I have seen a partial eclipse before, but nothing like the total eclipse we got to experience today in North Texas! I wasn’t originally planning on trying to photograph the spectacle today, I just thought I would step outside and take a look when it happened… But then I thought about it, and any time there’s a bad storm I grab my camera and try to capture nature at it’s finest (or worst), so I should at least make an attempt at capturing this. Thankfully I ordered a suitable lens filter just in time (it arrived yesterday, the day before the eclipse), and was able to at least try my hand at photographing the sun like this. I’m glad I tried, I am happy with what I captured today, even though it won’t make any newspapers or magazines, I can still enjoy the photos, and my kids and family did too.
It’s interesting because as a professional photographer, I know my way around a camera, very well. But when you have to jump out and try to photograph something that is drastically different than what you shoot all the time, you have to be ready for the unexpected. At my house we only had 39 seconds of the total eclipse, and that was assuming the clouds would clear out in time. But a 10 minute drive East and I was able to get to a location that had 2 minutes and 40 seconds worth of coverage. I knew the more time the better for shooting something I’ve never done before. You start to doubt yourself and your instincts with something like this that is so drastic and so fast, that it makes you a nervous wreck! But letting my instincts take over, I was able to roll with the unknown and get a few great pics today.
For any camera nerds that want to know what I used to capture these, I will gladly share. I used my Nikon D850 (since it has the same resolution as my Z8 I figured it would be safer to use my backup camera in case I did something wrong and fried the image sensor due to my ignorance of shooting the sun). The biggest lens I’ve got is a low-end 70-300mm Nikon zoom lens that I’ve had for over a decade, but I wanted the biggest lens possible for this. I used a relatively cheap ND100000 filter (this is like a super dark shade for the lens to tone down how bright the sun is to make it photographable and not damage your camera). And from there, I used my Manfrotto tripod, and my wireless remote system to make sure my camera was as steady as possible. Other than that, I played with all kinds of combos of shutter speed, aperture and ISO.
So with that, enjoy a handful of the images from my camera today. It was a pretty amazing thing to get to see first-hand that not everyone will get to see in their lifetime. If you didn’t get to watch it, enjoy a few pictures! These were all taken on the shore of Lake Grapevine in Flower Mound, Texas.
