ShowcaseEclipse report from near Teruel, it happened!! (long)

Bueno, almost one year of planning since I joined here and it's done. We drove up from Valencia on Wednesday afternoon to a hill outside Teruel that I found on the map in January, me, my partner, my brother, and about two hundred other people who had the same idea, so much for my secret spot.

Kit was the X-S20 with the 70-300 on a small tripod, solar filter on the front, and my brother had my old phone on a clamp doing a timelapse. I practised the settings on the normal sun in July so for the partial phase I only had to take one frame every few minutes.

The sun was low, maybe a hand and a half over the hills, and I was very worried about a line of cloud in the west, it came close but it stayed below. When totality came everybody went quiet and then everybody screamed, me also. I took the filter off and did my bracket from very fast to slow, and then honestly I stopped and just looked, because I promised myself I would.

Results: the brackets are a bit soft because the tripod was shaking in the wind I think, but the corona is there and you can see a pink prominence at the bottom edge. The best photo is not the sun at all, it's the wide one from the phone of all the people on the hill in that strange light with the orange horizon all around.

Who else saw it? I want to read everybody's stories.

Oh I'm SO pleased for you, after a year of eclipse talk it had to happen. And the stopping to just look bit is exactly right, I've read so many accounts from people who spent the whole of totality fiddling with settings and barely saw it. Did you get any of the diamond ring? And please tell me your brother's timelapse worked

Dreich said:

Did you get any of the diamond ring?

One frame at the end! A bit overexposed but it's there. At the start I was too slow taking the filter off, my hands were shaking. And yes the timelapse worked, it's only my old phone but you can see the shadow coming over the hills from the west and all the people stand up at the same moment. My brother is very proud, he says it's the best photo of the day and he's maybe right

Congratulations. Low-altitude totality is hard mode. Between the extra atmosphere and the wind you were never going to get razor-sharp brackets at 300mm, so don't beat yourself up about it.

If you shot a full bracket, try blending the exposures in an HDR or stacking tool to bring out the outer corona, that's where these come alive. For reference, in 2024 I bracketed 1/4000 to 1s at f/8, ISO 100, and the useful range ended up being roughly 1/1000 to 1/2.

Yes, I have from 1/4000 to 1 second, eleven frames for each bracket and I did it three times. I will try the blending this weekend. Thank you! I have never done HDR before so if I have questions I will come back

Marta_G said:

When totality came everybody went quiet and then everybody screamed, me also.

Congratulations. I wanted to go to Burgos but work did not allow, I watched the partial from the office window in Kraków with a piece of welding glass from my neighbour. Not the same. The next total one I will see on the TV I think, or maybe I will go to Spain again in 2027 if the work allows this time.

Missed it, was in Mallorca and got clouded out with about ten minutes to go. Honestly gutted. Booked the flights in January, had the A7R V and the 70-180 all set up on the terrace, and then one cloud parked itself right over the sun and stayed. It still went properly dark and the whole street cheered, so not a total loss. Glad someone on here got it

OneMoreLens said:

was in Mallorca and got clouded out

Nooo, I'm sorry! After all that

was stuck in Leicestershire with a big partial and a welding glass, still pretty special tbf, the light went proper weird about seven, birds all went quiet at the water and a load of gulls came in to roost like it was night. tried a few frames through the welding glass with the R7 and they're all green, should of bought a proper filter

Marta_G said:

The best photo is not the sun at all

Congratulations, Marta. The people-on-the-hill frame is the one you'll treasure, mark my words. Drove up to Wyoming for the 2017 one with my old DSLR and a long lens and shot the whole thing by the book, and I'm glad I did, but that eclipse looks like everybody else's. What I actually print and hand out at Christmas is a wide frame my wife took of the parking lot we were standing in, sixty strangers in lawn chairs with their faces all tipped up the same way and that weird sunset all the way round the horizon. The crowd looks like nobody else's. - Walt

That is what I think also, thank you Walt

If you print the crowd one, go big and go matte. Strange light like that looks wonderful on a heavy cotton rag, the orange band round the horizon will glow on paper in a way it never does on a screen. Phone file or not, at the size of a wide shot like that it'll hold up to A3 easily. People always underestimate how much a phone file can take when there's nothing that needs to be pin sharp.

Blended the brackets like rjhowell said and now the corona goes out much further, like long hairs, and the prominence is much clearer. It took me all Saturday and a lot of YouTube. I'm a bit emotional about it lol. Thank you everyone, this forum is part of why I was so ready, you answered so many of my questions this year

That's the one. Nicely done.