an aurora during totality. Well - we didn't; there was a lot of reflected light from the snow, so it didn't go nearly as dark as it did during totality in 2012. But we got to see some great aurorae in the preceding weeks; the brighter ones would easily have been visible during totality had they been there.
Cheers, Chris