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Not Your Typical Solar Eclipse Photography Tips
3.1k Plays7 months ago
The 2024 solar eclipse is coming up next week. While there are thousands of places on the internet to find out about the gear needed and settings to use, very few give you practical tips on shooting the eclipse. So, this week Blake and Matt team up to bring you some not-so-typical thoughts and tips on getting ready for the big day.
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Transcript
Welcome and Introduction
00:00:05
Speaker
Well, hi again, everybody. Welcome back to another frame of mind photography podcast, where we try to talk about your frame of mind and photography, change it, help it, solidify it, whatever happens around little topics in photography. This week I'm joined by my buddy, Blake Rudess. My name is Matt Klaskowski. How's it going, Blake? Great. How you doing, man? Good. Good. Um,
00:00:31
Speaker
for all the people out there, because people do find the podcast that we send it out to the people that follow us, but people do find it. So Blake and I are photo educators in this crazy photography space. Blake's over at f64academy.com.
00:00:51
Speaker
You can find me over at mattk.com.
Eclipse Excitement and Plans
00:00:54
Speaker
This time around, we're going to talk about the eclipse coming up in a week from now. Blake, you're actually flying somewhere to go shoot it, aren't you? Driving. Yep. Driving eight hours south down to Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas. That's dedication. Yeah. Well, you know, it was in my hometown last time and we had rain.
00:01:16
Speaker
So I'm hoping I don't drive all the way down to Arkansas and get rain in the Midwest, but you know, it's the Midwest. Whatever happens happens. When was the last one? Was it 2017? Yep. August. Gosh, man. I can't believe that was almost seven years ago. I know. It feels like it was like three years ago. I can remember exactly where I was. I was sitting on a beach with my family. Like I know exactly where I was. Crazy.
00:01:43
Speaker
So part of part of what we're doing this and I don't ever have any written versions of my podcasts, but I was I was writing a blog post called just you know tips and tricks for
00:01:59
Speaker
for the eclipse. And I was taking a very different approach to it because there are thousands of videos and articles that will tell you about the gear and about the settings and about all these things. In fact, Blake and I were just talking about a mutual friend of ours, Hudson Henry. So you can find him, I believe it's probably Hudson Henry dot com Hudson, as in Hudson River, Hudson Henry. It's not Henry Hudson, by the way.
Personal Eclipse Experiences
00:02:26
Speaker
Hudson Henry. He did something recently on it, and he's just an overall great guy, great source of information. You know, anything he does is going to be very, very complete. So if you want a very complete guide on the technicals of it, he's a great person to go to, but we're going to talk mostly about the non-technicals, which still involves some technical stuff. But to me, this is the stuff that nobody tells anybody.
00:02:53
Speaker
So I, and what, you know, what spurred this on is I was looking through, I had an old Dropbox folder. So after the 2017 eclipse, I did a thing on editing where I was editing some of the photos showing what to do. And I happened to go back and look through that folder and it reminded me of, of all of the non-technical things that I saw that kind of, I thought could maybe be approved upon. So that's what, that's what kind of got me to talk a little bit about this.
00:03:23
Speaker
I still remember you talking about that, too. Way back. Gosh, man, now it seems forever ago. I know I can't. It just blows my mind that that was only almost only seven years ago, or already seven years ago. Like, I remember texting you. And you were telling me you were taking pictures of the weather and sending it to me. Mm hmm.
00:03:44
Speaker
Yeah, I ended up just, just hanging out with my wife and just enjoying the darkness and how it just went almost complete black and all the crickets started coming out.
00:03:54
Speaker
but I couldn't shoot anything. So it was actually, I think it was a little bit more magical for me just cause I got to hang out with my wife in this really surreal type of place. But this time I'm on a mission. No one's going with me except for me. So I was in Florida and I will be in Florida again this time, but I mean, I didn't even, I didn't even shoot it, but we were sitting on the beach. So it's still, still pretty bright out. You could tell when it was happening, but, um, it was still, uh, it was still pretty bright outside cause we're not in that,
00:04:23
Speaker
Half of destruction or whatever the official terms are called, which I know none of. Well, it's funny you say that. I was going to wear my shirt, but it's in the wash today. I just got this shirt in yesterday, and I'm going to wear it on the eclipse day. It's so nerdy. It's great. It says lunar eclipse, and it's got a little like glyph of what a lunar eclipse looks like with the sun, the earth, and the moon. And then it says solar eclipse, and it shows what that looks like. And then it says apocalypse, and it's got the earth, the sun, and the middle, and then the moon.
00:04:55
Speaker
That's my required uniform for the day.
Essential Eclipse Photography Tips
00:05:01
Speaker
All right. Well, so let's kick it off with some tips for you here. Of course, this goes without saying, but I have to say it because somebody's going to write in and say we were irresponsible by not saying it.
00:05:17
Speaker
This goes without saying of course protect your eyes first and foremost Next figure out what you need to protect your camera gear as well filters and all that fun stuff so lots of lots of information on the internet on what to do with that, but Thought we'd start there I'll just kick it off. I'll kick it off with one on practice
00:05:40
Speaker
So obviously, if you didn't shoot the last one, or even if you did shoot the last one, I think there needs to be some degree of practice, whether it's putting those filters on, photographing the sun, getting a feel for the settings, putting yourself under pressure, get a feel for how fast something moves. I'm sure you can figure out how long the eclipse lasts. I don't know.
00:06:10
Speaker
you can get a stopwatch and time yourself for that amount of time.
00:06:16
Speaker
but let's say it's two minutes, if you failed in that two minutes, then guess what's gonna happen next week? You're gonna fail next week too. So I would just say find some way to practice. You can practice with your filters, you can practice with the sun, you can practice with some settings, and it won't be the exact situation that you're gonna be in, but this I will promise you, if you are not a very advanced and skilled photographer,
00:06:43
Speaker
that has photographed these types of things before. I can promise you this, if you don't practice it, you're dead in the water before you start it. You'll hear me refer to this quite a bit. But after the last eclipse, I did an editing session on it. And what I did is I had people submit photos to a Dropbox folder. So I had over, it was like 860 photos that got submitted. And I can tell you,
00:07:13
Speaker
at least half of them are unusable. There was no editing that could be done with them because most of the time it's overexposure. It's either overexposure or blurriness, but you're dead in the water if you're not practicing this stuff. Sadly, I had hundreds of people send me photos that were just unusable for this stuff. We don't want that to be used, so make sure there's an element of practice in
00:07:42
Speaker
I'd agree with that 100%. Actually, I've been practicing because I got these new filters, the case filters, the magnetic ones. I've been practicing with those and taking out the 16 stop filter that's designed for this stuff and experimenting with that. This, and even having a round table with some of my F64 Elite members,
00:08:01
Speaker
I learned a lot of stuff cause a lot of them gave me some really great tips last week. And one of them said pretty much 250 millimeters to 300 millimeters is about where you're going to want to be pegged for that. So that when you get the Corona, you don't cut the Corona off. You know, it's one thing to practice when you're zoomed in on the sun, but if you take a 600 millimeter lens out there to zoom in on the sun versus what you're actually going to be shooting with, that's something to consider because the speed and movement of the sun. I think a lot of times we, we lose sight of just how fast it moves. Um,
00:08:30
Speaker
Another subscriber told me that the sun moves its entire distance within two minutes. So from one side to its other side, it will move every two minutes, which is really helpful because as Matt's saying, if the totality itself is going to last two minutes, then you want to make sure you're prepared for that movement and what that's going to be like. So don't, I would not go into this without practice. Sounds silly to practice photographing the sun.
00:08:53
Speaker
It's one of those things that if you've never photographed the sun before, you're going to be pretty upset with yourself when you get out there and your photos are unusable in the raw form. Same thing with the moon. People like to do moon shots.
00:09:05
Speaker
can pretty much tell you most people's first experience out photographing moon and the stars or something like that is a failure. But that's how you learn. You got to screw things up and get out there. And you realize, like you said, you don't realize how fast it actually does move. And so that's where you need to dial in those settings there. And even realizing what you're photographing. When I tell people when they're photographing the moon to make your moon shots better,
00:09:35
Speaker
You have to understand that you're photographing a reflected light from the sun, but it is a light source. We often don't photograph light sources. We often photograph what the light represents when it hits whatever object and how it reflects that light.
00:09:52
Speaker
You're actually photographing the most mega light source you're ever going to see in our universe. This is the light source. Take that into consideration because if you don't know your camera settings when you're photographing something that bright, it will show. Yeah. It's the one time
00:10:16
Speaker
It's the one time where you teach a lot of landscape photography as well. And one of the things I always tell people is I see a lot of very underexposed photos that include the sun in it. And people are trying to recover detail in the sun. I was trying to tell people the sun's white. The sun should be white in your photos, unless you're photographing it very close to the horizon line.
00:10:40
Speaker
the sun up in the sky is white, and so it should be white. Where in this case, a little bit different. You don't necessarily, you don't want white, white.
00:10:51
Speaker
In fact, I'll tilt the hand to another tip, which is just exposure settings. I think by and large, under exposure is preferred here, where in a lot of photography, you always hear ETTR, exposed to the right. And that's a very common photography methodology of you're going to expose to the right of the histogram, which is the bright stuff. So as you look at it,
00:11:19
Speaker
Sometimes we'll tend to even expose something a little bit brighter than what we would normally see it as. And that's just for various reasons. I'll let people look that up if they want to look it up. But this is not one of those cases where you want to expose to the right.
00:11:33
Speaker
You're exposed to the right and in the blog post that I wrote, you can go to mattk.com and click on blog and you'll see my tips in more written form with some visuals on there. But in that blog post, I share some photos. If it's flarey and if it's white, you're done. There's nothing you can do with overexposed. So underexposed, very, very workable when it comes to an eclipse photo, overexposed, done.
00:12:03
Speaker
Yeah, I've got a new acronym for it. It's E-S-T-T-L-O-T-R. Explode slightly to the left of the right. Did you have to write that down so you could like see the whole thing? I did. For those of you watching on the website, you can see the visual version of this, which is not advisable to watch in any way, but... Oh, man. What do you got?
00:12:35
Speaker
after that one, I think I can just close the book. And walk up mic drop. Yeah, I think moving down the line here just, you know, talking about focus, you know, and focus is an interesting thing here. It's you're focusing again on the source of the light. And what is it that you're trying to focus on? It can be hard to focus on the actual sun itself. Actually, what you kind of want your focus to be on is
00:13:03
Speaker
the little outline that's going to hit where you start to see the craters of the moon. And that happens when you start to get into the totality and get the beads.
Technical Skills and Post-Processing
00:13:13
Speaker
There's a certain name for the beads. I just lost the name.
00:13:16
Speaker
Bailey's beads. Those Bailey's beads are actually coming from where the sun is kind of creeping out through the individual craters on the side of the moon. So you're going to want to make sure that when you're focused, you're focused on the correct thing. For the most part, you're probably going to get this close to infinity and then lock it in, especially if you're just shooting on one lens, it's going to be a long lens. And once you get that right, you have the whole basically the whole partial
00:13:43
Speaker
eclipse to get that right because I would say for most people use the partial eclipse where there's first contact where the moon just barely touches the side of the sun and then into second contact and then third and fourth contact where it's moving out on the other side.
00:14:01
Speaker
But the whole partial eclipse, you have the opportunity to be making sure that your focus is dialed in on, I would say, the moon in that case, and not necessarily the sun. Because that's what's going to create a lot of your textural differences of, let's really be real here. We're photographing one ball in front of another ball. Which ball is of utmost importance?
00:14:26
Speaker
I think for that case, the the chronal flare, all that stuff will happen behind the moon. All right, so you get to make that judgment as to where your focus is going to be. And I wouldn't want your focus to be on, you know, autofocus. That's something I would dial in. So for me, what I'm going to do is I'm going to use all the things in my camera that helped me. Number one,
00:14:47
Speaker
the blinkies, the blinkies to make sure that I'm not shooting too far to the right so that things aren't overexposed. That's going to help me with overexposure. I'm going to use the exposure or the focus peaking to make sure that I am focused exactly where I should be on that moon, on the edge of the moon. And then I'm also going to use the zebras. I guess the same thing as the blinkies to make sure I'm not overexposed. So those are the things in my camera itself
00:15:17
Speaker
that are more technical that I'm gonna use to make sure that I can nail this shot, if I can see it. We're gonna take a very quick break from our podcast for a 30-second word from our sponsor, which is always me. I'd like to invite you to check out my Photoshop system course. Make this the year that you finally learn Photoshop. Photoshop can be a great tool, especially to somebody doing all their work in their raw editor, because there's certain things you just can't do.
00:15:43
Speaker
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00:16:10
Speaker
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00:16:37
Speaker
And one of the things that Blake just mentioned was the zebras. So that's I believe only in Sony cameras. But was it? Yeah, unfortunately, it's it'll have to make its way. I have to assume making its way into Nikon and Canon. They have to be working on it. But it's essentially these little think of zebra stripes. They're just black and white stripes. And what they do, the blinkies are great.
00:17:03
Speaker
When we talk about blinkies, we're talking about your overexposure warnings. Don't look up blinkies in your camera manual. Look up highlight warning or exposure warning of some sort. Highlight warning is probably what it's called. But highlight warning is great or aka the blinkies. The problem is they won't alert you to a problem until after you've taken the photo.
00:17:30
Speaker
So which it's usually good enough, you know, unless it's like a wild lay for a sports situation where something's moving and after you took the photo, it's already done. But they'll alert you after you took the photo of something's overexposed. Blinky or zebra stripes will actually overlay over the overexposed areas while you're shooting. So it's it's.
00:17:54
Speaker
It's a wonderful feature. I can't wait till it makes its way into all the cameras there because it's such a good feature. All right, what do we got here? All right, so I'm going to go into one. So I'll say this. If you photographed the eclipse back in 2017 and you were not successful, and I don't mean not successful because of weather or whatever,
00:18:23
Speaker
Blake, if you were, but if you had a really good date afternoon with your wife. If you were not successful, now's the time to figure out why you weren't successful. So go uncover those photos from 2017 and figure out what you did wrong. What weren't you happy with?
00:18:49
Speaker
that you can then pivot and change this time.
Creative and Technical Balance
00:18:54
Speaker
So don't wait until that day, figure this out now. What weren't you happy with? And I'll run through some things that people sent me that I just saw some of the biggest culprits again, because I feel like I had a really good sample size of 800 plus photos. So I got to see a lot.
00:19:16
Speaker
They didn't shoot in JPEG, or don't shoot in JPEG. People that shot in JPEG were usually very, very unhappy. You're going to need as much editing leeway, especially in the bright and dark areas. Exposure bracketing can be your friends. Blake, once I run through these, I'd be interested. In fact, well, no. Did you bracket too?
00:19:37
Speaker
No. Well, I didn't really have an opportunity. I mean, we when we showed up, we went to this little farm area that had like a big party with all this food is great. It was a good time had live music and everything. And we had our own little spot on this farm. And as soon as we got into partial eclipse, that was the only thing I saw. I have a really cool shot of it because there's all these clouds all over it. But
00:19:58
Speaker
As soon as that happened, the clouds just socked in, and then it was just rain. So, I mean, I literally have nothing from that event. Maybe 10 pictures from that event. It sounds like it all happened right at the worst time, too. Oh, it did. It happened right as... If the event would have happened in the morning, we would have been fine. I would have photographed the whole thing.
00:20:23
Speaker
but didn't happen till the afternoon. And at that point we were just, you know, it is what it is. But I don't know. I mean, I might exposure bracket. We'll see. I'll see what it's like when I get on there. I think a lot of times like I can hypothetically speak about a lot of the things that I'm going to do, even with my focusing settings. But as soon as I get there and I start working the scene, a lot of things change. And that's where I think a lot of what I'm going to do is going to change. It wouldn't be a bad idea to bracket just so
00:20:53
Speaker
I make sure that I get, especially during the Corona, you know, getting, making sure that that Corona is perfect. That's what I'm concerned with. I honestly, I really don't care too much for like all of the different phases of the eclipse. Um, I'm not, I don't think I'm at this point. I don't think I'm ready or even willing or care to do like a whole composite of everything happening. Um, but my artistic vision might change when I get there and I might say, Oh, I really have to composite this depending on where I am.
00:21:20
Speaker
I don't know. But when it comes to bracketing, we'll see. I mean, a lot of things are going to happen when I get there. And, you know, I could tell you the settings I'm going to use. I think that's why we're making this more about concepts and not actual technical because we can try to give you settings all day long. But when you get out on the scene, that's when that's when things happen. So I'm going to prepare for it. If I do find that I might need bracketing, I probably will do that during the coronal effect, though, just because I want to make sure that I get those really nice, tight
00:21:49
Speaker
wispy lions coming out from. To me, that's the most important thing. And the Bailey's beads. So if I get the beads and I get the Corona, that's all I'm really shooting for. The rest of it, I'm going to use this practice. Yeah. I would say bracketing can help. Um, I, you know, I saw a lot of people that did like nine brackets and seven brackets. I would say less is more, you know, three separated by two or three stops should give you plenty, but don't, don't overdo it. But I saw that quite a bit.
00:22:18
Speaker
You kind of already mentioned focus, but nail the focus. Again, there's certain things that are non-negotiable. This is non-negotiable no matter how good of a photo you take. If it's blurry, you're done. You can't sharpen it. Overexposed, talked about that. I mean, it's the kiss of death, so don't overexpose it.
00:22:43
Speaker
I saw some people, so this is an interesting one, because there are reasons to use wider lenses if you're trying to get some of the environment, but some people sent in photos of way too wide that weren't getting any of the environment. And you're just not gonna have the crop ability to get the detail that you want. ISO was too high. There's no reason your ISO should be at 12,800.
00:23:10
Speaker
Um, so, so I saw way, way too many photos that were ruined by, by my guests. I don't know if they had auto ISO on. I don't, I don't know what they had on. They probably had somebody on location telling them, oh, your ISO is too low. Yeah, I don't know. But I mean, I saw a lot of photos that were just ruined noise reductions. Not gonna, not gonna handle that. So, um,
00:23:37
Speaker
You know, ISO 400, 800, 1600 even, but I don't, I haven't read a guide on photographing the eclipse that says ISO 12,000 is necessary. So again, that goes back to practice. And then the last one is if you're shooting for a composite, you need to be locked down from the first photo.
00:24:01
Speaker
Okay, and I think Blake you maybe did you touch on this before anyway, but if you're going to shoot for any type of compositing, where you're going to try to put multiple frames together, you need to be locked down if you're going to shoot environmentally where you're going to do one of those composites where you've got some foreground and then you've got the sky and you're going to put a composite of it going across the sky, which are very, very cool, I think.
00:24:25
Speaker
Again, you need to be locked. When I say locked down, I mean on your tripod, not moved from that first time. So one of the biggest things I saw in those 800 photos was people shooting for the composite. But number one, they're moving their camera around, which to a degree you might have to. It's going to be tough to judge the angle and not move your camera. But the other thing was.
00:24:49
Speaker
was they were zooming in and out and that's going to wreak havoc when it comes to trying to put that composite together. Yeah, I can agree with that. And that kind of goes along with the wide lens and long lens.
00:25:03
Speaker
This is a new strategy that I've had recently where I know it's kind of like a first world problem, I guess, if you want to call it that. But I find that if I'm on location in landscape and I'm shooting wide, I will struggle to take my wide angle lens off to shoot long. In this case, you're probably not going to struggle to do that. But what I found that's easier for me is to take two camera bodies and two tripods. So I carry a lightweight travel tripod for my my backup camera.
00:25:33
Speaker
My backup camera usually has the long lens on it and my Sony A1 usually has the wide angle lens on it. And I'll just put the cameras directly side by side. So one of them shooting wide, one of them shooting long. And that way I can control both cameras.
00:25:49
Speaker
So for this instance, it's not going to be any different. I'm going to have two sets of filters. I'm going to have two different cameras, two different tripods. They're going to be right next to each other. I'm going to be managing one for the tight shot and one for the wide shot. And that's if the wide shot that if I can put something in front of it, if I have what I'm
00:26:09
Speaker
thinking is expected to be in front of me, I might not shoot
Creative Approaches to Eclipse Photography
00:26:12
Speaker
wide at all. And that's, you know, 10,000 people in front of my lens. I don't know if I want 10,000 people in front of it. Maybe I do. Maybe it'll be cool. I don't know. The archival shot for the next time. You know what they say, Blake. Go wide or go home. I know. I was just talking about this in my group last week. I once said that to Matt. Can you tell the side story?
00:26:35
Speaker
Yeah, go ahead, go ahead. Blake and I were out photographing in Zion like four or five years ago and we're both in the same location and I've got like a 100 to 400 on photographing way off in the distance and Blake's got like a six millimeter lens on photographing the tip of his hat.
00:27:00
Speaker
And I said something, he's like, dude, what are you doing with that? I'm like, I like kind of like some of the detailed long shots. He's like, no, man, go, you know what they say, go wide or go home. And I'm like, I don't think anybody says that, Blake. Oh, that was the butt of the whole week, the whole week. You know, I really don't think anybody says who in their right mind would say that. I'm like, Matt, come on, give it up.
00:27:25
Speaker
Go wide or go home. And honestly, I think that was 2017 also to make it feel like a lot long ago. That was seven years ago. That was in 2017. Really? Yeah. It might've been 2018, but it wasn't. You're old. I know. I could go back and I could look at my... I'm looking at my Zion photos.
00:27:52
Speaker
I think you touched on something too while you look at that. One of the things that we touched on was putting something in front of it. I think treat this like you would treat anything else. Treat this like you would treat a sunset. Treat this like you would treat the Milky Way, especially for the fact that this is only going to happen, I don't know. I don't know when it's going to happen again, another 50 years or something that when it crosses over the US. Apparently, they happen all the time. They just don't happen all the time over the US. It's one of those things where
00:28:21
Speaker
you might not be prone to seeing this for a while. So put something else in front of it, you know, be inclined to really make a composition out of this that you're really going to enjoy. If you have the ability to do so, you know, put something of interest in front of it. But as we said, with caution, if you do plan on doing the composite stuff, it's gonna be hard for you to do that with, you know, bouncing back and forth between lenses. The the actual totality, I believe is two minutes and 40 seconds where I am. So, I mean,
00:28:50
Speaker
You get one Corona shot and then you do a couple of compositions and then you're done. Or if you have the two camera bodies, you can be doing several shots of the Corona, several shots of your location set up. So I mean, they don't have to be, you know, your most amazing cameras in the world and you have to run out and buy a camera for this. But even if it's your cell phone that you use the, as your documentary scene shot versus your long shot that you're doing with your, your camera.
00:29:16
Speaker
I think you touched on a good topic there, which is the creative.
00:29:26
Speaker
Because by and large, this is a very, very technical process. Blake and I are typically very creative teachers. It's not that we don't use the technical to get there, but I think both of us would rely on creative, or at least I know I would rely on creative over tech any day. I don't teach tech, even though it's a techie field.
00:29:55
Speaker
So it's a very technical photo. Very, very seldomly could we sit here and say, I know what your photo is going to look like before you've ever even taken it. Like I know that day on social media and the next day on social media and everybody's web galleries and Instagram, I know exactly what the photos are going to look like before you ever even took it. So it's not a very creative process.
00:30:19
Speaker
What I would say is if you already took one in 2017 and you did the tight shot with the glow and whatever it's called, what's it called? Yeah, full totality. What's all the wispy stuff called? The krona. See, I'm so glad I had you on this because I'm illiterate when it comes to this stuff. If you've already done that,
00:30:46
Speaker
I don't see a huge value unless you just enjoy the challenge of going out and doing it again, which is totally okay, trust me. I play golf. To say I do something just for the challenge of it is just perfectly okay, I get it. But unless you just enjoy the challenge of going out and taking the same exact photo, you're not going to improve, unless again, you did something wrong back then. So if you've already did it, you've already nailed it,
00:31:15
Speaker
I would love to see you try to frame some of the environment in with the photo. And to me, those are the only non-boring photos.
00:31:26
Speaker
I'd say out of the 860 that's submitted, I'd say maybe 20 people actually included the environment in it. But you got to have a good environment too, so it can't just be a Walmart parking lot. It's got to be a nice environment, nice trees, nice house, nice mountain, nice
00:31:46
Speaker
whatever it is, playing, I don't know, there's hundreds of things, but... I just had this vision of somebody's head getting in the way, like an eclipse eclipsing the eclipse. I just couldn't stop laughing, sorry.
00:32:06
Speaker
But I would say try to do something like that, if at all possible, if you've already nailed it, if you've already done, if you haven't, I think it's a photo collector's shot. People collect stamps, people collect coins, people collect all kinds of things. Go collect your photo of the eclipse by all means. But if you've already done it, I would seriously try to find a different creative way to photograph it.
00:32:31
Speaker
That's exactly what I'm going for. I like to collect shots. I like to say I did that, I have that, and I'm doing that with this. But I also like to go to national parks and especially go to places that people haven't necessarily gone to. That's why I'm using this as an excuse to drive down to Hot Springs National Park, which I didn't even know was a national park.
00:32:48
Speaker
Um, so I'm interested to see the area. So I'm making a whole week of it. You know, I'm not just shooting the eclipse. I'm also going to shoot the area around it and see what hot Springs, Arkansas has for landscape photography possibilities. You don't see a lot of really high level pro landscape images coming out of that spot, but that doesn't necessarily mean that there are no spots to shoot there because you know, as well as I do, if you've got a creative vision, you can make anything a great shot. So that's one of the things that I'm looking forward to this as, as
00:33:18
Speaker
the excitement towards it. I think that that also has something to do with the fact that, okay, well, let's say you don't get the shot because weather does come in. Let's think about how your disposition is going to be. You know, you're going to be upset and pissed off and frustrated at the world that you didn't get it. Or can you look at that and say, well, maybe there's something else here I can shoot.
00:33:37
Speaker
like I did on 2017 with my wife. I mean, not only did we go out to shoot the eclipse, but I also spent like 80 bucks ahead on these like primo awesome live music and food at this great location. I could have been upset that I didn't get the shot, or I could enjoy the fact that I got to spend an afternoon with my wife in an environment I never would have seen before. And that's the other things you need to think about during an eclipse.
Mindset and Planning for Eclipse Photography
00:34:03
Speaker
When it got dark, especially where we were, all the nocturnal animals and all the nocturnal creatures start to turn on, which is really quite interesting because the crickets started going. As soon as it went into totality, crickets, grasshoppers just chirping everywhere. And as soon as totality was over, they stopped. It's almost like everything that happens at night thought it was night on our planet. And that is something truly unique that,
00:34:30
Speaker
You got to experience that. So, you know, put down the camera. Don't put it down. Just take your face away from it. Enjoy the sights and the scenes around you. There's also interesting shadows that happen around you when trees cast their shadow onto the ground.
00:34:44
Speaker
which might be really interesting shots. The shape of it? Yeah, the shapes of things that happen on the ground. It's really the crowns and stuff that appear everywhere. It's really unique. So, you know, think outside the box. If the box is going to close you in, think outside of it a little bit and say, what can I do with this? If it doesn't go the way I planned, how can I make this something worthy of a plan? And that's really what it comes down to with all landscape photography. But when you're trying to shoot an event like this, I think
00:35:10
Speaker
Your disposition's really high, your expectations are really high. I'm already looking at the weather report and it says it might be cloudy and rainy in hot Springs, Arkansas. So do I say I don't go because of that? No, I got four days planned there. That's why I did that.
00:35:25
Speaker
Luckily, I was able to get a hotel, but I scheduled it nine, 10 months ago, something like that. So, you know, just make the best of it if it doesn't end up being the best condition to shoot it in. I'm actually hoping for a little bit of cloudiness. I want some texture around the sun, to be honest with you. Yeah. Those photos looked cool. A lot of people sent those in. Yeah. A lot of people sent like partly cloudy photos in and they were pretty neat. I enjoyed.
00:35:49
Speaker
That was something I enjoyed looking at it got it got it got monotonous to see the same shot 830 times over again. So anything any any break in that actually was like, Oh, wow, that's pretty neat. Yeah. Probably stressful. I'm sure it's stressful to whoever photographing it because you're never sure if that big cloud is going to come in at the wrong time. But what day is it? What day is the eclipse? Monday, the eighth. What time?
00:36:18
Speaker
For me, it's gonna be at like 2 45 p.m. I think two four between 240 and 245 that's totality So the whole event will happen before then so
00:36:26
Speaker
I'm driving out there on Sunday. I'm going to try and scout a little bit if I can. I know that Hot Springs is expecting like a hundred thousand people and they only really have capacity for like 40. So it's going to be interesting. But I was watching the news like bring water, bring, bring water, bring food. Like some of these small towns are not equipped to handle the crowds that are coming their way. I'm bringing the Jeep too. So I'll be able to run over anything I need to.
00:36:55
Speaker
So I don't play golf on Mondays, but I might actually like go out and play golf and do something different during the eclipse to see what it's like out there. Well, you have to also look to see what you're to get a hole in one on at the eclipse, like during the thing. I don't even know what it'll be in Florida, though, because I know here in Missouri and we aren't that far off the line. It's going to be 80 percent in Missouri, 88 percent in Missouri, I think. So you have to see what percentage it's going to be.
00:37:23
Speaker
Uh, for you, if you're not going to be in full totality, I started typing into Google how much of the eclipse will, and it completed with will Florida see. Yeah. It knows where you live. Let's see. Moon will block anywhere from 54% to 82%. So, okay. So not bad. I mean, yes, it is 54 closer to our 82 closer to the panhandle 54 probably down near Miami and that way. Yeah.
00:37:54
Speaker
It's kind of neat. I'm gonna have to, I'll have to find something new to do for it. Take a cell phone picture of it and then put it up on your blog. I ran through all my tips, Blake. You got any parting thoughts for everybody? I think that's about it. I mean, without getting too technical, I think that that's the biggest part. I think disposition is going to be the most important. I want to talk about artistic vision a lot.
00:38:24
Speaker
Um, I always make sure I tell people about this position, what you're feeling, because depending on your attitude, that's going to be the product that you get. So if this goes perfect and the plan went according to plan, you're going to be elated. But if it doesn't, and it doesn't go to according to plan, you're going to be pissed off. And if you are, it's going to show in your images or lack thereof. So I would say, you know, go into it. Like I go into it with everything have a best case scenario.
00:38:54
Speaker
a worst case scenario and an average case scenario and be prepared for all of them. And that's pretty much what I'm doing. And that's why I'm not too worried if I get it or if I don't get it. If I don't get it, great. I'm just gonna have a, there'll be a lot less people in hot springs. That's the positive.
00:39:10
Speaker
I don't think I can stress enough practice. Just try to practice it, know what your settings are going to be, know what you're going to do before you go out there and do it and make sure it is not the first time you have pointed your camera up at the sky with those settings. And yeah, it's really kind of difficult. Don't, you know, depending on the type of, if you have a mirrorless camera, you can pretty much just put the filter on and look at it through your viewfinder. But, you know, if you have a DSLR,
00:39:40
Speaker
Be careful with that. Use your glasses so you don't burn your eyeballs. But other than that, that's really the practice is going to be key for sure. And knowing the movement of the sun. I'd say with that practice, knowing how the sun moves and what you're going to be prepared for to do. But you're right on point. And that's something that you could practice today, that knowing the time that the eclipse is going to happen, you'll have a general idea for how that sun is going to move through your
Blake's Work and Conclusion
00:40:06
Speaker
frame. So if you are going to do a composite,
00:40:09
Speaker
this would be this week would be a great time to go out there and do put your filters on put your glasses on do everything and and get a feel for the focal lengths that you're going to shoot it at and how much camera movement you'll have to do through it but it's actually raining today so it'd be great practice for if you have clouds yeah all right man we're uh where can we find out more
00:40:37
Speaker
about Blake and his infamous go wide or go home setting our sayings. I'm getting better about that, Matt. You taught me right. I know. Have we talked about this? Although I am taking my nine millimeter lens with me. It is a little bit wider than the one I was using when we were in Zion. The sun will be like the dimple of a basketball, that nine millimeter lens, won't it? No, I'm going to. There's a church out there.
00:41:05
Speaker
that is all made of wood and glass. And it's really architecturally awesome. So that's what I'm gonna shoot that nine millimeter with. But you can find me at f64academy.com. That's traditionally the best place to do that. And there'll be a pop-up that'll come up on my email list. And that's probably the best way to get ahold of me, because if you email me, I'm gonna email you back. And yeah, we can start whatever you need to start from there, so.
00:41:28
Speaker
Sounds good. You can find me over at mattk.com. It's all my courses and presets and all that fun stuff. And of course, Blake and I all have the usual social media stuff. So that's always a good place too. So Blake, thanks again for this. I kind of threw this at you last minute. I was writing my posts and I'm like, man, this would be great to just talk about too. Yeah. Because I feel like we can both talk about things differently than we write them.
00:41:55
Speaker
I literally texted Blake like two hours ago and said, hey, let's do a podcast on the eclipse. I was making my leftover Easter dinner lunch and was like, okay, sounds like a good idea. All right, man. Well, thanks again. Appreciate for having everybody else. Thank you for, uh, for watching and we'll see you again.