That 2017 eclipse photo vs the 2024 one, night and day difference

I dug out my old DSLR shots from the 2017 total eclipse in Salem and compared them to what I took this April in Kerrville, and honestly the difference is wild... the 2017 ones look like a white blob with a hole punched in it. Did anyone else notice their processing skills (or their camera gear) made a bigger jump than the actual eclipse did? What changed the most in your before and after shots?

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bell.taylor22d ago

The big one for me was learning to bracket properly. Back in 2017 I shot everything on manual with one exposure and crossed my fingers. This time I did a rapid burst of five different shutter speeds during totality and it saved my whole set. The corona has such a huge range of brightness that no single shot can catch it all, so stacking the best frames in post made the 2024 images look like they came from a different planet. My camera body was actually older and cheaper this go around, but the technique upgrade mattered way more than gear. Bad focus and blown highlights ruined half my 2017 photos, and I fixed both just by practicing on the moon for a few months beforehand. The eclipse itself is pretty similar, but the difference in what you can pull out of it is totally on the photographer.