If I wanted a good look at the eclipse, I had to go somewhere else. I was already intending to visit Chambers Creek Properties. The Grandview Trail’s view is only blocked by islands and distant mountains, and they only lock gates to parking areas and the Soundview Trail. I headed out, and I brought my camera with me.
Shortly after reaching Grandview Drive, I noticed that the sky wasn’t entirely clear. There were some clouds to the West, and that was the direction that the moon was supposed to be heading. When I reached Chambers Creek Properties, I set up my camera. Before I was ready to start shooting, an airplane flew directly in front of the moon. Needless to say, I missed what could very well have been the opportunity of the day. As soon as I had my camera on my tripod, I started shooting.
The clouds made it very difficult to learn how to take quality eclipse shots. I had a little time early on to try some shots, but the clouds started to block out the moon. There were breaks in the clouds, so most of my attempted pictures were in short periods when the moon found these breaks.
I may not have gotten a good shot, but I at least learned a few things. For starters, exposure is tricky. Your eyes adapt to your surroundings. The LCD screen is brighter than your surroundings. You instinctively try to keep the exposure dark to reflect what you are actually seeing. I started seriously overexposed. I periodically dropped the exposure. In the end I wound up with a handful of underexposed shots.
More importantly, focus is very difficult. With a strong telephoto lens, even a tripod (although I’m sure that there are better models than what I have) do not perfectly stabilize the camera and lens. If you are touching the camera at all, the image shakes to the point that you can’t see for focusing. The problem is, focusing requires you to touch the lens… at least for now.
To address camera shake, I initially set my camera to a two second timer. I forgot to turn off image stabilization at first, but realized my mistake because the image on my LCD screen kept drifting. Unfortunately, the camera wasn’t completely steady after those two seconds. I considered switching to a ten second timer. I realized that I had my remote switch with me, and ten seconds might result in the shot being taken of the moon behind clouds. Even with a remote switch, I wasn’t completely stable.
None of my pictures had the proper focus, and I eventually ran out of breaks in the clouds. Before the moon set, I gave up because I knew that I wasn’t going to see it again. Maybe next time, I will have a better sense of what I’m doing.
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