Can I spot the sun?

 

Since the nights have been so cold and snowy - I chose a sunny day to test out the solar filter included with the Seestar. A feature I knew existed but had no interested in until I saw the sunspots in a photo I took. 

I'm honestly amazed that I was able to capture sunspots from a pretty basic experiment with the equipment. I picked a quiet parking lot of a park near a river to enjoy a 28 degree day but with the sun it felt like 70, in a relative sense compared to every other day this winter.

Calibrating the compass is no problem but I was having trouble with the leveling - you don't realize how uneven the world is until your trying to make something bubble level.  There has to be a better way than adjusting each leg and hoping you got it right and this was what I found. A leveling device that can be easily adjusted at the top of the tripod. 

For this photo, I was able to zoom in but that added complexity with the wind now being a factor so I believe that's part of the blur but as someone who's never taken a photo of the sun before - maybe it's normal.

As the sun set this evening, I left the river and drove to the shore of a lake to watch it and saw a spot where the waves lapped over the dry reeds to coat them in layers of ice. The sun was hitting them and the thinner spots were glowing that stood out against the blue water.

Right place at the right time to capture this happy seagull on the hunt. I scrambled when I noticed it's pattern and was concentrating on the moment, which made me miss the framing. I'm not even mad, this photo felt so good to take that I tried a few others in portrait.

Once again, my timing worked out to add a dynamic element with the plane appearing to fly completely vertical, and the tree branches curling randomly in the same region. 

The sun finally hit a sweet spot to spread across the horizon and lose it's perfect circle shape I had captured earlier. I had to look this up just now but with the ducks horizontally moving across the frame drawing your eyes, it's called Leading Action. Should I have centered the sun? I believe I made the right choice as the surrounding area with the fluff of the reeds and the harder edges of the tree and leaves on the opposite side is something that feels balanced to me. The ducks were a bonus and I was able to watch the sun tip over the horizon and head home.