The moon masked much of the sun in Wellington this morning – and it was a photographic challenge to catch this partial eclipse.

Partial eclipse

The tech numbers for this handheld shot was: 1/4,000 sec, F32, iso 100 + neutral density filters (all three in the set I have stacked on top of each other), and 1 layer of mylar film (snipped off the end of the emergency blanket in my first aid kit).   The pull-out LCD screen on my Sony A580 made it all much easier and safer to point the camera in the right place, but next time (in about 20 years or so), I’ll bring a tripod.

My favourite image of the morning though was sunlight filtered through a tree onto some discarded sheets of white paper.  The space between the leaves acted like pinhole cameras, making hundreds of tiny little crescent suns which danced as the wind ruffled the leaves.   The photo doesn’t remotely catch how magic this was!

Eclipse through leaves