Corona, revisited

I’ll admit, I’m new to solar eclipse photography, much less to post-processing of solar eclipse images — so I’ll freely admit to being on a learning curve here.  My previous post contained an image put together from 7 photographs, using some commercial HDR software.  Subsequently, I found two helpful videos on how to do a similar thing using Photoshop (and it’s a pretty quick process, too) — here are my results:

Corona, revisited

This took a bit longer to produce, but I like the results better.  Your thoughts?

Back from eclipsing

So we recently returned from a weekend trip to witness the 2017 total solar eclipse.  Long story there, when I get the chance to write it up — but the bottom line is that we successfully made it to a spot of land with clear skies, and even our teenager was impressed.  I’ve been tinkering around with various approaches for processing my photos (most HDR software has trouble with totality photos), here’s the first corona HDR image I’m mostly satisfied with:

Corona, 2017

FWIW, this was made from 7 stacked images using Aurora HDR 2017 software.

Waiting for the light to go out

So, with about half of North America, I plan on driving to the path of totality for the upcoming Total Solar Eclipse on August 21.  I was originally going to write up some tutorial information on this, but since so much of it is already available, I thought it best to primarily link to the sites I think are most helpful. Continue reading

Looking down the canyon

A fisheye view of Echo Canyon in Zion National Park, seen from under “Weeping Rock:”

Looking down the canyon

This scene, BTW, is just a taste of the attractions in Zion. The place can get a bit crowded during the summer, but a shuttle bus service runs up and down the canyon, and many impressive sights are just a short hike away from a shuttle stop.

EXIF:
Olympus E-M1
Olympus M.Zuiko 8mm Fisheye lens
f/22, 1/100 sec, ISO 200

Going out on patrol

A quick shot of (wild)life from Florida’s Myakka River State Park, as an alligator heads out into the lake, looking for lunch:

Going out on patrol

I took this shot from a tour boat the park runs — I’d absolutely recommend it if you’re ever in the “neighborhood” (but get there early, tickets for the boats tend to sell out early in the day).

EXIF:
Olympus E-M1II
Olympus M.Zuiko 40-150mm f/2.8 lens
MC-14 teleconverter
f/7.1, 210mm, 1/1600 sec, ISO 200