Solar Eclipse – The Perfect Ring of Fire
A perfect solar eclipse does’t come along too many times in the life span of a typical human. You’re lucky to see it once or twice in your life perhaps. Yesterday morning the entire southern Japan had such a chance, but in most cases clouds and even the smoke plume of an active volcano made it hard to see anything. I got up early to find the sky in dense cover of clouds but as the magic moment came closer the clouds gradually disappeared, only to reappear a few minutes before the eclipse, to cover the sun. Still, the strong light of the sun shone straight through the clouds even in the middle of the eclipse and I managed to get these photos of the perfect ring of fire with my 500mm Bigma lens, set at 1/8000, f36 and ISO of 25, in addition to holding up a polarizing filter in front of the lens and a pair of sunglasses. It was magical to see it live in the viewfinder of my camera though, the clouds drifting past and the edges of the ring of fire casting rough flames across the rim. I sure hope all the people who had bought special eclipse viewing glasses keeps them for a while longer – there is another eclipse coming up in 2038, but this time in the northern island of Hokkaido. I wonder if I will be able to see it?
Tokyobling's Blog 
Unbelievable!
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Thanks for the comment Matt! (^-^)/
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Unfortunately here in Italy there was very bad weather! : (
thank you
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Too bad! Well, weather was pretty bad here too, but with the right eye protection and cameras…
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We had an annular total eclipse here about, hmm, 18 years ago. The weather was brilliantly clear. We had a set of lenses from welding goggles mounted in a shoe box for direct viewing, but the most fascinating view was the multiple images of the eclipsed sun scattered on the ground in the shadows of the leaves on the trees.
Outdoors, the light still seemed strong, even near totality. I only noticed how diminished the light was when I went indoors for a drink.
I would love to see a ‘total’ total eclipse one day…
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Thank you for this memory! I am sure a lot of people did the welding goggles thing that day. Some other photographers got the shadow scattering as well, but where I was there was nothing to reflect…
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Fantastic…..thank you for sharing!
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Thanks for the comment Birdie! (^-^)/
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Reblogged this on Hey from Japan- Notes on Moving, Emily Cannell and commented:
The reason space is the last frontier is because it`s so boring. Luckily for the Clampitts, one of our favorite Tokyo Bloggers, TokyoBling, Documented the Solar Eclipse so I didn`t have to. Not only did he capture the sun, he also got some great shots of the people either watching or ignoring the happening. Enjoy.
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Why does it always have to be cloudy in Melbourne when something spectacular happens in the sky…. nevertheless these photos are wonderful and I hope you will keep up the good work 🙂
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Thank you Al! It’s the same here, it was cloudy both this day as well as the partial eclipse a couple of years ago, but that time it was so cloudy no array of lenses brought anything out.
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Beautiful shots! I’m visiting from Emily’s blog and really enjoyed the pics of the people with the special eclipse viewfinders. Those glasses are pretty stylish!
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Thank you Dana and welcome to the blog! Emily is much too kind to bring me all these visitors! You should have seen the shops, there were hundreds of varieties, but some of the ones I caught here looks almost like they were designed by Paul Smith or something… (^-^;)
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I knew I could count on you to get great pix of Tokyoites staring at the sun through their various devices! I got nice shots of the ring, but it was only later that I truly wished I’d turned my camera on my fellow commuters, who were all turned like sunflowers toward the eclipse.
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Haha… thanks Jonelle! I agree – the best action was as usual with the people themselves! (^-^)
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Lovely…. Too bad I couldn’t see it in danmark 😦
Luckli you got it… and you did it good. The third eclips photos is perfect.
I’m looking forward to 22 dec where all the planets lay in 1 line. I bet you’ll be able to get some good photos.
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Thank you Kes! So glad you like it! As hard as it is getting photos of the sun I think the planets lining up will be even more difficult… and I recently sold of my astronomy gear…. (^-^;)
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We didn’t get to see the eclipse where I live in America 😦 Thank you for posting this!
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I have been lucky for astronomical phenomena these last few years… (^-^;) Thank you for the comment!
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