The Great North American Eclipse

This weekend I was able to experience one of, if not the most incredible thing I will ever witness. I had been planning for months to make this work, but some last minute jumbles left me deciding whether or not to make the journey to Idaho to witness this once in a lifetime experience.

For starters, if any of you have ever attempted to capture any sort of clear image of the sun, you will understand that it is no small feat. It requires careful preparation, and foreknowledge of the environment, the lighting conditions and how to use your equipment appropriately. It also requires TONS of equipment. Those of you who know me, know that I have acquired a lot of cameras and lenses and lighting equipment over the years, but this was a whole different beast. First of all, the sun and the moon are both a long ways away. So to be able to capture them, especially filling the frame in order to avoid cropping in post, you need a big massive lens. And I'm not talking like a 70-200, I'm talking a 200-500 (or more if you use a full frame camera body) and that's not super easy to come by or afford, so thinking ahead I went online to reserve the rental of a particular sigma 150-600 lens that I thought would do the trick. I decided that www.Lumoids.com would be my best bet and it seemed so for a while until I received an email that thy couldn't fulfill the request because it had been booked by the time I had registered on their site. AND THIS EMAIL CAME 2 WEEKS AFTER. Easy to say I was disappointed (although they offered to discount my next rental and offered to rent a different lens for half of the price, very thoughtful and I appreciate it but it was too late at that point and a shorter lens wouldn't do). So I rented from a different company last minute who was a much smaller company, and they did a very good job with delivering the lens just in time and they reserve the lens the minute your order is placed. (Thanks rentglass!)

Next we run into the problem of filters. On most photography sites, they will tell you that you need a specially made solar filter that costs $47204720 and is made of "unobtanium" or you can buy a solar sheet which is also very expensive although much less so than the specific screw mount ones, especially for the size that I needed (95mm).

So I did a little research and found that theoretically while the solar filters also block out infra red light and ultraviolet light, most of them were the equivalent of about 16 stops of light reduction and so I went cheap and bought a 10 stop ND glass plate and a 6 stop ND glass plate and then found a kit that came with a fair amount of lens adapter rings, two stackable plate holders, and nearly 40 different filters both full and gradient in all different colors and shades for around $40 on amazon. So in total I think I spent $86 or so and I got a decent enough setup.

I later realized that the screw mount ring sizes only went up to 82 mm and I needed a 95 mm so I ended up not being able to order one fast enough and just had to tape the filter holder to the front of the lens with some black tape. To be honest this worked fantastic because I was able to capture the phases leading up to totality and then quickly remove it to capture the totality.

So once all of this nonsense came in the mail, I had a few days to test it out before heading up to Idaho. I tried it out on a normal sunny day and it was oh so helpful. I learned how hard it is to focus on infinity and back focus a little to get the sun sharp which was crucial to having an non blurry image to work with.

The gear I used for this shoot was my trusty ole Nikon D7100 with a nikkor 200-500 5.6 lens and two neutral density filters as I mentioned. I also always bring my favorite camera ever (nikon f3 hp) for some film shots, this time with a roll of portra 400.

Then, well, I got sick the day I was supposed to head up and ended up feeling awful on a 5+ hour bus ride up to Rexburg. That was fun, let me tell you. But I got there and was greeted by Kevin and Mallory (family members of mine) and was lovingly given a place to stay in their home in preparation for the event (suuuuper thanks to Kevin and Mallory for letting me stay there. None of this would have been possible without you ❤️).

The morning of, I was up early and I spent lots of time reviewing what exactly I was going to do in those critical 2 minutes of total eclipse time. I ended up going outside and setting up around an hour and a half before the start of the eclipse. Opening up tripods, cleaning off lenses and filters (pro tip: stay away from streets and other potentially dusty zones and especially people who like to "roll coal" in their huge pickup trucks)

I was amped at this point. I continually used the photopills app (best photographers tool ever) to map out where I was going to need to move the camera to track the sun across the sky and make sure to nail the framing. Then it happened.

The moon barely crossed over the edge of the sun and it started to get real. This was neat but nothing too fascinating because it wasn't even recognizable to the naked eye. It would still be nearly an hour before the total eclipse with all of its smaller phenomena.

I continued to track the sun across the sky shooting the different phases of the eclipse as it slowly inched its way across the surface of the sun and ate up the light which it was providing the earth.

Here's where it gets interesting. As it got closer to the eclipse point, the light that shed on us started to turn to a grey light almost as if you were viewing it through polarized glasses, but not necessarily dark as there was still a lot of light. The shadows started to take on a crescent shape of a moon where there were pinholes made in different materials. There was a significant temperature drop of a little more than 20 degrees Fahrenheit, and the wind began to pick up.

This was it. I readjusted my camera and tore off the tape securing my filers just in time to capture the most incredible image that I may ever capture. The diamond ring phase started out and was brilliant with bands of light shooting from around the edges and was very short lived and then complete totality hit.

It went dark. Like twilight dark. And there was an awesome ring of sunset 360 degrees around us as the moon cast its shadow on us. There was an unreal type of wavy rippling shadow scattering across the ground in the most unusual way, like nothing I had ever seen. All of the hooping and hollering from the people around me was somehow drown out by the nearly spiritual experience that was occurring. It seemed very other worldly and an almost eerie feeling of calm and helplessness swept over as our source of life on this planet was all but swallowed up by this strange grey space rock. Truly breathtaking. I snapped a few shots of it, making sure it was centered and that my bracketing was set correctly and then took a minute to take my glasses off and view with my eyes, the single most incredible and humbling sight I had ever seen.

As it approached the second diamond ring, and the baileys beads appeared, I was able to capture the image and then as soon as it was uncovered, I left my camera to capture the rest in a sequence. As I saw what I had captured flash up on the screen of my camera, I ran through the street shouting for joy and pure contentment, and swerving to a grass patch where I proceeded to do a front flip, nearly paralyzing myself.

But that was just it. It was over. In that, the fastest 2 minutes of my life, I had witnessed the moon pass entirely in front of the sun, in an incredibly rare astrological event that has had mankind babbling about it and creating legends and myths of its powers, since we could communicate with one another.

In short, it was awe inspiring, humbling, and absolutely magnificent. Sign me up for he next one in 40 years because I won't miss it for anything.

Until the next adventure,

-E