Update: Got some corrections from comments. They’re now there.
Like a lot of people, I drove a while to catch the recent solar eclipse. Since I wanted to be in the totality (and for people who’ve never experienced it, there is a world of difference between the 80-some% occlusion DC got and totality), I decided to drive up to Erie, PA.
It was a somewhat random choice, but I’ve known a few people over the years from that area, and was curious to see what it was like.
Since my main goal was photographic, I planned out the technical aspects pretty carefully (based on experience from the 2017 eclipse, where I drove down to SC for my first encounter with totality).
Ignore this paragraph, and the next, if you’re not interested in photography, but I was taking two cameras, and three lenses (well, a fourth that wasn’t going to be used for the eclipse). The first lens was the 150-600mm Sigma Sport lens that I used for the last eclipse, with the ND filters I got for that eclipse. The second was the 800mm Nikon Z that I mostly got for birds; I found that ND filters were just about impossible to buy for this one (I found one, but it wasn’t dark enough for this purpose. Totality doesn’t require filters, though, so it was still going to be a useful lens). The third was the new-ish 180-600mm Nikon Z lens that looked like it would use the same filters as the Sigma (it didn’t, as I only noticed when I got there). And I did not take a tripod, as I found it to not work great, last time; I have mixed feelings now about whether or not that was a mistake.
I also had a medium-long zoom lens that I was going to use for shooting a waterfall on the way up. Part-way up, I realized that I couldn’t take the shot I wanted of the waterfall without the tripod. Ugh.
The first day up went smoothly, getting me to a hotel on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, where I found a good dinner and some weird decor. That is, it was mostly Pirates memorabilia, but there was a Ted Williams ad for some beer in there (for those who are not baseball fans, Ted Williams was one of the greatest hitters of all time, but he only played for the Boston Red Sox. He also retired over 60 years ago. And John Updike wrote a stunningly good column for the New Yorker about him just before he did). Despite the weirdness, it was a lovely meal (the place was called Atria’s, I think).
Anyway, slept well, got up, and drove to Erie. Basically no traffic, the whole way up. The reason the tripod omission might have been a good thing is that it got me up there much earlier. That seemed a waste, but worked out, as we’ll see.
I didn’t plan out where I was going to watch; I figured just about anywhere near the water would be fine. And I didn’t have trouble finding it; the highway dumped me out very nearby. The ‘no parking’ signs were very complicated with days and hours, but I managed to find street parking in a neighborhood not too far away, and started walking. Part of the walk went along a creek, where I found these yahoos.
Going a bit further down, I found a marina, and assumed it was private, but it turned out that there was a small public park kind of hidden back there as well (Liberty Park, on Presque Isle Bay, I later found out). I went in to scope it out; as you’d guess from the marina next door, it was right on the water. Immediately, I spotted a couple of seagulls, took a couple pictures, figured out where I’d shoot from, then decided I would go get some lunch (I had a couple hours to kill, I figured). A gull shot:
But as I turned to leave, I remembered the hassle of the security getting into the park, and decided I could wait until after to eat.
Also, I should mention that the day had been fully overcast, for the most part, with only a couple glimmers of sunshine up to this point.
In any event, I sat down on some rocks on the shoreline, and realized there were birds beyond the seagulls flying around. And since I’d brought the 800, I was equipped to shoot them.
About five minutes before the eclipse actually started, a miracle occurred, and the sun came out. Here’s a screenshot that a friend (who was in Ohio) took, and later showed me. I hadn’t realized just how lucky I was (the red arrow in the notch in the clouds, south-east of London, is Erie), although I did know that another friend went to Rochester and saw nothing but clouds.
Here’s a shot from pretty early on in the eclipse, taken with the 150-600, that gives an idea how much cloud cover we had.
By the time of the totality, the clouds had basically completely cleared, and I took a bunch of shots with the 800. The title shot, above, is one of my favorites. I’ll add one more, here, just because it looks so different.
Actually, I’ll throw in one more eclipse shot. This one is the “engagement ring” shot taken just as totality was ending. And, while it’s difficult to see at this size, that slightly reddish blob on the bottom-right is a solar flare that I didn’t even notice until I had the pictures on my computer.
Another that I found pretty cool is this shot. It looks like a fairly boring sunrise/sunset shot (I took it with my phone), but what makes it interesting is that this was taken shooting almost due North.
After the totality finished, I was exhausted from carrying around the two cameras with the long lenses (Black Rapid double-strap, if anyone’s curious), and starving. Went and got some food at a nice restaurant a couple miles away, then set out for home.
I had checked, while waiting for the eclipse, and it was telling me 5hr, 20m to get home, which seemed way better than I expected. While I was eating, I checked again, and it said 6hr, 20. Still would get me home early enough to sleep in my bed and go to work in the morning.
Well, roughly 6-½ hours after leaving the restaurant, I stopped in Pennsylvania to spend the night (Apple Maps was estimating 3hrs to get home from there, still). Seriously, until I got to Pittsburgh, the drive was a nightmare. Oh, and I got the last room the hotel had.
But at least it wasn’t too bad once I got going, the next morning. Took the day off, met my dad for lunch on the way, and got home in the early afternoon.
One last photographic technical note, about the tripod. For the last eclipse, I took it with a gimbal mount, which seemed natural for using with a long lens, but turned out not to go vertical enough to be usable. What I realized (during this eclipse) that I hadn’t considered, was that it might have been very good to have the tripod with a ball mount instead. Next time, whenever that is, I might take a tripod and record 8K video of the whole thing. Or maybe a time lapse. Have to think about it. Got some time, especially if I don’t (or can’t) go overseas.
And if anyone is still reading, and curious, I took around 1400 shots of the various birds, and 2-300 of the eclipse itself (almost entirely of totality. I think it was only ten or so before that).