Missing The Money Shot —  2023 “Ring of Fire” Solar Eclipse

About a month ago, I saw an article in the San Antonio newspaper heralding two upcoming solar eclipses.  The first will be an annular solar eclipse (known as a “ring of fire” eclipse) and was to take place on Saturday, October 14.  The second will happen in April of 2024, and will be the biggest celestial show of them all, a total solar eclipse. Although the two eclipses will take place several months months apart, their paths are projected to intersect near Vanderpool, Texas.  People knowledgeable about the rarity of such events have nicknamed them the “Texas Nexus.”  The article went on to state that the last time the San Antonio area experienced a “ring of fire” eclipse was in 1940, and the next annular eclipse won’t happen in the contiguous United States until 2046.  I quickly decided that I wanted to try to photograph these rare events and set out to research how to accomplish this feat.  My research revealed that I would be able to witness the August eclipse from my home in McQueeney, and that it would start about 10:20 a.m. that Saturday morning and end about 1:30 p.m., with the “ring of fire” being visible for about a minute and a half around noon on that day.  I also learned that I would need a solar filter for my camera, and solar glasses.

So, by the time the big event rolled around, I had gathered the items I needed and researched the techniques and settings I would be using on my D500 Nikon camera.  Basically, I would use my 500mm prime lens, outfitted with a NISI solar filter and mounted on my tripod.  I would shoot on manual mode, and manually focus on the sun.  Once I got the best focus possible, I would use a piece of masking tape to lock the focus ring in place.  I decided to start out at a shutter speed of 1000, ISO of 200, and an aperture of 6.3.  The big day arrived, and I set up my camera and tripod in the vacant lot across the street from our house, where I would have an unobstructed view of the event and could hopefull get some decent photographs. 

Once I was set up, I bgan by focusing my camera on the sun.  I had the solar filter on the lens, and I put the camera in live view.  Once I got the sun in the center of the  screen of my camera (on live view), I focused by adjusting the focus ring on the lens several times, each time checking my focus by enlarging the screen as large as possible and checking to see if I had clear, sharp lines. Once I was focused, I put my masking tape on the lens to hold the focus ring in place.  Right on time (10:24 a.m.) the moon began to eclipse the sun.  I was so excited!

At first, things were going well.  I was pretty sure my focus was good, and I was getting better and better at adjusting the position of the camera every few minutes to keep the eclipsing sun near the center of my screen.  I was taking pictures about every three to five minutes.  After I had been shooting for about 25 minutes, clouds began to roll in.  Sometimes they partially obscured the eclipsing sun and at other times they completely obscured it.  When that happened, I had to use my solar glasses to see when it peaked through again, then reposition the camera.  It took a while for me to get the hang of getting the sun back into my camera frame, but I got better and better at it.  Things were going well and it looked like the clouds might provide some unusual photos. 

The shoot went well for about an hour.  I was getting more and more confident with the constant adjustments that were necessary and it was exciting to watch the sun getting slowly eclipsed by the moon.  About twenty minutes before the “ring of fire” was going to occur, disaster struck.  All of a sudden my screen was black, and the top information screen was showing a flashing “Err”.  I had no idea what was going on–  I had NEVER gotten an error message before!  I started checking all of my setting buttons, but nothing I did restored my camera or got me back on live mode.  The closer I got to 11:54 a.m., the more I panicked.  I noticed my battery was down to one bar, so I put in a new battery, thinking that might be the problem.  It didn’t help.  Fortunately I had brought my camera manual with me and I began to look feverishly for a fix.  I found that the most common source of the error message I was seeing came from the contacts between the lens and the camera body.  The manual recommended taking the lens off, and putting it back on.  I did that, but it did not fix the problem.  By this time I realized I was going to miss the “ring of fire” so I took my camera off the tripod and placed it in the shade in the open trunk of my car.  I then watched the “ring of fire” using my solar glasses.  It was very cool!  I thought about calling it a day, but decided to give it one more shot.  Lo and behold, my camera suddenly was working again!  I put it back on the tripod, refocused and reframed, and began taking photos of the last hour or so of the eclipse.  I don’t know what happened to my camera…perhaps it got overheated?  Rest assured I will get to the bottom of the problem.  Below is a media grid of photos I took  during the eclipse, in order.  You can page through the photos and it will give you some idea of the sequence of the eclipse.  But of course, the money shot is missing….

While I was extremely disappointed that I failed to capture the “ring of fire”, I must admit I am proud of myself.  It wasn’t that long ago that I didn’t know an F stop from an F word.  I have made progress and learned a lot over these last number of months.  While my photos are not perfect and will not win any awards, they are passable for my purposes.  By the way, if you look closely, you can see sun spots in many of my photos.  For a little more information about current sun spots, look here.  So, come April of next year, I will give it another go and see if I can’t improve on today’s results!  Thanks for taking time to look at my blog.  I will leave you with my favorite photo from today.  The clouds give it an almost three dimensional look, and I think the coloring is quite nice!