2012 Solar Eclipse

Took a last minute chance yesterday afternoon and headed out to try and catch something of the solar eclipse from here in Southern California. Upon reading the local news I took thier advice and stayed away from beaches that were said to be crowded and possibly foggy and headed inland to a favorite hiking spot of mine called Echo Mountain in Altadena.

Headed about half way up the mountain, just before it swept too far in and the higher altitude slopes would have obscured my view, and set up my 5D mk III, 70-200mm f2.8L and tripod along with some others hoping to catch a glimpse. Not much else to report really except we were not lucky enough to get the "ring of fire" as others could see, but it was still worth the hike and setting up my camera for.

Thank heavens for the live view function in my mk III, with my aperture at 32 and the shutter speed at 8000/sec I could make out the eclipse at the start quite well, watched the moon pass over the sun from about 4 o'clock (on the sun, not the time) through to about 11 o'clock but never covering it completely :(

The shot above is later on in the eclipse when we had had enough and were hiking back down the mountain, the sun was lower and not so bright, i spotted this guy on hill on his own watching, made for a fairly decent shot. Definitely the most extremely contrasted sky conditions I've shot it in, picture were over-exposed in the sky and under exposed on the ground so alot of tweaking in photoshop was required, above is the best shot of the day.

Exif -

Camera Model : Canon EOS 5D MK IIIf-stop                  : f8Exposure Time : 1/8000 sec.ISO Speed         : ISO-100Focal Length     : 200mmMetering Mode  : patternEdited in Photoshop, Exposure, contrast and other adjustments.