I marked August 21st on my calendar a couple of years ago and began thinking about where I could watch and photograph the 2017 Great American Eclipse. I knew that in Northern Virginia the maximum eclipse coverage would only be 81% – no totality here. I considered traveling someplace to experience totality, but ultimately decided to stay close to home for the event.
Several months ago I began to consider the gear I’d need for the shoot. I had the camera. And I had the tripod. I’d taken some moon photos previously – using the 28-300mm telephoto zoom with good results, but the shooting moon with a 300mm telephoto required some pretty aggressive cropping …
Super Moon – November 2016
Nikon D750 with 28-300mm
The sun is bigger than the moon, of course, but I knew a longer telephoto lens might be a good addition to the current kit and provide a way to capture some excellent closeup images during the eclipse. And with fall on the way a new telephoto lens might also be useful for capturing outdoor sports. (See how the gear acquisition justification process works!) I’d been looking at Nikon’s new 200-500mm super telephoto zoom for a while, so I picked one up a few weeks before the eclipse.
I also needed a solar filter. I couldn’t justify spending $150 for a filter – not after buying a new lens! And I wouldn’t have enough opportunities to use an expensive solar filter. I also waited too long to start researching solar filters online. Many of the options I was interested in were sold out. I eventually found a two-pack of Daystar Universal Solar Lens Filters for sale at B&H Photo. These ISO 12312-2 approved filters are constructed from Thousand Oaks Solarlite Film and cardboard. They fold into a shape that slides over and covers the front end of the lens. I picked the large size to fit over the 95mm end of the 200-500mm. With camera, tripod, lens, and filter on hand, I was ready to go. And then Nikon issued a recall on the D750.
Since the D750 was introduced, Nikon has issued a series of service advisories related to photographing bright light sources … like the sun. My camera wasn’t included in the first two rounds of service advisories. In fact, when I purchased the camera I intentionally waited a period of time before ordering to make sure enough time had passed since the introduction of the camera to sort out any production issues. However, my serial number was included in the service advisory announced by Nikon this summer. I quickly packaged the camera and shipped it off to Nikon Service in Melville, NY – and then hoped I got it back in time to photograph the eclipse.
In the meantime I needed some experience using the solar filter and testing out the setup. I’d picked out a location behind my office building for a couple of reasons, I thought the building would offer an interesting foreground element in the eclipse photos and, since it is my office building, it’s very convenient.
Eclipse photo location behind the Fairfax County Government Center building
On Sunday, August 13, at about 4 PM, I took the D7000 with the 200-500mm and tripod to the location marked above to take some test shots. A few things I noticed right away:
The August 13 test was a good learning exercise, but yielded no usable images. On August 15th I received the D750 back from Nikon Service. Door to door the repair took 30 days, but was delayed for about a week while holding for parts. The camera came back rebuilt with a new shutter mechanism, all new exterior rubber, cleaned image sensor, and an overall check and adjustment. Despite the new shutter mechanism the camera shutter count was not reset and, although Nikon issued a firmware update while the camera was being serviced, the firmware was not updated. While the process was an inconvenience, it was nice to have a two-year old camera get a complete checkout from the manufacturer at no cost to me.
On Saturday, August 19, I was ready for another test. This time an exposure test. I went back to the Government Center location at about 3:30 PM. For the exposure test I shot a sequence of images beginning at 1/4000s and stepping through shutter speeds to 1/30s. I did this sequence at f/8 and again at f/5.6. Reviewing the results I settled on a shutter speed of 1/400s and an aperture of f/5.6 to photograph the eclipse event. During the exposure test I also tried out an external monitor clamped to the tripod and connected via HDMI. It worked great! I could look down at the monitor to frame the shot. Much more comfortable. I borrowed my Black Pearl Flysight drone monitor for this use. It’s small and has an HDMI input.
On Sunday, August 20, I did one final test. This time on my balcony at home. For this test I confirmed the exposure setting I selected the day before and I refined the attachment of the Flysight monitor to the tripod to keep the cable from interfering with the monitor sun shade and to make sure the camera cleared the monitor as I panned across the sky following the sun during the eclipse. After this last test I charged the camera and monitor batteries and packed the following gear into a Think Tank Photo Airport Essentials backpack for the shoot the next day:
Gear for the shoot
On the morning of the eclipse I packed everything in the car, along with a couple of folding chairs and (fortuitously) a golf umbrella for some shade. At about 12:30 PM, Rebecca helped me carry everything out to the shoot site. After a weekend of perfectly clear skies, there were more clouds in the sky than I wanted, but not too many around the sun. We got everything setup, then waited for the 1:17 PM show to begin.
Setting up for the shoot
I knew I wanted to construct a Photoshop composite using the eclipse photographs, so I devised a timeline checklist as a guide for when to take pictures at predetermined intervals. The timeline checklist was setup for a 9-step sequence with one picture every 22 minutes and another sequence to take pictures every 10 minutes.
Timeline checklist and Nikon Remote
Rebecca called out the times on the timeline checklist for each picture, while I adjusted the frame and fired the remote.
Rebecca calling out times
We quickly settled into a rhythm of taking a picture, posting to social media, and being awestruck by the event. The advanced planning paid off. The camera and monitor setup was working great. A number of co-workers swung by the take a look at the eclipse image on the monitor.
A closer look at the Nikon D750 with the 200-500mm lens and Flysight monitor
An hour or so into the event the eerie partial eclipse sunlight settled over the Government Center …
Partial eclipse sunlight over the Government Center
… But 10 minutes later it was a different story. Clouds quickly moved in blocking our view of the eclipse. Then it started to pour. What was a beautiful summer afternoon for taking outdoor photos was now a typical DC area summer afternoon shower. In seconds we had the camera, lens, monitor, camera bag, and chairs under Donna’s waterproof blanket, while we stood with the tripod under my golf umbrella. I thought the umbrella would be good for some shade during the afternoon. Turns out we would have been soaked without the umbrella. Thirty minutes later the shower had passed, the clouds had cleared, and we were back to taking pictures. Outside of being a little damp the only downside was missing the 2:42 PM maximum magnitude of the eclipse – and probably the most important picture of the day. Missing a picture in the 9-step sequence was disappointing, but only missing one picture in the sequence wasn’t bad. We kept shooting until the end of the eclipse at 4:02 PM, then packed up the gear and called it a day.
Rain clouds block our view!
The next day I moved the photos into Lightroom for cataloging, processing and backup. And a few days later I began work on the composite. Matt Kloskowski’s video How to Edit Solar Eclipse Photos in Photoshop and Lightroom was an excellent guide for editing the composite. Of course I was missing the crucial center image, so part of the composite editing process involved recreating the maximum magnitude image using the sun from the just before the start of the eclipse and a mask of the moon to capture to moon’s slightly irregular shape.
August 21, 2017 Eclipse Composite
The 2017 Great American Eclipse was an amazing event. For me it was a great photographic learning experience and one of the highlights of the summer. I’m looking forward to doing this again and maybe next time experiencing full totality. I’ve got the next North American eclipse on April 8, 2024, marked on my calendar!
Some changes to the current gear lineup. I added the AF-S NIKKOR 200-500 f/5.6E ED VR – Super Telephoto Zoom and the DJI Mavic Pro. See the updated gear page for more details.
Workflow!! For Brad and Gina, this is the post they have been waiting for …
It’s been about 6 months since the Cuba trip and I’m way overdue on an update on the Cuba photo and video workflow. Right after getting back from the trip I downloaded the photo and video files to my desktop computer and backed up onsite and offsite. As I did for Peru, Galapagos, and South Africa, here is a review of the photo and video workflow for Cuba.
I brought along mostly the same gear for Cuba that I’ve used recent trips:
For the Cuba trip I brought along two 64GB 1000x Lexar Professional SDXC Class 10 cards and two 64GB 600x Lexar Professional SDHC Class 10 cards.
Nikon D750 DSLR with Lexar 64GB SDXC Cards
Each 64GB card holds about 1,500 12-bit NEF files. (See 14-bit vs 12-bit RAW – Can You Tell The Difference at Photography Life.) I used a 64GB card in slot 1 of the D750 to store raw photo files. In slot 2 I used a 64GB card with the D750 set to store Large size JPEG normal quality backups at about 10.2MB per image.
About halfway into the trip, I swapped out the initial set of cards for the second set. At the end of the trip I ended up with 972 picture files totaling 25.26GB. That’s a shooting rate of 97 per day – close to my average of 100 photos per day on international trips. In addition to JPEG backups, I used the slot 2 card for movie files and ended up with 296 movie files totaling 24.17GB. The movie file count also includes iPhone 6S movie files for some additional timelapse sequences.
For the daily trip blog updates I used the D750’s built-in Wi-Fi to connect via the Nikon Wireless Mobile Utility installed on my phone. Once connected it was easy to select pictures to transfer to the phone, and then incorporate those photos in the daily trip blog updates using the WordPress Mobile App. Not so easy was getting a reliable Wi-Fi connection in Cuba. Internet access was purchased by the hour and only available in hotel lobbies. Disconnections were frequent and required re-entering a lengthy sequence of numbers. The daily blog updates sometimes took an hour each day to complete.
My standard workflow for photos and video remains the same. I’m still working with Adobe Lightroom CC for photo management and editing – using the Creative Cloud Photography plan.
Cuba Photos in Adobe Lightroom CC
The simplified version of the workflow is:
Havana video clips in Final Cut Pro X
Video files are digitized using Apple Final Cut Pro X to events named by date and location. After import files are renamed by date and time. All movie clips on this trip were shot at 1080p and 60fps.
With all trip photo and video files transferred I confirm onsite and offsite backups are complete (using CrashPlan to manage both backups) and then reformat the SDXC cards for use on the next project. Now it’s time to get to work on the photo gallery, book, and the trip video!
I haven’t started editing the Cuba 2017 video yet, but here is a preview edited on the flight back using Apple Photos.
From home.
We arrived in Boston last night and were greeted by 15 degree temps, a big difference from the 80+ days we enjoyed in Cuba! Shannon and Peter welcomed us back to Melrose and warmed us up with pizza and margaritas.
This morning we enjoyed a dim sum brunch at Yong Yong Dim Sum in Malden. My first dim sum experience! (I tried the chicken feet, but passed on the tripe.) We spent the afternoon catching up with friends, then headed back to Logan for our early evening flights – me to DC and Mickey and Donna to LA.
Now that I am home and have had a little time to reflect on the trip I want to share a few thoughts and observations about traveling to Cuba and meeting Cuban people.
For as long as I can remember Cuba was a place that we, as US citizens, couldn’t easily go to. Since it’s been possible for US citizens to travel to Cuba, I’ve wanted to go. This was a definite bucket list trip.
Through dictatorships, the mafia, revolution, and the embargo the connection between the Cuba and the Unites States is complex and inseparable. Although lacking many of the amenities travelers seek, the spirit of the Cuban people is what really makes this trip worthwhile. And that was the point of this trip, to see Cuba in its raw state, the result of revolution, embargo, and the collapse of the Soviet Union – the defining elements of present-day Cuba.
Everywhere you look are signs of a former tropical paradise. Stunning colonial architecture now decaying or collapsing. Palatial mansion estates now repurposed by the government for other uses. Resort hotels now only a shadow of their former luxury. But despite this, Cubans are friendly, jovial, and welcoming and Cuba is vibrant, bustling, and exciting.
There is music everywhere. And it’s amazing. Rhumba, salsa, flamenco, and Afro-Cuban. Every meal featured a live musical accompaniment. And an invitation to purchase a “studio-recorded” CD! If you want to see talented musicians, go to Cuba.
In addition to music, every meal featured ice cream for dessert. In a resource-challenged country, Cubans do have plenty of sugar and fresh milk. And they make incredible ice cream.
Not surprisingly, Internet access is difficult. Some US cellular providers are beginning to establish international roaming services in Cuba, but I relied on WiFi to connect during the trip. Access is purchased by the hour and is available only in hotel lobbies. Disconnections were frequent and required re-entering a lengthy sequence of numbers. These daily blog updates sometimes took an hour each day to complete.
Customer service in Cuba is still a work in progress. To be a successful tourist destination Cubans will need master the art of meeting customer expectations. But we talked to repeat visitors who let us know that progress is being made quickly.
I’ve mentioned before that quality tour guides are essential for a successful trip, and this trip was no exception. Wilfredo, our tour bus driver, got us everywhere on time and with a smile. Ana Maria came in from Mexico City to make sure the tour the ran to Explorica’s standards and to make sure our needs were met. Lianet, our Cuban guide, was informative, knowledgeable, entertaining. She answered every question we had, shared the Cuban perspective of America, and spoke honestly about life in Cuba and her love of the country and it’s social system.
Shannon and Peter’s hospitality is amazing. To know that you will be so warmly welcomed into their home is a great way to start and end a trip!
As always Dr. Craven made sure that we had an excellent itinerary and an excellent group of travelers. Michaela, Donna, Marguerite, Sue, Gina, Marie, Mike, Amy, Mark, and Andrea are great friends from previous trips who I look forward to traveling with in the future!
Finally, a special note of thanks to Brad and Gina for the many hours of discussion we had about travel photography workflow. My workflow is always evolving and input is always important – particularly when it come to making workflow more efficient and sharing photos and video as quickly as possible. 😉
I hope you enjoyed these updates. Thanks for reading!
Plaza de San Francisco in Old Havana
A classic car in front of the El Floridita
Riding through Revolution Plaza
Havana Queens Dance
A classic car passes by José Martí Memorial
The group at Las Terrazas
Sunset at the Hotel Comodoro
Michael S. Liberman