Why on Earth would someone take the cap off that Howitzer before totality? Some people...

"gullible
Adjective, | 'ɡələbəl
Definition of GULLIBLE
:naive and easily deceived or tricked
at that early age she had been gullible and in love
:easily tricked because of being too trusting
gullible tourists taken in by the shell game
See also:
fleeceable
green"

From Webster's 2017 Dictionary.

Never been to Africa, and probably never will. This looks like a great selection. But if I were going, I'd pop a 50mm 1.8 or faster and a tripod. Some of those African morning/evening golden hour shots might be difficult with slower zoom lenses.

Even in a public place, you could be breaking the law if you photograph another's creative work without permission. Many artists have begun copyrighting their works, and by copying them sans permission, you're breaking copyright law.

I'm not an attorney. However, I HAVE been an editor, so I do know a bit about this.

Personally, I really don't care one way or the other. I am old school. I've managed a studio/camera shop back in the 1970s/1980s, been a freelance photographer, and an ardent amateur along the way. I've owned 4 enlargers, did all the studio's black and white--and some 'emergency-need-it-yesterday' color printing, and had a lot of fun learning and fine-tuning my darkroom skills.

Here's what I learned: While many shots are great OOC, some are not. If you just say "Good enough" when a photo is sub-par, you're cheating yourself and others of enjoying a great final print. Either that, or you're too lazy or inexperienced to do the grunt work that might come after you trip the shutter. You can't fix the former, but you can fix the latter by practice and learning.

Do what's needed to make you happy first. It's your shot, and if you think it's great as you took it, fine.

I did it years ago. Made sure the lens cap covered the 400 mm lens I used while I wasn't shooting. Absolutely no problems. One note: the camera I used had a titanium shutter, so the odd were in my favor that nothing bad could happen.

I worry more about doing video with today's cameras. You're exposing the sensor far more than you would when taking stills. Don't have definitive answers, though.

Shows what you can do with minimal gear. I would have gone to Walmart and clipped a cheapo tri-leg, but that's me.

Great job!

And how many sensors have been fried shooting sunsets? None, because before and after totality, your shutter speed--if you use automation and don't mess with manual--will protect your gear. Back in the day, the warning was about inadvertent holing of cloth shutters.

It's your eyes, before and after totality, that you should be worried about.

Ditto on that... he'll probably show up in a couple of days. If, that is, he has these responses actually reaching his email in-box.

Only if I were an OCD-style collector who saved every box and never used the contents, hoping for a great NIB sale on eBay 20 years from now.

Definitely! A true celestial experience!

Sorry for the delete... was having computer issues. Wanted to say that you created a nice, unusual set of portraits.

I think he meant for you to think about your shots beforehand, motivating you to do things, perhaps, a little different than everyone else. Is there any landmark, natural feature, or amazing landscape that you might place in the midground to make some of your shots special?

For example in my last total eclipse, I placed Montana's state capitol dome in frame, and I shot that part with a 135mm lens. Bear in mind, I was shooting with two cameras on tripods.

Deleted.

elad wrote:
For ye Americans, of little faith, our drinking water is cleaner and safer today, as is our air, than 30 years ago...http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/the-air-is-getting-cleaner-but-the-media-are-nowhere-to-be-seen/

Media won't report it as some one may start believing that maybe even "climate change" is also over-hyped?!?



Here's just one example of what the gelding of the EPA might accomplish: You're looking at may become the headwaters of the Columbia River. Formerly an open-pit copper mine, the Berkeley Pit in Butte, Montana, is filled with acidic, highly oxygenated water that leaches heavy metals from the surrounding rock. The Superfund list of contaminants is arsenic, cadmium, copper, zinc, and lead. In 1995, a flock of 342 geese was found dead in the Pit with burns from the water in their internal organs.

I know about this because I grew up there. I worked in the buildings on the left when I was attending college, and the house in which I was raised is in this picture.

Silver Bow Creek, although too small to see it, is also in the picture. That's the headwater of the Columbia. Neuter the EPA, and you risk Montana, Idaho, Washington state, and Oregon. And the Pacific Ocean. Butte--and everything downstream--won't have 10-20 years.