Three days before we fly. Six days before the eclipse.

Weather was looking great in the earliest (10 day) forecasts. Not so good now. Worst of it looks to be down south (which was predicted to be the best). Major incident declared before it even happens at Niagara Falls where they are expecting 1m people to visit to see the eclipse over there. Not sure all that mist is what I’m aiming for. Above you can see the map of the States with the line of totality and where we are staying. I figure 300-400 miles is an absolute maximum we want to do in a day, so I’ve drawn arcs out from where we are staying as a rough guide.

As to imaging on the day itself, I want to do a timelapse of the eclipse alongside the still images. Here, the extreme light to extreme dark make exposure difficult. I’m therefore going to try it two different ways.

Normally I’d just timelapse on the iPhone and have done with. But I’m not sure how the thing will cope with the quickly switching light levels when using what is a video timelapse. Over to the GoPro which can do it either using simple video or by shooting individual images which can be stitched together later. The other grand thing about doing it this way is you also have the ability to shoot RAW and I figure that’s got to be better than a video Timelapse. Certainly more control.

So I’m taking the Manfrotto Compact Action tripod and pairing that with the GoPro Hero 11. Then using the Manfrotto Pixi Mini tripod with an adapter to hold the iPhone 13 Pro.

All of this kit needs to be transported safely (especially the 600mm lens) so I’m using a Peli 1535 Air, which is basically the old 1510 but only 40% of the weight. Here’s how it looks at the moment. I’ll pack socks and so forth around all the spaces using dry bags with the air sucked out. They make great foam inserts!

So, I’m about as sorted as I can be.