Creme de la Creme | Show Me Nature Photography

Today’s post features that sweet little nougat found in the center of fine chocolates … in this case, the main feature of the Total Solar Eclipse … the awe-inspiring view of the sun’s corona, normally seen only during complete totality!

The image below is a single image, captured using a very long exposure of the brilliant light of the sun’s corona as it peaks out from the moon-covered sun:

Using such a long exposure, I was also able to capture “EarthShine”, the part of the moon that is unlit by the sun but slightly glowing/visible because it catches some sunlight reflected by the earth, during totality.

When I photographed the eclipse, I took “tons” of images of totality, widely varying the exposure. This was done so that I could work on compositing individual images of the sun’s corona, including the inner corona (near the sun’s surface), the middle corona (just outside the inner corona), and the far-reaching outer corona, with it’s many “streamers”. I am currently working on compositing some of these images, so that more detail in the corona’s structure can be seen. If I am successful in this, I will show those images in a future post.

Photographic Equipment Used:

• Canon 5D Mark 3 camera body
• Canon 500mm, f/4 IS lens
• Bogen 3021 tripod and Wemberly gimbal head
• ISO 400
• Aperture f/8
• Shutter 1/8 sec.
• Image processed in Adobe Lightroom Classic, and Adobe Photoshop 2024