2024 Total Solar Eclipse
This timelapse is a bit of a magnum opus for me. I spent months preparing for this occasion which was hands down the most difficult thing I've ever photographed, edited and processed. All together you're seeing about 600GB of data processed where the moon covered the sun 100% for 4.5 minutes. Prominences 4 times the size of earth and the sun's corona can be seen dancing back and forth. This is as close to the real thing as you will witness captured anywhere...
The Goal:
I wanted to capture a timelapse of the total Solar eclipse from START to FINISH with no pauses and by using a single camera setup. I hadn't seen anyone do this before, so I was mostly shooting from the hip on how to accomplish it. On the surface that may sound simple, but allow me to delve a bit.
To accomplish this, I needed to not only track the sun through the sky using a sky tracker (Star watcher 2i) but I also needed to remove the solar filter as soon as totality began AND replace the filter as soon as totality ended.
On top of that, I wanted to shoot at an interval of 8 seconds per photo for C1-C2 and then during totality, I wanted to shoot at 1 photo per second. Well, how do you go about that? I utilized a special timer that I can ramp from a set interval to another interval time in a predetermined amount of time. So for example, I ramped from 8 seconds to 1 second over the course of 10 minutes before totality. THEN once totality ended, not only did I need to very quickly replace the solar filter without bumping the camera, I also had to set the timer to start ramping back to 8 seconds.
To accomplish this, I needed to not only track the sun through the sky using a sky tracker (Star watcher 2i) but I also needed to remove the solar filter as soon as totality began AND replace the filter as soon as totality ended.
On top of that, I wanted to shoot at an interval of 8 seconds per photo for C1-C2 and then during totality, I wanted to shoot at 1 photo per second. Well, how do you go about that? I utilized a special timer that I can ramp from a set interval to another interval time in a predetermined amount of time. So for example, I ramped from 8 seconds to 1 second over the course of 10 minutes before totality. THEN once totality ended, not only did I need to very quickly replace the solar filter without bumping the camera, I also had to set the timer to start ramping back to 8 seconds.
All of this was accomplished after driving from Houston to Mount Ida, Arkansas at 2:00am the morning of the Eclipse. I had virtually zero sleep aside from a 10 minute snooze in the car while Diana drove. Processing this timelapse was just as laborious as it was to shoot it. I had to manually align majority of the timelapse frame by frame due to wind and atmospheric density shooting at 540mm.
I am so stoked that weather turned out to be absolutely beautiful and on top of that we were surrounded by fantastic people. The Eclipse will be a day I'll remember for the rest of my life.
Hopefully this timelapse captures the absolute epicness of the event for you.
