solar eclipse maestro liveview prevents shutter

I chose it because it fits in my bag and is crazy light thanks to its carbon fiber tubes and magnesium parts. Better yet, use another camera as a counter-weight! And yes, I seriously considered that.

Plan ahead and pack it within easy reach. Note that the counter-weight got me pulled aside by the TSA for each leg of my trip because they’re not used to seeing such dense material in luggage and it gets flagged because they can’t see through it with their x-ray machines. The bracket, the long silver bar, and the counter-weight are all part of the package that I bought. This unit, when aligned properly, compensates for the Earth’s rotation and keeps the camera on target. To solve this problem I used the iOptron SkyTracker Pro. This isn’t a problem for short exposures, but it is a problem for a two-hour event because if you point the camera at the sun then look away for five minutes, the camera will no longer be pointed at the sun (the time varies based on how long your lens is). The sun appears to move across the sky because of the Earth’s rotation. In fact, as you’ll see, my daughter took some killer pics of the eclipse hand-held with a Canon Rebel.īall Head: Really Right Stuff BH-40 w/ Lever-Release Clamp

I also have the luxury of being able to afford a full-frame camera, and should point out that a crop camera would absolutely work in this rig. Note that I will always shoot full-frame given the choice as I don’t like crop cameras. This is my main camera and I already had it so no choice was made. I opted for a 400mm f/5.6 prime (not a zoom) lens and added a 1.4x teleconverter (TC) that made the lens into 560mm f/8. They also come in their own suitcase so they didn’t work for me. Lens: Canon 400mm f/5.6L w/ 1.4x TC (560mm f/8 total) Īs much as I would have loved to use a 500 or even a 600mm lens, the only options from Canon in that range start at $8000. In a nutshell, a long lens is perfect and I just happened to have a nice long(ish) lens. Both come in a dizzying array of options but for a solar eclipse magnification is more important than aperture and center-field imaging is more important than flat-field (which you’d want for dim celestial objects). You need good glass (a nice lens or telescope). There are some things that you need to shoot great astrophotography. Don’t worry, I’ll show you how you don’t have to, either. These reference points can be calculated mathematically based on your position on Earth but math is hard and I didn’t want to do that math.

These references are commonly abbreviated as C1, C2, C3, and C4, and here’s what they mean:Ĭ1 is the point where the moon first “touches” the sun.Ĭ4 is the moment that the moon no longer covers the sun

They are called First Contact, Second Contact, Third Contact, and Fourth Contact. Solar Eclipse Terminologyīefore we get started, there are four major milestones during a solar eclipse that I will reference in this article. It had to be portable, it had to be completely automated, and it had to work. I had done a lot of research and knew that totality could render the most well-prepared photographer boggled for the scant few minutes that totality lasted, so I set out to automate the entire process.Īnother goal was that everything had to fit in my StrongBags Vortex 2 suitcase because we were flying from New Jersey down to South Carolina to view the event. Before this event I had seen many lunar eclipses, multiple partial solar eclipses, and one annular eclipse.

Solar eclipse maestro liveview prevents shutter