Photography

21
Aug
2017

Solar Eclipse 2017 From Sparta, TN

The August 21, 2017 Solar Eclipse as photographed from Sparta, TN (35.9727° N, 85.5638° W).   This was about 3.2 miles from the center of Totality!  These images do not convey the magnitude of the experience.  Knowing what to expect in general does not prepare you.  If I tried to find a single word to describe it, I would pick astonishing.

 

Location Sparta, TN (35.9725° N, 85.5638° W)
Duration of Totality 2m38.8s
Magnitude 1.014
Obscuration 100.00%
Event Date Time (UT) Alt Azi
Start of partial eclipse (C1) 2017/08/21 17:01:17 63.9° 154.8°
Start of total eclipse (C2) 2017/08/21 18:29:50.1 63.9° 205.4°
Maximum eclipse 2017/08/21 18:31:09.6 63.8° 206.1°
End of total eclipse (C3) 2017/08/21 18:32:28.9 63.6° 206.8°
End of partial eclipse (C4) 2017/08/21 19:56:17.0 51.9° 239.1°
Posted by Chad Dotson in Photography, 2 comments
08
Jul
2016

July 8, 2016 Lightning

These are the first lightning photos in several months.  It was a good electrical storm but the lightning wasn’t so photogenic.

Posted by Chad Dotson in Misc, Photography, 0 comments
29
Jun
2015

Estill Springs Fireworks 2015

These are photos taken at the Estill Springs, TN 2015 Fireworks show.

The Best

The Rest

Posted by Chad Dotson in Photography, 0 comments
19
May
2015

DLSR Lightning Trigger 4

Success again!  This time the lightning trigger managed to capture a good bolt (though not as photogenic as I would have liked).  I ran into trouble again with my camera exiting the “Quick-response remote” release mode.  This caused me to miss more than a few events, but I did find the solution.  Buried in one of the custom settings is a timeout for the remote feature.  It defaults to 1 minute!  I’ve now set it at the max of 15 minutes.  Maybe this has worked some of the kinks out and the next storm will produce some good lightning opportunities.

Posted by Chad Dotson in Hobbies, Photography, Programming, Technology, 0 comments
26
Apr
2015

DSLR Lightning Trigger 3

DSC_0539

Finally Some Lightning … IT WORKS!

Tonight, I was finally able to deploy the prototype of my lightning trigger.  The storm wasn’t particularly photogenic, but it at least helped prove the concept.  Lightning was slim and no bolts were in the best area for my camera, but the camera did capture the image to the right.  Not very good I know, but if it will work for such a poor example of lightning, I think during a real storm it will perform splendidly.  My next steps are to research moving to a wired trigger (replacing an MC-DC2 ) instead of the IR LED, add a potentiometer to adjust the sensitivity in the field, and installing the circuit into a project box.

Lessons Learned / Observations

Perhaps this won’t be a problem during a storm with a lot of lightning, but one problem that I encountered was that the camera would exit the “Quick-response remote” release mode and return to my prior setting in the absence of regular input.  I guess this was due to the camera entering a suspended state.  I will have to see if I can modify this setting, if not I may attempt to keep the camera awake.

Other Posts in this series:

 

 

Posted by Chad Dotson in Arduino, Hobbies, Photography, Programming, Software Engineering, 1 comment