Total Eclipse of the ... Brain

Thanks to John for inviting me out to Cove Arch where, with his immense connections, he got permission for a few photographers to photograph on private Navajo land.

Unfortunately, the annular eclipse just so happened to coincide with a total eclipse of my brain. I decided to set my tripod up about 150 yards back from the road. Since I had time to kill, I looked for other spots to photograph in case the eclipse didn't occur quite where I expected. Then, I somehow completely lost track of where my camera was among all the trees. So I went back to my car and retrieved my backup camera and found another spot to shoot from, only to realize the battery was very nearly dead. Back to the car again to retrieve a spare battery. I mounted my enormous 200-500 telephoto on my one pound, 3-foot tall back-up tripod. The 1/8000 shutter speed is the only thing that saved the day and prevented blur. But with no time to find a good spot to shoot, I had to shoot the eclipse through the trees. This seemed to be producing terrible results, so I walked back to find a clearing from which to shoot and I stumbled upon the original camera I'd lost. I take eight shots with that in one-minute as the sun is setting. I didn't think I got anything worthwhile, but I managed to combine a shot of the eclipse with the backup camera with a shot of the rest of the scene with my main camera (would have had to combine two exposures regardless), cloned out a few small tree branches, boosted the color, and got about what I was hoping for, but in a slightly more convoluted manner. I strongly advise against my "bumbling idiot" technique for anyone wishing to emulate it.

I'll probably tweak this image later when I can view it on a decent monitor, so any C&C is welcome.

Glad you got your camera back - this looks pretty good to me.

Hey Grant
You are too young for a brain freeze!!!

Looks good to me, too. That massive arch really gives the sun some perspective.
I could see eliminating the solar flare on the right edge of the moon.
It was a real pleasure seeing you again. Thanks for the entertainment!

A really cool shot, Grant. I could see some more gradual blending and what John mentioned, and the ridgeline on the right is a little soft looking. Still, it's a spectacular effort, especially considering you chose the Morris method for capturing images.

..sometimes I envy painters who can just imagine a scene and not have to figure out all the technical stuff :)

I like this image Grant! The moon/sun looks very 3D. And there are some nice curves in the profile.

Cool shot, one of the best so far, but lots of halo-ing around the arch.

Thanks for the entertainment in your story...I'm glad I'm not the only one with brain spasms!
A very interesting photo that when cleaned up as already mentioned will be very cool!!

Grant, yours turned out much better than mine. What filters did your use? Glad you were still not wandering around in the cedars looking for the camera and totally miss the eclipse.

Thanks for the feedback! No filters used here, Doug. Just had to combine two exposures and do a fair amount of post-processing to try to get something decent with these extreme dynamic ranges. I'll work on this image a little more once I get back home.

That's real nice, Grant! Count your blessings--my eclipse technique consisted of getting in a car wreck and being sent to the hospital, then watching a bunch of boring clouds when the time came.

Very interesting Grant! I'd say you did very well despite all the mishaps. It's really interesting to see all these different takes on the eclipse. Since it's pretty much impossible to get a totally straight shot, everyone's interpretive creativity really has to come out.

sweet silhouette and comp!