sjb3

There's been a lot of discussion about the ins & outs of trying to photograph this doggone eclipse on the 21st, and I've put my 2 cents in here and there on various threads. It's been acknowledged by at least part of the UHH membership that with so many professional photogs and scientific types out there, with exactly the right recording equipment to produce stills and video few of us could ever hope to make ourselves, it makes sense to concentrate on enjoying the spectacle instead of trying to record it. I and a number of others agreed with that sentiment, but qualified it with the notion that it would be kind of nice to get something recorded that made the eclipse personal, such as getting a shot of one's house in the frame, with the unfolding eclipse going on behind.

I thought I just might be able to do something like that with my GoPro Hero 5 Black, which I bought especially for its time-lapse ability. I knew it would be tight fit, but today, starting at 1:20 PM (totality starts at 1:25 here in Tennessee) I set up and made a quick run of 69 shots 1 second apart just to check the framing. And while I ended up with a definite fisheye view with the camera set on Wide FOV, I still got my house, driveway, even my old truck in the frame, and more than enough elevation to show the Sun in the position it will be < 5 minutes from totality. There's ample room on either side of the Sun to allow for at least an hour's worth total shooting, split between before & after the 2-minutes-and-something totality. It's such a wide angle of view, completely unmagnified, that the movement will not really be apparent; I can set it up and leave it alone to do its thing while I fiddle around with the Fuji camera and otherwise just take in the spectacle undistracted. Afterward I can process the images in PSE (I've got v.15) and produce probably a pretty decent, personalized 30 seconds-or-so video.

What I've attached is just by way of showing the framing I just described; I only had 69 shots to work with so I just ran them through Quicktime Pro and made a 4-second, 15 fps low-res video. I had a Freewell ND32 filter mounted to cut down some on the Sun's glare. On eclipse day, I'll of course use the same FOV, framing & filter, but I'll set a 5-second interval for 12 shots per minute, and will shoot RAW images (I've got a 32 gb card). And it'll be a 24 (maybe 30) fps video after processing in Premier Elements. I also attached the first image in the sequence and clicked "store original".

Low-res 15 fps video to show framing of planned project
Attached file:
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jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

And the GoPro doesn't mind staring at the sun?

You know, you could crop that picture of your slanted house and give it to a realtor to post as an oddity.

Good luck on Monday.

sjb3

Thanks! And the word from a number of sources, including GoPro itself, is that the extreme wide angle, non-telescopic view makes it safe for the camera's sensor. I've run several tests, and will be doing a sort of "dress rehearsal" today at precisely 12:49 pm where I'll shoot in time-lapse photo mode for 75 minutes. If I have to come back here and eat crow, I'll do it; but I'm expecting a good result.

If things turn out right, I'll post the video on Youtube as an oddity by an oddity.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

If, GoPro says so, then you're safe. I look forward to your video.

sjb3

The test went okay. I started shooting just after 12 noon and the battery ran down just after 2 pm; less than a minute shy of 2 hours, and the battery admittedly was only at 80%. I netted 1434 photos (I've attached the first and the last in the series) to work with; made a video that was 47 seconds long, mainly because I wanted to see how much apparent movement of the Sun there would be, and after 2 hours there wasn't much at all. So, I'll be able to shoot for the entire planned 2 & 1/2 hours tomorrow (I'll be sure to start with a fresh battery!) which should net me 1800 photos, shot 5 seconds apart, covering most of the eclipse. It will make a video exactly 60 seconds long; what took 2 & 1/2 hours to develop will zip by in 1 minute .

Also, when I first set up for the test with the wide FOV setting which makes that fisheye display, I tried changing it to Medium FOV which would still be fairly wide but without the fisheye effect. No good, as can be seen in the 3rd attachment; just couldn't fit my house and the Sun into the frame at that elevation. So I'll have to stick with a slanted house in my souvenir video of the Great TSE of 2017!

Test shot 1 of 1434

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Test shot 1434 of 1434

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Test shot made with Med FOV (no good)

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Murray Loc: New Westminster

Nat Geo says a cellphone shot (28mm) is fine, so I tried on the iPhone I'm about to replace. It worked fine, nothing fried, so I would expect the same result on a DSLR with a 28 or wider lens,

Thoughts?

sjb3

To be honest, I can't speak to that since for one, I don't own a DSLR (I have a very good-quality Bridge camera but it's not a DSLR) and for another, I'm not nearly as experienced and/or qualified as the majority of the members here. I could make an educated guess, but it would still just be a guess, and what you need is certainty. I hope somebody reads this that can do that for you.