Hello everyone,
I wanted to share this photo with this group as for me this was one great experiment that, I think, really paid off.
Me and my wife made the long journey from North Carolina to her home town of Plattsburgh, New York. Which was directly in the middle of the path of totality for the eclipse.
I knew I wanted to do a wide angle composite that also somehow incorporated something recognizable from the city in it. I figured most people would be doing the typical telephoto images, which they were, and I really wanted something different and unique.
I put a ton of time and planning into this shot. Way more than I have ever done for any other photo I've taken. I spent hours on google maps and photopills ( a photo planning app) looking for places that would work for what I had in mind. Looking on the maps the McDonough Monument looked like the perfect place. But I knew I wouldn't know for sure until I got there and was able to see the line of the sun in person using the photo pills app. I got there Sunday, the day before, and according to the app at least, everything looked like it would work out.
Now for the actual shooting. I theoretically knew how to do this, but I had never tried anything like this before and wasn't sure it was going to work until I got everything on the computer. I assumed it would just entail using the "lighten" blend mode in photoshop. I looked for tutorials and surprisingly didn't really find much on a wide angle composite eclipse photo. Besides use a filter!
So there I stood ,for hours, from 11am-440pm, photographing nothing but a completely black screen with a tiny orangish white dot (the sun) except for the 3 and half minutes of totality. I shot a ton of brackets on different shutter speeds because it was really hard to tell if I was over exposing the sun. Shooting at 16mm the sun is really small in the view finder.
For the shot itself. The only thing that is a composite are the different phases of the sun. The main part of the photo is one single frame from totality. I think I did actually use an under exposed photo for the lights from totality, so I take it back, it's technically 2 photos.
I'm sure this photo isn't perfect and I'm sure there are things that can be nit picked. But for me, this was very rewarding. To put so much time and effort into something, not knowing if it was going to work, and then having it come out better than I ever could have expected is just a chef's kiss.
This was a great read, Kyle. I'm glad you wrote out your process. Your image turned out fantastically and well worth the labor. You must have learned a lot through it all. Good job!
Thank you. I sure did. I'm glad someone enjoyed my ramblings.
Incredible!
Thank you!
I was going through the same issues Kyle, just across the lake in Burlington.
It really WAS hard to capture the varying phases, and I couldn't believe how much the sun moved between each capture. It is also extremely hard to see settings, focus (I went manual...) etc
I must admit that I didn't plan anywhere near as much as you, and the farthest I travelled was to the back patio.
Totality presented a further challenge - when to remove the 10 + 6 stop ND filters and the complete change of settings required to bracket and capture the extreme dynamics.
I think your wonderful result is a testament to your planning and just shows how hard work can lead to such once-in-a-lifetime shot.
Yes, totality was the part I was most worried about messing something up. Mostly just worried about accidentally moving my camera. I was also battling making sure I got proper exposures during totality and making sure I stayed in the moment and enjoyed it.