Broken Light

Yesterday was a trying day for me on all levels not to mention photographically. I had a plan in place with what I wanted to do with regards to photographing the eclipse. I knew where I wanted to be, when to be there and what to bring. Everything changed in a very short time so I did the best that I could.

At the last minute I had to change locations, for reasons that I don't have space to get into, and it cascaded from there.

A week ago I established for myself my clear sky full sun exposure that I was planning on using as the sole exposure throughout the eclipse so that I could assemble a time lapse of the whole thing.

Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate and exposure was all over the place. I made over 400 exposures during the eclipse. I don't think I have more than 4 or 5 sequential frames at the same exposure. There were these thin clouds that streamed past from nearly the get go. Even through the solar filter on my lens, I could see a strange haloing red glow that accompanied almost every frame. It brought me great concern at the time, but did not have time to address it as I was making an exposure about every 20 seconds.

Out of the whole lot, I have only about 6 frames that were to my semi-staisfaction. This being the best of them. However in trying to compensate for the redish halos I started processing by making gross adjustments in ACR and stumbled upon this look.

What I find so fascinating here is how the clouds were picked up around the sun as well as in front. I have used fill light at 100% and it removed the silhouette of the moon and brought in some of the clouds making it almost look like the actual moon surface is visible.

A surreal rendition of the eclipse. I have one more similar to this with the sun as a total annulus that I will post next.

Your thoughts are much appreciated.

Oh, Nikon D2x, Nikon 400mm f/5.6 at f8 1/6 sec ISO 100. Full frame.