My eclipse photography began in earnest at dawn in a plowed-over field in Weiser, Idaho, rented out to tourists at $30 per car. Most of us who arrived overnight to beat the traffic napped through the chilly morning hours.
The "diamond ring," with a little bit of the sun and combined with its blazing corona, is a tough photo to get because you have to capture a fleeting moment.
I traveled to Weiser, Idaho, to see the 2017 eclipse. My favorite part, unsurprisingly: totality, when the sun's corona streams off into space. It's easily visible with the naked eye and a sight to behold.
These "prominences" on the sun's surface surprised me: I can photograph this with ordinary camera equipment? Yes, as long as there's a total eclipse to make it easier.
The eclipse photography setup of CNET reporter Stephen Shankland: Canon 7D Mark II, 100-400mm lens with 1.4x telephoto adapter, Gitzo tripod, Wimberly tripod head, Baader AstroSolar filter.
Sunlight coming through the trees takes on the crescent shape of the sun. A curiosity: as the sun gets smaller and becomes more like a point source of light than a bigger circular blob, the sharpness of these images increases.
One surprise of the eclipse, here shown after totality, is that the edge of the sun blocked by the moon is sharper than the edge of the sun against the darkness of space. The irregular contours of the moon are visible in silhouette.
In a futile effort to beat a little bit of the traffic headed south from Idaho, we left before the partial eclipse ended. My son watched the last part from the car window. Everybody else had the same idea about beating traffic. We even encountered a traffic jam nearly 12 hours later and far to the south as we drove back to the San Francisco Bay Area.
