Capturing the Eclipse with HGX Prime Filters

I’m Charlie Kruschek, a landscape photographer who chases everything from sunrises to storms. In October I embarked on a photography trip with the sole pursuit of capturing this year’s annular eclipse - one of my favorite events as a landscape photographer. Armed with plans and a vast suite of equipment, myself and three friends traveled over a thousand miles with a single series of shots in mind. The planned location, Valley of the Gods, allowed us to not only witness annularity for over four minutes, but also experience vibrant sunrises and sunsets in one of my favorite places on Earth. Join me as I discuss the process from start to finish how a single celestial event turned a vision into a reality, and how I’m planning ahead for what the skies have to offer in 2024.

Eclipse Research

First off, let’s gain an understanding of what an annular eclipse actually is. When an annular eclipse occurs, the moon’s shadow moves in between Earth and the sun, causing a ring to appear on the sun’s outer edges. A remarkably cool moment to experience firsthand, even if short lived. The entire atmosphere dims, shadows on earth change, and my personal favorite, you’re given an opportunity to look at just a portion of the sun.

Next we have a total eclipse. What most would consider the all-time great event, a total eclipse, is when the moon’s shadow moves in between Earth and the sun, except this time, the moon entirely covers the sun, leaving nothing more than solar coronas. I’ll agree with the majority of people, nothing beats a total eclipse. On April 8, 2024, we’ll see another total eclipse track across much of the United States, stretching from as far south as Texas and all the way north to Maine.

What’s important to understand when planning for eclipses is where the line of annularity or totality will be, depending on the eclipse. Before we look ahead, let’s look back on the line of annularity for the eclipse I viewed back in October. Even into Canada, the eclipse was partially visible, but the spot that caught my eye was Southeast Utah. There are few places on Earth that excite me like Utah does, so once I realized the true path of annularity was spearing through the state, I knew I had to be there one way or another. That’s when the planning kicked into high gear and a trip began to form.

Now being from Wisconsin, it’s tricky to plan a photo trip to a place that’s as desolate and “empty” as southern Utah. Sure, Moab exists. So does Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Page, and Albuquerque. As much as I love long 12+ hour road trips, I wanted to assure myself I was rested and given the max amount of time possible in Utah. Knowing I had friends in Denver, I purchased flights from Madison, Wisconsin to Denver, Colorado, and planned a 7 hour “mini road trip” through the mountains, ending in Valley of the Gods, where we’d camp out overnight with the primary goal of experiencing the sun disappear behind the moon for just a few hours.

But how did I decide on Valley of the Gods?

It took some scouting, but thanks to past experiences out west, I had some ideas of places I knew in Utah that would fit the bill for my vision. I had visited VotG [Valley of the Gods] before, along with Moab, Page, and nearby spots. I had a leg up through experiences, but in addition, too, I combed over the area with Google Satellite and lined things up with the path of annularity to assure I was checking all the boxes. Nearby spots I considered included Goosenecks State Park, Moki Dugway, Monument Valley, and even as far along the highway as Arches National Park. Once I settled on Valley of the Gods, however, I was able to use one of my favorite free resources Stellarium to preview the direction and position of the sun at annularity based on VotG’s coordinates. This paved the way for my vision of a shot of the valley in totality to come to life. I needed to accomplish this - somehow and someway.

Equipment Gathering

Next on the checklist was gathering the necessary gear to make the shots from this trip possible. Paired alongside my Sony A7RV and A7SII, my Sony FE 20-70 f/4 G OSS, and my Sigma Contemporary 100-400mm f/5-6.3 DG DN OS, there was still a long list of tools that I needed to make these images come alive.

First and foremost, I needed SD cards that would not fail me. I needed speed to cover the large file sizes of 61 megapixels, as well as a card that could handle 8K video. Thankfully, a couple of 128GB Rugged CINE UHS-II cards performed beautifully. I never once dealt with buffering, nor did I ever feel at risk of losing shots. Even after I ran my entire Rugged Memory Case through the washing machine on accident (don’t ask how - I was exhausted), all of my cards survived and still function like new to this day. There’s a different level of comfort that no other cards bring. For trips of this importance, I wouldn’t trust anything else.

Now if you recall, I mentioned we camped at VotG, and with that camping experience came no access to outlets. Sure, we had a mobile power bank, but otherwise, the option to plug into an outlet didn’t exist, so when it came to battery life for my camera, I was stocked with ProMaster’s USB-C Z100 Batteries. I mean, how cool is it to have a USB-C charging port in the battery itself? I never once felt short on camera power, even after spending two days without access to wall chargers.

As always, I’m a huge fan of ProMaster’s Specialist Series Tripods. What I’ve come to love about them is how portable they can be, as well as how low I can get to the ground. I’m a huge believer in shooting as low as possible, and with my Specialist 532K, I was merely inches from the soil. It quickly was put to use as the sun was ducking behind cliffs, as well as when we balanced on the side of a canyon for the true vision shot. Oh, and I can’t ignore how important an L-Bracket is. There is nothing more convenient than quickly switching from horizontal to vertical orientation and keeping the camera level. It offers more build protection, another grip, and a more efficient composing style. Best part, these are super affordable and worth every penny.

Here’s the thing, though, I didn’t forget that this trip is all about the sun. It’s all about light, and what I’m going to allow my lens to bring in for that light. You’ll hear horror stories of photographers who leave their lenses unprotected for eclipses, to which their lenses get fried, or even worse, their sensors burn. There are specific types of solar filters (Haida’s ND1000000) for eclipses with a very dense piece of glass for telephoto lenses, but if you’re like me and are also shooting towards the sun with a wide angle, it’s invaluable to have protection for that, too. Luckily, I made sure to have my HGX Prime Variable ND Extreme that stretches from 5.3 stops all the way to 12 stops. This allowed me to protect my lens from even the toughest elements, as well as keep my exposure dark in situations that simply had too much light for me. Without this, I don’t think my vision would ever become reality.

Shot Execution

We cobbled all of this together: the cameras, the lenses, the tripod, the filters, the spare batteries and the fast cards, the shots that I set out to capture came true on October 14 under clear skies, during a fleeting moment that the moon passed between us and our sun.

It was a lofty task to achieve this. For years I’ve been shooting landscapes around the world and this one felt exceptionally rewarding. We camped out at our spot in the Valley for over 24 hours prior to the eclipse to be assured there was room for us, but once settled in, we had a lot of time to prepare accordingly, whether it was practicing shots, messing around with composition, or simply put, just being well-rested. For us four, we had the time of our lives playing the waiting game at our site. Once the moment came, we were prepped and ready.

So What’s next? The annular eclipse was incredible - an experience that I will cherish and continue to build off. But looking ahead, how can I challenge myself beyond that? Well, on April 8, 2024, we have the total eclipse. I don’t want to give away my spot(s) just yet, but it’s safe to say the planning is well underway for this next celestial event. Trust me, if you’re into experiences that make you appreciate being on this planet, this one you will not want to miss.

I want to thank ProMaster for collaborating and working alongside me on this project. Your top-notch gear played a pivotal role in making my creative endeavors possible, and I'm genuinely grateful for all that came out of this experience. Here's to more adventures together in the future, across the world and in the skies!