The Light Source

Just preparing for next Sunday's Annular eclipse of the sun by testing out exposure settings with the digital camera. The last time I photographed an eclipse here in the Bay Area was back in 2000 for a partial eclipse. At that time I burned film, and this time around I will be burning pixels.

I still have my solar filter from 12 years ago and it seems to still be working fine.

I am amazed at how clear the sun spots come through. I did need to post process a bit as I am using a prime Nikon 400mm f/5.6 the the Nikon TC-200 2x teleconverter. The TC-200 softens the image a bit so I needed to sharpen a bit more than I normally would and used Neat Image to clean up the introduced noise. I still have a slight lens fringe that I did the best I could to remove using the CS5 lens correction filter.

I am very excited to be able to photograph the Sun and the Moon together in one frame again. It is rare that the two come together like this.

Your thoughts much appreciated