failed eclipse photos

Were you under the path for Sunday’s annular eclipse? Or at least some place where you could get a decent partial eclipse?

I was up in northern San Diego County, doing family stuff. I had a reasonable camera but no filters to help me reduce the extreme brightness of the sun. I tried to stop down the lens and god for the fastest shutter speed. I tried photographing through leaves to filter the sun.

But, here are the results–general failures.

Fail.

Maybe a little artsy. But still: fail.

The sun is blown out, but the lens flare to the upper left of the sun shows the moon starting to cover the sun, about a half hour before the maximum 83% coverage we would get down here in San Diego.

Aesthetic failure.

Failure to capture the eclipse, but I sort of like the image, especially the plant silhouettes.

I think that’s the eclipse in the lens flare. From the standpoint of technique it’s nothing to show your astronomy prof, but I think the image is cool. Mysterious. Like moonlight, but not.

Life gave me lemons. I’ll take them.

7 thoughts on “failed eclipse photos”

  1. I tried capturing the lighting for 3 directions from my spot on a boulder to the east, and still not sure it worked. Your pics are interesting, plus that one with the lens flare and with the foliage are great in their own right!

  2. We experienced a full eclipse here several years ago. Drove up the Columbia River Gorge to get the very best vantage point, along with hundreds (maybe thousands) of other people. I try to avoid using overworked words like “awesome”, but there is no other that does the experience justice, and no way to capture it on film.
    Your photos are wonderful, even if disappointing to you compared to the real thing.

  3. The weird grayed-out light of the sun is how it looked where I was; wish I had taken photos some of those nest crescent shaped shadows.

  4. I had my friend hold a pair of eclipse glasses over my camera and got a less than spectacular photo. I also got several odd mirror images from those lens flares you describe. Next time I’ll leave it to the professionals and just enjoy the eclipse.

  5. I like those last two photos a lot. I thought the eclipse was great, really interesting with a weird light quality even aside from the leaf shadows and so forth, and I’ve been interested in the huge varieties of photos that resulted from it. All sorts of strange effects. Like your’s has a strange ‘moonlight but not moonlight’ quality like you said.

  6. We didn’t get the chance to photograph it here. Your shots still capture the feeling of the eclipse, the way the light is so strange.

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