I hadn’t been paying enough attention to astronomy news. Luckily my loyal Sherpa was (thank you Lynn!), and she mentioned that a partial solar eclipse would be visible along the US east coast at sunrise on November 3rd. So I took off for Cocoa Beach where I knew I could get a clear view of the horizon. This was the scene a little before sunrise.
Mai Tiki – before sunrise
Normally clouds are a great thing for sunrise photos. In this case, though, the eclipse would last only a few minutes, so I worried that the band of clouds low on the horizon would block the view. But the sun and moon finally did break through so we could watch the last part of the event.
Partial Eclipse of the Sun – As seen from the base of the Cocoa Beach Pier
I wanted to clearly show the sun’s disc so I used my “bird” lens for this photo zoomed in to 400mm. I was happy that these three people were watching from the end of the pier so I could place them in the frame. The sun was extremely bright and I was careful not to burn anything in my camera (or my eyes!). It was tough to compose since I kept my lens pointed away from the sun most of the time and only glanced briefly through the viewfinder to make images.
I like the way this one turned out. It was definitely a unique sunrise and well worth the drive over.
Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!
©2013, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved
Nice shots Ed! I totally missed this event…MY Sherpa failed miserably, I’ll need to provide her some feedback:)
Thanks Jeff. Don’t be too hard on your Sherpa!
Really beautiful work!
Thank you, Jim. I looked at your site (http://missedperceptions.wordpress.com) and you have some beautiful work too.
Very nice Ed. What mode did you have your selected? What were your settings?
Thanks, Jim.
I used aperture priority mode and the eclipse photo was at 400 mm focal length, f/11, ISO 100, and 1/4000 sec. I also used -3 exposure compensation so the sun wouldn’t blow out.
The first photo was at 230mm focal length, f/16, ISO 50, and 1.6 seconds with +1 exposure comp.
Ed
Thanks for the info Ed. Good for you for making the effort to get up and be out there!
Great shot. Knocked my socks off. Did you use live view, so that you could compose the shot, without the sun blinding you? Look forward to see you Wed. at P.O. C.C.. JERRY STONE
Thanks for your kind words, Jerry.
No I didn’t use live view for the eclipse photo. It would have probably worked fine, but with the sun in the frame the ambient light and glare were very bright. I thought it’d be hard to see well on the LCD. Also when I use live view, it’s a much slower process – and I wanted to minimize the time the sun was actually on my sensor.
I’m looking forward to the Port Orange Camera Club on Wednesday too – see you there!
Ed