Hi,
I've just returned from a holiday including a visit to Austria (Bad
Tatzmannsdorf, near the Hungarian border) to experience the 11 August solar
eclipse. The weather was quite OK. The sky was partly covered with thin
clouds: not good for observing the corona, but excellent to the see the
approaching shadow of the Moon (umbra); really an awesome view!
I used two cameras to take pictures on Kodachrome 25. An OM-2n with a Tokina
17 mm F3.5 (stopped down to 5.6) and a Winder II was operated by a cordless
remote control (which I had bought from Frank van Lindert some months ago
(Frank: it worked perfect)) The camera was placed on a small tripod and was
not moved during the entire duration of the eclipse. I used this camera to
photograph the whole happening, the changing light and the approaching
umbra. I used an OM-40 to shoot other pictures, including several with a 300
mm F4.5 (including a Mylar solar screen when necessary) placed on a tripod.
All 300 mm pictures where taken using the self timer of the OM-40: for the
mirror pre-fire and to force myself to actually view this beautiful eclipse
during each 12 second delay... ;-)
Meanwhile my wife took some pictures on Kodak Gold 100 with an OM-1 and
several lenses (including the 300 mm and a Tokina 80-200 mm F2.8). These
pictures will be developed next Wednesday, the Kodachrome slides take about
2.5 weeks... can't wait :-(
For us this was the first total eclipse of the Sun we have experienced and
yes, we are infected by the eclipse bug... A total eclipse is definitely one
of the most dramatic events in nature. So plans are made for a trip to
Angola or Zimbabwe in 2001!
Taking pictures during the short period of totality, however, is somehow a
waste of time. Especially the necessary change of shutter speed with
telephoto pictures is cumbersome in the darkness of totality. A computer
controlled camera taking automatically pictures at different shutter speeds
would be, in my opinion, *the* solution. This can be done, I think, with an
OM-10! Instead of the manual adapter a computer controlled variable
resistance should be able to set the shutter speed, while the shutter can be
released using the input of a Winder. Has anybody experience with such an
external control of the OM-10? It would be useful for more purposes than
only eclipse photography alone. How does the self timer of the OM-10 work?
Has it a mirror pre-fire and can the self timer be used in combination with
a Winder like the self timer of the OM-40 or OM-4? It would make the OM-10 a
very interesting camera!
Bye,
Erwin Voogt
Utrecht, The Netherlands.
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