Solar Eclipse, 20170821

Kudos to the editorial skills of one the club’s best photographers, John N., for drafting the following for the OLLI E-News:

“Photo Club Members Record Exciting Events

“Recently, members of the OLLI Photo Club clicked away to photograph the August 21 eclipse of the sun and showed their results at the August Photo Club meeting.

“George B. and Hillary R. traveled down to South Carolina to witness and record this amazing event. “I was in Anderson, SC, in the parking lot of my hotel with many other people,” said George who had cameras on tripods to record the event. “This was absolutely spectacular,” he said, and his pictures reveal the detail of the amazing event.

“Hillary and her family were in Lexington, SC. Just before, during and after totality, she pointed her camera and clicked away. Her picture of “the diamond ring” when the sun just begins to reappear is breath-taking. Here’s what she said about experiencing the eclipse:

“At 1:30 we put on our "sun" glasses and began watching the moon creep over the sun, slowly heading from east to west forming crescents as it crawled onwards. After 25 minutes, just as the moon approached the last curve, the sun flashed a bright orange "C", its final farewell. At the same time, on the eastern curve, a dazzling burst, a diamond ring, blazed with a rainbow prism, and lit up the sky. THEN IT HAPPENED! It was the longest two minutes and the shortest two minutes. The light switched off. And the world was navy blue. And it was still. And it was quiet. And it was cool. And it was soft. And we looked up.”

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What a wonderful description! Not only does Hillary keep a poet’s pen in her desk, she has shared with us a most expressive, rhythmic and focused story, perfectly matching the experience. Now, for adventurous souls, comes my mundane, chaotic and wordy blog… in the following PDF files:

Unexpurgated geeky version of blog:
https://1drv.ms/b/s!AqMo42Yo9nXygY0GeO4fDl-cHq6mwQ

Partially expurgated, somewhat non-geeky version of blog:
https://1drv.ms/b/s!AqMo42Yo9nXygY0FPNnfQzSS1J4sVw

Gallery of my eclipse photos:
https://diversions.smugmug.com/Galleries/Galleries-by-Subject/Astrophotography/Solar-Eclipse-20170821

Solar Funnel Imager

Preparing for the 2017 solar eclipse requires purchase of a few items: solar glasses, solar filters for all camera lenses, and, for the adventurous, a solar funnel imager.  A “funnel?”  Yes, a funnel, the kind that Home Depot carries.  If you already have a telescope, you might be able to build an imager large enough for a half dozen friends to view the partial eclipse phases at the same time.  You will also be able to see sunspots, at least the larger ones.

The gallery has a link to the NASA site containing instructions for building your own funnel imager.

Solar Funnel Imager Gallery – July 28, 2017: 

https://diversions.smugmug.com/Galleries/Galleries-by-Subject/Astrophotography/Astrophotograpy-Equipment/

International Space Station

ISS Gallery - June 10, 2017: https://diversions.smugmug.com/Galleries/Galleries-by-Subject/Spacecraft/International-Space-Station. 

Another local overflight of the International Space Station (ISS) gave me the opportunity to refine the exposure for the photoshoot following last year’s attempt.  The photos were taken handheld on a Canon 70D at 600mm (960mm equivalent) with a 1/800, f/7.1 exposure at ISO 1600.  I experimented a bit with exposure but quickly returned to the planned exposure.  

More important than the camera’s technical settings is a comfortable chair in which one can lie back with at least one elbow supported on an arm rest while panning the quickly moving station.  My chair was the low-slung collapsible kind one sees at lawn concerts. 

The other main trick of the trade includes focusing at infinity.  For this I arrived a half hour before the appointed appearance of the ISS, placed the camera on a tripod and focused upon Jupiter, making it as crisp as possible.  The image of Jupiter below is a 100% crop from the Lightroom loupe, zoomed to 11:1.  Obviously, I did not see this in the camera’s LCD panel, I only saw a small disk which I made as small as possible with the focusing ring.  To ensure that the zoom and focusing rings did not “drift” during the shoot, I taped them down with painter’s tape which does not leave an adhesive residue upon removal. 

The panning was done with Raw files – I did not follow my own guidelines, I should have used JPEGs to increase the camera’s burst rate.  Well... that’s life.  Between bursts I tried keeping the ISS in the viewfinder so I wouldn’t have to spend precious seconds re-aiming the camera.  When near the horizon, approaching or receding from the camera, the ISS image is faint, increasing the difficulty of aiming the camera.  After the shoot came post-production: selecting the best of 300 shots, cropping, resizing and arranging them in the gallery. 

The image below has been resized, eliminating the view of pixels as seen In the Jupiter image and smoothing the color gradation from pixel to pixel.  The original ISS image is about 40 pixels wide; for comparison, the image of Jupiter above is about 30 pixels across. 

Enjoy! 

…

Critiquing Photographs (Revised)

Revised 2018.01.22 to add link to Wikipedia article listing design elements.
Revised 2018.02.26 to add a view of the Three Step Method in context.

How does one evaluate photos submitted for the OPC’s monthly competitions?  Or how do we evaluate our own photos?  Well, a good start would be to follow the techniques of a trained photography judge.  Now most of us don’t have that training and experience, but by attending the 4th Friday discussions and reading the comments in the competition galleries, we can start absorbing the techniques demonstrated by some of the OPC’s luminaries. 

Their critiques often begin with identification of the photograph’s subject, and then move to a description of the photograph’s elements of design and principles of composition.  We all can practice their technique by (re)-familiarizing ourselves with the “vocabulary” of elements and principles of visual design.  Freeman Patterson is one of the first photographers to publish a description of these elements and principles.* 

So, to foster our understanding of visual design, I would like to suggest a Three Step Method** to approach photographic criticism. 

1. Impression.  Determine what the photo is about, that is, its subject and the impression the photo makes upon the viewer. 

2. Technique.  Identify the techniques of craft employed in the photo, that is, the elements and principles of visual design from Freeman Patterson, and their equivalent from other photographers.  Patterson’s basic elements of design are color and tone and his basic principle is dynamic simplicity.  See Photography Course, Vocabulary of Criticism for a list of the secondary concepts derived from these basic elements and principles.   

3. Assessment.  Assess whether the "techniques" support the "impression."  For example, if a photograph leaves the viewer with an impression of motion, identify what elements and principles convey that impression of motion.  Then determine whether other elements or principles might convey the impression differently, more perceptibly, more subtly, etc.   

This critiquing method doesn't consider the craft of camera usage, such as holding the camera steadily, achieving a useful exposure, setting an appropriate white balance, etc.  But the method does not preclude discussion of camera usage to improve the photographer’s visual design technique.

May I suggest we try out this method at our next 4th Friday meeting?  And…

... Have fun!


* Note that many photographers have devised their own elements as exemplified in Wikipedia (a handy, practical reference for all things photographic), but there is significant overlap with Patterson’s elements.  And I think his elements hold up well as the fundamental elements upon which to base principles and to establish assessment methods.  See Wikipedia’s article “Composition (visual arts)” for a listing of many elements of design. 

** See Photo Critiquing Approaches for a view of the Three Step Method in context.