Kevin Merchant Photography News

Looking back through my image records, I have not been out to see the shorebird migration in the Grays Harbor area since 2016. For a variety of reasons including other spring trips, it just did not happen. Last week that situation was rectified. We were able to spend a week chasing the little peeps at Bottle Beach State Park and the Tokeland Marina.

Of course, it was getting close to the end of the migration and so there were not great numbers of birds. But, we did get the treat of a large group of late arriving red knots. Excellent. I did come away with a good variety of images. And, it was a good test for my somewhat new gear - Canon R7 + RF 600mm f/4 lens + RF 1.4x teleconverter.

As usual, the conditions were challenging - low temperatures and wind. We had been spoiled by such warm temperatures on our April trip to Texas. All in all though, an excellent week.

We no more get home than receive a text from a neighbor about the predicted Northern Lights that were supposed to happen that night and "Did we want to go somewhere with them to see it?". We were tired from a week of bird photography and declined the invitation. Then watching the evening news, we changed our minds and said "YES!!!", quickly packed up some gear and met them near Snoqualmie Pass.

With the Internet exploding from phone pictures, I don't need to say how great it was. But, I will say it exceeded my expectations. There have been a number of such solar geo-magnetic events to cause Northern Lights that could be seen in Washington, with so-so results. Would this time be different? As I have said before, "Sleep is so overrated!" and this time it was worth the early morning arrival back home. For many years, I have wanted to go somewhere to see the Northern Lights and photograph them. I never would have expected to not have to travel to some far away place to see such a show.

A big thank you to our neighbors for motivating us.

As usual, getting around to processing is another story. I have once again run out of disk space on my desktop computer where all of the work is done. Until that situation is addressed, the images will have to wait.

Be well. Be safe.

On last report, I was in the process of acquiring bits & bobs (it's a technical term) for the April 8^th total solar eclipse. The bits & bobs have all been acquired and put to use.

The plan is to use two different camera setups, both on equatorial trackers. The trackers mean that there will be no fiddling with either camera to keep the sun in the frame, as was done for one of the cameras used for the annular eclipse. It does mean having to polar align two trackers before the eclipse instead of one. This should be doable.

The lessons I learned from the 2017 total solar eclipse and the 2023 annular solar eclipse are being put to good use. Foremost among them is automating the camera operation around totality, from second contact (C2) to third contact (C3). Manually controlling two cameras during totality is simply not very effective or smart. Two automation programs that I was aware of all the way back in 2017, Eclipse Orchestrator (Windows based) and Solar Eclipse Maestro (Mac based), are both still around and being maintained. In 2017, it simply wasn't possible for me to get up to speed to use automation on what then was short notice. But, I had almost 7 years to get ready for the next one. Thankfully, the developer of Eclipse Orchestrator has a recent enough build that includes support for both the Canon R5 and R7 mirrorless bodies, which I plan to use.

Both programs use a simple scripting language that is text based. I won't go into the nerd detatils of what I have learned about using Eclipse Orchestrator, but I have spent the last two months learning the ins and outs of the program. That includes developing a script for each camera. With lots of effort, I have working scripts ready for the eclipse.

Strangely enough, this has taken me back to my engineering days. Cameras were never designed to be operated as real-time devices and yet automating camera operation for the eclipse event requires fairly precise timing and control in real-time. The eclipse is not something where you get a do-over. Get it right or go home! To Eclipse Orchestrator, the camera is essentially a black box. Commands are sent to the camera, but the program has no idea if they are executed or not. Hence, a black box. The camera has been fully designed for the human feedback loop, even the control over the USB connection assumes a measure of human feedback and control. The human knows if an image was taken and whether it was for the chosen exposure. The program does not. So, in developing the script, the human (me) has to verify everything and make adjustments in the script so that the right things happen, at the right time and at the right exposures.

The black box aspect guarantees that you are always kept guessing as to what went wrong with the test you just ran and what adjustment or adjustments need to be made for the next test you are about to run. In the end, I developed a test sheet for each camera so that I could keep track of what failed and, if necessary backtrack to a previous test that worked better than the one just ran. I would literally wake up in the middle of the night, thinking through what had gone wrong that day and what I could do to fix it. Did I mention my engineering days?

I have come to realize that Eclipse Orchestrator is really a highly specialized and highly customizable intervalometer. Yes, there are other features, but this is what people use it for. Intervalometer controlled cameras have been around for a very long time, where you can do simple automation. For example, take a picture every 5 seconds, for 100 pictures. But Eclipse Orchestrator contains data for eclipses, such as the one coming up in April. It knows when the partial eclipse will begin for every geographic location along the path of the eclipse. It knows when totality begins and ends. It knows when the partial eclipse ends on the other side of totality. You have fixed times that you must fairly accurately time out to control the camera, with the goal being you hit the right time with the right exposure for each event. I have a GPS receiver feeding into the computer to give as accurate a time as possible (remember the bits & bobs?). It all has to be predetermined, unlike any other type of photography that I have done before.

Fortunately, Eclipse Orchestrator has been around for over twenty years now and has a good reputation for doing what it is intended to do. I am relying on it to automate two cameras from C2 to C3. For the partial eclipse portions I plan to use a traditional intervalometer, much like I have done for 2017 and 2023, to capture images for a timelapse. Less complicated and less battery power needed.

The travel itenerary has been worked out by my CLO (Chief Logistics Officer). The plans are all coming into place.

We are hoping for Clear Skies.

Be well. Be safe.

Illness has passed and we actually got out for a walk in the frigid (for us) cold today. We've seen temps down to 10°F. We were happy for the sunshine and opportunity for some vitamin D.

As mentioned before, we are planning to be in the path of darkness in early April of this year. To that end, I have been working on an article that tells the story of our first solar eclipse journey in 2017. It is now up in the ARTICLES menu section.

Be well, be safe.

Time runs slow sometimes, when illness is running through the house. That has been the case here and in fact, continues to be. But, I wanted to rise up and wish everyone a Happy New Year.

If plans come together and we are able, we are planning to be in the path of the total solar eclipse in early April. The 2023 annular eclipse in October was a good testbed for the upcoming event. I am making changes to the strategy and still acquiring a few bits & bobs (it's a technical term) to make it happen.

In the near future, I do hope to get back to processing the considerable backlog of images sitting on my hard drive.

Until next time, be well, be safe.