Ever since I made one of my occasional visits to NASA's eclipse
site last year, I've been eagerly looking forward to this day.
The eclipse was to be only slightly over 90% of total in my area
and I knew a photo of it wouldn't be anywhere nearly as
spectacular as in the totality zone. But it's the first major
solar eclipse I'd have a chance to photograph.

Alas, sunrise came and the morning sky was heavily overcast, with
thick fog rolling in too. There wasn't even a faintly luminous
spot to indicate where the sun was. My friends and I watched TV,
the clock and the darkening sky as the moment of maximum eclipse
came and went.

Some time later, the weather relented a bit and we began to catch
glimpses of the receding eclipse. I started shooting and went on
to take some 60 shots. The clouds were moving so fast that the
brightness level changed literally from second to second.

I saw no point in trying to check my exposures in between shots
as the next one would need a different level anyway. I went
entirely by guesstimate and kept turning the shutter and aperture
dials, using exposure values from f/11 at 1/2000 sec with a
filter to f/4 at 1/20 sec without a filter.

I was pleasantly surprised when I later found that more than half
of the shots had acceptable exposure, at least acceptable to me,
given the circumstances and my total lack of experience in
shooting a solar eclipse.

Here's the very first shot, taken about 10 minutes after the
moment of maximum eclipse:
http://s48.photobucket.com/albums/f2...-22Jul09_1.jpg