a partial of a partial solar eclipse

As most of us know that today there was a solar eclipse visible from most part of south east asia, as its not everyday you can catch eclipse from your house i was pretty excited with this. At its peak the amount of sun covered by the moon will be around 58%, and thats a pretty good number as more than half the sun will be "gone", though not as near the spectacular sight as the total solar eclipse which almost everybody that ever witnessed it describe as the bestestttttt ever natural phenomenon visible from planet Earth.

well anyway, so the day started great, clear blue sky that is not an everyday occurance in medan, around 3.20pm i was up at my rooftop ready with my gears, little did i know i was only allowed to have fun for like 10-15min or so, as after that a huge blanket of cloud sweep over and taken over the whole sky for the rest of the evening, at around 5pm the cloud is so thick that the whole sun is complete gone. so here is what i able to capture...

oh btw the next solar eclipse visible from medan is on 22nd of July, but thats only a 11% obscuration rate, meaning only 11% of the sun is covered, so its a pretty lame eclipse :p

sun shiny day

(yeah i know my cam's sensor is in need of a good loving from mr.sensor cleaner)

trying to see the sun with the help of an old negative film

in action

the beginning

the greatest eclipse before the cloud ruin the whole show

and the fun is over

this guy prob sick with the cloud and decide to go watch it at outer space

anyway, here i found a pretty nice pic of the eclipse rite on the sunset

Halo of the sun

ok..here are those pictures of the halo of the sun. Thanks a bunch to Dian who excitedly call me and then half screaming she goes "go outside and look at the sun!!". i gotta admit for a split second there i thought the sun is exploding into dust or something.

Turn out there were this huge halo forming around it. And as an aspiring photographer it won't do justice if i didn't snap a few.

enjoy (click on the pic for larger view)





here are some technical data for those interested:

1st of all this is 12.30 pm and the sun is shining on its full glory, no matter how fast the speed and small the aperture you use without a help of a filter you will get a wash out pic.
And since i don't own the super black ND800 i just have to make do with all the less dark ND i got, and end up with 3 filters on my lense!! which is ND4x, ND8x, and CPL!!
(ND= neutral density, which is basically a dark filter to reduce light into your lense. CPL=circular polarizer, for reducing glare and enhance blue tone in the sky)

F/11 speed was 1/60. the thick filters i used and the frontal super bright sun throw off the focusing a lil bit, so gotta focus it manually, and later or bring in the shadow in PS to show more detail and tune up the saturation a lil bit too.