Blinded By The Sun

This should, perhaps, have made it to the internet long ago - but the clocks changed recently and it thoroughly disoriented me.

I survived the March 20th Solar Eclipse, without blinding myself in either eye. Opinion and interest regarding said event is no doubt split. It was a minor inconvenience in that it reduced natural brightness by some factor of lumens and decreased the ambient temperature somewhat, and if you have little to no interest in the goings on of the celestial bodies - this would likely have irked you; especially with all the media hype.

However, I maintain some degree of interest in the event and built up enough courage to leave the safe confines of indoors to venture 'outdoors', camera kit in tow.

I shan't bore you with the ins and outs of how one might go about taking photos of the sun, or indeed an eclipse, but long story short - the same factors that can lead to you going blind, can lead to the camera going blind - and I have two eyes, but only one camera!

Auto was clearly not the right setting

That's more like it

After seeing numerous articles pertaining to the potential blinding of anywhere up to the entire population, I was a little skeptical, and naturally wanted to avoid actually going blind. I opted not to use the viewfinder on the camera as this would be equivalent to getting out a telescope and looking directly at the sun - probably not a good idea to be magnifying the burning ball of gas. Sticking with the 'live view' on the camera's display I managed to snap a few semi-decent pictures whilst not burning out my retinae or the image sensor. Job well done.

Roughly the 'peak' of the apoc-eclipse

I don't mean to brag, but even Nikon were impressed at what I'd managed to achieve...

Great in-camera shots from @oddbod92 MT "The trusty @UKNikon has done a stellar job this morning #eclipse2015" pic.twitter.com/K3OzDutNBA”
— Nikon UK & Ireland (@UKNikon) March 20, 2015

For those of you interested enough, here's the 'full' album - https://flic.kr/s/aHsk5Vz9pX

Hot on the heels of my vision still being retained, I was fortunate enough to snap up some tickets to see Muse at Manchester Academy. Such a gig had not occurred since around 2001 and was, in fact, a sensational experience. Still feeling the photography bug, but somewhat distracted by the inconvenient presence of other people and loud noises, I managed to take very few decent pictures - and at least half were somehow upside down. Less than triumphant.

My phone clearly wasn't feeling the orientation detection

Other exciting March-based events included the Jaguar XE preview event - which was thoroughly enjoyable. Sadly there was no test driving involved, and the LASER HUD was not available on the pre-production model on display, but I did sit in the car and my head only just touches the roof; which seems safe enough.

Photo of the engine, to make it seem like I know what I'm looking at

The front of the car looking... car-y

Thus concludes a quick whistle-stop tour of March ranging all the way from the 18th to the 21st. Thanks for coming!

"You know you've found what you're supposed to do in life when you'd rather do it then[sic] check your Instagram, FB, Twitter, snapchat or email."

Ben