More Trip Preperation

You always want to think out carefully what you want to accomplish during a Total Solar Eclipse. Assuming the weather gods cooperate, there is simply not enough time or focus to do everything. Do you want to see Shadow Bands, Bailey's Beads, the Diamond Ring, nearby planets, the 360 degree sunset, watch the behaviors of nearby animals (and humans!), capture the flash spectrum, take wide angle or narrow angle deep images, take video, on and on? Simply put, don't try to do everything, or you will do nothing well.

One reason to travel with a group is to capture the group reaction on video. The growing excitement is often very dramatic. However, I caution that the video will record a lull in the crowd's reaction at mid eclipse during the longer eclipses. Here is a video I shot of the crowd during the 2006 Egypt eclipse. I trimmed large portions from the middle where people were quietly concentrating on their observations.

This video was shot using my point & shot camera which has a video mode and can record at 640 X 480 resolution. It is reproduced in the blog at a much smaller scale and color palette. Bring a small table top tripod and this is an easy weapon to add to your arsenal. However, it is only 640 X 480 and does not fill the screen for a public presentation. For that reason I purchased a AIPTEK HD video camera. This off brand costs maybe a quarter of what other HD video cameras cost, has most of the important features, weighs about a half pound, and can produce 1080p videos at 30 fps and 720p at 60 fps. It doesn't have the useful manual focus controls or shutter control, but I purchased it to provide some supplemental video of the trip and of eclipse day. Now I started thinking, maybe it has sufficient image scale to record the eclipse itself... The lens is not very wide, so the 5X zoom might provide a useful image scale. One has to try these things so...

As you can see, there is sufficient image scale for the eclipse, perhaps more than needed. Eclipses are very difficult to record on video. The cameras will try to autoadjust the exposure, brightness and contrast often washing out detail in the eclipse. If you fool with the exposure controls on more expensive cameras, you waste valuable observing time and produce a disjointed video as the image lightens and darkens. Also, watch out for autofocus on these cameras. The cameras often arbitrarily decided to go find focus again, throwing everything into a useless blur. This inexpensive HD camera has a autofocus lock. Once you like the focus, press the button and it will not attempt to find focus again.

I have not decided if I want to use it for the eclipse, or for the crowd. That will likely be an eclipse day decision when we get to see the local layout. Maybe I will hand hold it to record the 360 degree sunset. Local conditions will prevail.