CCATP_2026_09_14

[music] Well, it's that time of the week again. It's time for Chitchat across the pond. This is episode number 841 for September 14th, 2026. And I'm your host, Allison Sheridan. This week, our guest is the lovely Steve Sheridan. Here to talk about the technology behind how he captured and produced an amazing short video of the total solar eclipse we witnessed in Spain this year. Welcome back to the show, Steve. Well, it's good to be back, Allison. It's been way too long. I I should come on more often. You know, it was funny. We were uh I was asking uh Siri when the last time Steve was on, and uh he hasn't been on Chitchat across the pond in a long time, but back in 2019, I know number 741, you did a segment on how you captured the solar eclipse we saw in Chile, which was also very cool. But this year, you really took things up a notch. We're going to get into all of the details of the cameras and the software you used and how you mixed it all together, but I want to start with what your vision was for this particular solar eclipse before we got started. >> Yeah. So, you know, I'd like to have a goal for uh what I'm trying to achieve for the video that I'm shooting. And this one was basically to get the uh the three major phases of the eclipse and also to get the sun setting u because it's still partially eclipsed. Um, so and it was a short eclipse. It was only um a minute and 95 seconds of totality. >> I think it was a total of 95. >> Oh, I'm sorry. You're right. 95 seconds. A minute 35 total. So really things have to be in place. You don't have a lot of time to mess around with cameras and setup. >> Now to be fair, the one how long was the one we saw in Texas? We've spent a fortune to get to to uh uh Austin and see the eclipse. And how long did we actually witness totality? I think it was less than 5 seconds due due to cloud cover basically and the clouds opened up briefly while it was in totality and then closed up again. [laughter] >> Yeah, that was the shortest one we've seen yet. But technically we did see it which makes this was our fifth solar eclipse, right? >> That's right. Five. So I think we can officially be labeled as eclipse chasers. And and by the way, a sixth one, the annular eclipse in Utah. Don't forget that one. >> Yeah, we could count that one. So, back on creating this this uh video, you wanted to get particular phases. Explain what the phases of the eclipse are that you wanted to capture. >> Yeah. So, there's the partial phase where the the moon is just partially covering the sun or the the shadow I should say. Uh the shadow of the moon on the sun. Wait, am I looking at this right? [laughter] >> No, the moon is between us and the sun. >> Correct. Yeah. So the moon is blocking us. So >> we're in the shadow. >> It's really not the shadow, but we're in the shadow. So the moon blocking us. Uh partial means that part of the sun is showing still. But as you approach um totality, there's a special phase called the diamond ring where it's just a sliver of the of the sun's outer surface and a very thin crescent with a very bright spot where the sun is still shining through. So it's like the corona plus a bright spot which looks like a diamond ring. What what causes that effect? >> Um, well, it's just it's so bright in that one spot that is still uh totally visible, not blocked at all, but >> it's just what's left. It's not because of a crater on the moon or anything like that. >> No, it's it's just what's left of the crescent and it slowly gets smaller and smaller and smaller until it's just a a bright dot almost. >> Okay. So, that's called the diamond ring and you see one as it goes into totality and then you get totality. Correct. And that's what lasted in this case only 95 seconds. And then you see the same thing coming out on the other side. The o equal and opposite diamond ring effect as it uh >> kind of a it makes it even flashier. You know that you get to see this effect as it as it goes in and out. And then in our case, like you said, it was going to be setting while it was still eclipsed. And we saw that down >> uh yeah, sorry, partially eclipsed. And we saw that down in Chile. It went behind a mountain, which was a really cool effect. But what I'm forgetting was it, but it was just on the horizon here, right? >> Yeah, there was a a set of hills in the distance. I wouldn't call it a mountain, but um you could see it definitely set a clear line of sight to the horizon. So, it was a clear shot of the sunset. >> Okay. All the way down. >> You wanted to get all of that, but >> anybody [clears throat] can take a video of that with a big enough zoom lens, but you you actually went after this with four cameras. And again, we're going to get into the details of what each one does, but what what were the the four types of cameras you were going to go for? >> Yeah. So, uh, the first main one was the camcorder to zoom in on the Eclipse. The second was the DJI Osmo Pocket 3, and that was basically set up for audience reaction. The third was a GoPro, and there I'm trying to get an effect called shadow bands, which we can talk about later, and maybe the uh the shadow of the eclipse as it swept across the ground. And then the last was an Insta 360 full 360 camera stationary. >> Right. So this is what's going to make it more complicated to produce. But what I think really created something unusual from this. Before we get into the uh the details, which is is a lot of fun and obviously the nerd part that we all love. Um, explain why it's so extraordinary that we have eclipses because eclipses don't exist to total eclipses of the sun from the moons of other planets don't happen. Is that right? Not like we have here. We just have a an incredible coincidence that the distance from the the moon from the earth to the moon compared to the distance from the earth to the sun is 400 times closer. The moon is 400 times closer to us than the sun. but it's also 400 times smaller in diameter. So they just happen to match up at almost precisely the same size. Now that varies a little bit depending on how far the moon is away from us and it does follow an ellipse, not a circle, but most of the time it's almost identical to the sun's apparent size and therefore you get a just perfect covering of the sun with the moon. >> So that's why we were able to see an annular eclipse was because the moon was closer right >> farther from us. >> Shoot, farther. I always >> it appeared smaller. >> I get it backwards every single time. So, it was farther away. So, it appeared smaller. So, it left a ring. And with that, you can't look at the eclipse because that's still way too bright. It'll burn your eyes out. >> You cannot look at an eclipse solar eclipse unless it's in totality, at least safely, with your eyes. >> Um, and an annular still has it's uh still has a ring of the actual sun surface showing and it's bright. >> It's amazing how bright it is outside with just a small amount of the sun showing. Even like the diamond ring, it's still it's darker, but it's still bright outside. Bright enough that you could read. And >> nothing nothing's like the total eclipse. Now, if the moon was closer, same size, but a lot closer, it would completely obscure it, which wouldn't might not be as interesting either. >> Yeah, you can get pretty close. Um, I mean, we don't, the moon never gets close enough in our case to obscure the beauty of what we call the corona, which is the surrounding atmosphere surrounding the the sun. And that's pretty large. It it's the glowing stuff that you can safe safely look at when the sun's main disc is blocked, >> right? >> Then what you see is a glowing corona. And normally you can't see it. The sun's too bright. That's big. So even if the moon were 10% bigger, you'd probably still see >> it's part of the corona. Maybe 5% bigger. >> But again, we're we're special in our solar system at least. >> Yeah. And and at this point in time, because the moon is gradually getting farther and farther away. >> Okay. So not anytime soon though, right? >> No. Millions of years. [laughter] >> All right. So, one of the pieces that makes all of this work is that you packed uh two tripods in your luggage to be able to hold the camcorders. And um you're smart enough and traveled enough that you knew not to put any of these expensive cameras in your check luggage, but the tripods had to fit in check luggage. And then what happened, Steve? And then uh Iberia Airlines I won't say lost. They forgot to fly our luggage from uh LAX to Spain. >> Yeah. Yeah. So >> five. [laughter] >> Sorry. >> So we did not have that luggage for the first five days of our trip. And that was about how I think it was day five when the eclipse occurred. Maybe day six. >> Yeah. I think it was the day before the eclipse that we finally uh got the luggage. But we were we were sweating bullets. I mean, you can wash your underwear in the sink or something. You can get by with that, but how do you do this video without those tripods? >> Yeah, you have to have a stable stable platform, and tripod's the only way to do it e easily. And without tripods, I wasn't going to get the shots I needed. Luckily, we were able to uh skip a a tour, a walking tour, I think, in Madrid, and we found a uh giant department store was really cool that had everything. And they had exactly two tripods. One one big one that would hold your camcorder. And what was the second one was our idea was that for the >> That one I think we used for the uh the Insta 360. >> Okay. Because that one was a little more important to get up. >> No, no, I'm sorry. No, for the Osmo Pocket 3. >> Okay. Okay. So, we bought those two and uh as it turned out, you got this the second two tripods and that actually gave you more flexibility to do even more because you ended up with a uh a plethora of tripods by the time we got there. >> Yes, plenty of tripods. >> All right, so let's build this up now. Um the setup, we saw the eclipse on the top of the main building of a winery, which was a cool place to do it while Steve is >> not that place. [laughter] >> No. And it was a private party, so there was only 30 or so of us there. And uh we were on the top of the building and plus we had wine, so that was cool. You didn't end up take partaking of much, but I just sat back and watch you work and sip some nice wines. Um, but anyway, being on the roof, there was there was this nice patio where they told you everybody was going to be standing and that you could go out on the on the rock covered roof and put your cameras in place and and you wouldn't be bothered. It didn't quite turn out the way we expected. >> That's what they told me. [laughter] >> Well, they also allowed Jean Luke, our resident astronomer, to be out there with me, >> right? >> The two of us were allowed to be on the roof, >> but anarchy ensued later. But anyway, so let's start with the uh camcorder. What describe what your camcorder is and why this was the right tool for the first job. >> So this is what I would call a proumer camcorder is Panasonic. I'll I'll go ahead and say the the number HC WXF991 and its feature uh well it's a 4K camcorder and it zooms 25 to1 and I really wanted that zoom and I wanted that resolution. So, it's perfect for zooming in on the eclipse and getting a full frame. >> Right. Now, you you did not put that anywhere near the crowd. >> No. So, that's the one where you do not want any blockage. You don't want anyone walking in front of that. So, I went to the farthest edge of the building that I could go. And by the way, no railings on this rooftop. So, you had to be a little careful about how you're walking around, especially when it got dark. >> Yeah. By the way, when it gets dark, it gets dark. It's like nighttime. >> Yeah. It's It's Yeah, it's like night. So, I put it at the far edge where no one could walk between because that was the edge of the building. Set it up on the the biggest tripod we had, your Manfrtto, the one that had to go in the suitcase. >> Replacing the one that you forgot in Chile, but we won't bring that up yet again. >> No. >> And just and just set that up. Um, and it's it was very stable. A little bit of a challenge since the the roof of this building had rocks all over it. So, I had to kind of settle the legs of the tripod into the rocks. But once once I got that in, it was fine. >> Not little pebbles. They're like two, three inch diameter rocks. >> Yeah. River rocks. Smooth, but still rocks. >> Now, there's a trick to actually figuring out where to point the camcorder. >> Yeah. Um, since I don't want to be moving the camera while the eclipse is occurring, I just want a steady frame and and let the let the sun travel through it. I had to make sure that during the eclipse and a little bit before for the diamond ring and and after for the diamond ring that it could travel the distance through that frame without leaving it and have the totality period roughly in the center. So basically the way you do that is you measure how much time it takes for the sun to travel across the frame at and this also depends on your zoom. Uh get that time and then cut that in half and you know that's when to start the beginning of your eclipse run where you just hit record and let it be and uh you know it'll travel halfway across totality occurs in the middle and then it'll travel out but you'll catch both diamond rings. I was glad to see you used elapse time adder, my little app to calculate some of that. >> I did. >> Now, the other advantage of doing that is you got to enjoy the eclipse, >> right? So, I'm not having to aim or or you know, hit record. Everything is free running at that point. There is one there is one manual step before and after totality which we can talk about, but other than that, it's it's hands off. >> Yeah, it's it's a good time for that part. >> Okay. So, when you're shooting uh the sun, you you need to use a solar filter, whether it's your eyes or a camera that's zoomed in. A real wide frame camera, real wide angle. Um, you could damage a lens, but it's it's harder to because you're not getting a lot of focus light, but >> probably the sensor you'd damage. You could I mean, but you've taken pictures of the sun before with an iPhone and you don't damage it just by a photo, right? But if you're staring at it, >> right, >> with a long video, that could damage it over time. Anyway, so I I have a case where I would damage the uh my sensor immediately with a 25 to one zoom. So solar filter is required anytime the sun has any of the surface exposed. That means right up to the diamond ring. However, when when you have the solar filter on, you don't get the diamond ring effect. What you see is the sliver, just the sliver and no glowing bright diamond >> because so much is being uh filtered out on purpose. >> Right. Right. And so, right before the sliver goes to nothing, you pull off the solar filter or in my case, screw it off and then you boom, you get the diamond ring effect. It's not enough sunlight to to hurt your lens because it it's a minimal amount and it's brief. It's seconds, not, you know, minutes. So that way you can capture the diamond ring totality. Also, you don't need a filter. You don't want a filter. You wouldn't see anything if you had one. And then as it comes out of totality and the other diamond ring starts forming, you let that let that view go for a few seconds and then you got to put back the the solar filter. So, you're taking a little bit of a risk, but it's worth it. That's one of the main reasons you own that camera is to get this. >> Yeah. Yeah. And and I've done this before, and it hasn't damaged my my sensor in uh in any previous camera. So, I'm pretty sure that the time I the time that I'm exposing the sensor and the amount of light is okay. >> Okay. Now, did you record any audio with the camcorder? >> I did. Um, I I recorded audio with all of the cameras as I recall. Um, I didn't use very much of it, but there are times there are clips from each of the cameras where I use some audio. There was one camera where I used mostly its audio for the entire >> and there's an advantage in editing too of having the audio on every one of these cam camcorders. >> Yeah. So, in this case, our group was a little spread out and we're walking on rocks. Um, now as the eclipse is occurring, I wasn't doing much walking, but other people by the location of my other cameras were doing some walking. And so I I had to get some audio that had that minimized that rock effect because it was in some cases drowning out the u the audience reaction that I was trying to pull out >> in the audio. >> But when you're when you put all of the video from all of the cameras into your editing tool, doesn't the audio helps you line it up, right? Yeah, very important point. If so, the audio um has features in it on all of the cameras, even though they're positioned differently, that the editor I'm using, Final Cut Pro, can take that audio, that audio, and synchronize all of those clips. Bring >> So, the video lines up because you have the audio. >> Yes, it uses the audio to synchronize the video. >> Okay. Now, you brought a boom mic for the camcorder. Um, but you didn't end up using that. >> Yeah. What my goal, my idea was to take the boom mic and fa face it backwards to where all the people were standing behind the camera because they weren't in front. But it turns out it was quite a distance and I had a lot of um >> had a lot going on. >> I had a lot going on. I had a lot of mics closer to the audience where I'd get better audio. >> Right. >> So, I didn't really use the boom mic. >> You've used the boom mic, I think, at uh Mac stock to get the audience when the audience is talking. Yeah, a lot of times the audience when they ask questions, they're not miked and so you can miss those questions when they're asking the presenter. So, I try to catch catch that audio with a boom mic facing towards the audience. >> Okay. All right. So, we've got the camcorder got some audio from it, but maybe not the best audio. Uh, what's the next camera you want to talk about? >> The next one, which is now my new favorite camera and the one we use for CES and other uh trade shows, is the DJI Osmo Pocket 3. very compact uh camera on a it's made by DJI, the same company that does the drones. And and in fact, the camera looks similar to the ones they put on their drone. I'm sure there was some cross fertilization of that technology. And so this thing um I had positioned stationary closer to the audience where one I could was basically stationary pointing at them so I could see their reaction, capture their reaction. And then and it's got really good picture quality, good low light um sensitivity, >> which is important during an eclipse. >> Very important. Yes. Um and very in high resolution. But it also has a remote mic feature, so I could place the mic even closer to the audience and really get their their their reaction, which I which is then uh picked up by the the Pocket 3. So, you put the Pocket 3 on the second best uh tripod, the newly purchased. Thank you to Iberia Airlines, which by the way, they did pay us back for. But then what did you how did you balance the remote mic? Cuz the remote mic's like an inch by an inch and a half or two inches. It's a little bitty thing. >> Yeah, I I think I just taped that down somewhere. Or did I have >> According to your notes, it says we were It was on a mini tripod, the second one that we bought. >> That's right. It was the smallest tripod we bought. >> Yeah, we thought that that was going to be for one of the cameras, but since you ended up having four camcord or four tripods, sorry, it was perfect to hold up the uh the little remote mic. >> That's right. And it did a great job with that. >> Yeah, that was that was really good. If it weren't for the rocks, it would have been even better. But, uh, the astronomer's son, Max, is a lot of fun. Great kid. He thought it was really fun to take the rocks and hit them on each other so you can hear like right before the eclipse you're hearing bam bam bam and he's actually smashing rocks right in front of the the microphone. So that was cool. Um but anyway that was uh he was having fun and it I think it adds to it actually. So all right so the DJI cos pocket 3 is getting the audience reaction. Now let's let's talk about this this uh shadowban thing. Yeah, shadow bands is a interesting effect and it's doesn't come across very easily. It it has to it can be seen only under certain conditions. Um but it happens during total solar eclipses when the sun is just going into that very thin crescent phase and there's just a sliver of light. Sun is still showing. But when you have something that is so narrow in light coming through a turbulent atmosphere, you can start to see the distortion of the atmosphere as it plays as it bends the light waves, the very thin light waves that are striking the ground. Now, you normally don't see this because the sun's got width to it and that distortion gets blended together because of the width of the sun. It's it's got a whole bunch of different paths that the light >> coming through a slit almost >> coming through a slit and then you can start to see the the bands the shadow band dark light wavy bands on the ground uh kind of rippling by due to the atmospheric distortion uh or waves in the atmosphere causing t causing that uh light bending. >> I think the first time I ever saw that was in your video from a Chile. We didn't notice it in real time I don't think. Yep. We saw it later. >> But you're looking at going, "Wait a minute. What is that?" And you showed John. >> I had to look it up. >> Yeah. You showed John Luke and he's like, "Oh my gosh, you caught shadow bands. That's really cool." >> Alex Filipenko was really interested in that effect, too. He wanted me to show send that video to him. >> He's our favorite astronomer from UC Berkeley that we're going to be traveling with soon. But, uh, >> yeah. >> Okay. So, in order to try to capture that, what camera did you use? So, I had the GoPro Hero 5 set up there for a couple purposes. One was it was pointed down maybe 10° on the edge of the roof looking at a down at a very flat area uh which was driveway concrete. Um it also >> perpendicular to the sunset. You were headed I think north and the sunset was to the west obviously. >> Yes. Yeah. 90 degrees to how the sun was setting and basically try to capture those shadow bands coming across the concrete. But um a couple thing well also I was trying to get um let me back up the the Hero the GoPro has a very wide field of view at least the mode I was in. So you could also capture the horizon and possibly capture the shadow of the sun set. >> How fast was that shadow moving on this eclipse? >> Too fast for me to capture. 8,000 mph [laughter] for this one. It it varies depending on the geometry, but this was a fast one. >> Yeah. Jeanluke did part did a lecture he does a lecture series on these trips and uh he explained why and the distortion shape of the eclipse as it was coming across and that was the fastest anyone has come across. I think we saw we saw the shadow when we were in Bend, Oregon. We were in front of a giant uh valley and we saw it come across the mountains right towards us and that was that was cool. Yeah, you have to have the right geography um and I guess slow enough shadow to to actually see it. I I I don't think we had time to really see it. And I looked on the video and I couldn't really see it. Although I could see regions that were dark and light, but I couldn't see it on the ground. It it did capture the fact that we were at going into sunset and into darkness, but you had you had one big reason that you couldn't get the shadow bands. >> Yeah. Um much to my dismay, um this winery has very bright I think H hallogen lights on the building shining down on the concrete when it gets dark automatically turning on. So that washed out any chance of seeing shadow bands >> when you set it up. There weren't any lights. >> No lights at all. Yeah. In fact, that that's one of my complaints that I wish they could have turned all the lights off both upstairs where the wine in the patio was where we were located and and down below. >> Yeah, that might be a suggestion for for future eclipse trips. the uh I tried to convince Steve that he tell that he should tell everybody that he did get the shadow bands because you could see a flickering effect of these H hallogen lights on the ground. >> That was the interference between the shutter and the uh the lights >> but too fast. No, he wanted to be pure. So yeah, I think you got a little bit of some added value to that with the sunset showing because it you do use some of that video and there was audio again for the sinking. But, uh, probably another really fun part of it, not probably, but definitely another fun part of what you ended up producing was you had a, uh, an Insta 360 X3 camera. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, this is the first time I've used this camera to film an eclipse. So, this this truly does capture in one shot, either a photo or a video, a full 360 degree view of the world, of the environment. And it's not just 360 around, it's also above and below. It's so it's really from an engineering perspective it's four pi st radians of volume that's >> spherical >> that's a spherical collection of of the environment and that is that is nice from a couple perspectives one um >> puns included >> yes several perspectives one one is that you can um you can process that 360 video into more traditional rectangular segments but anywhere you want as that when that video is is being recorded you can go back and say okay I want to see what happened over here now let's shift over here you and um make a 16 by9 I don't know it's 4K but a high-res video post you know post editing or during editing as opposed to while you're shooting >> so in that case you don't know where it's going to be as interesting and so you you basically have all choices part of the cool thing of the Insta3 360 is it's it's two hemispherical lenses and the software stitches it together into uh a perfect sphere and it even erases its own tripod. It knows what its tripod looks like so it erases that too and sort of fills it in. Right. >> Yeah. And it can do that because the hemispherical lenses actually um they can see out a bit from the camera down, you know, all around the camera a a few degrees. So there's overlap between those two cameras on the stitch points and that overlap allows them to remove unwanted objects from perspective. They can tell what is not really part of the scene and what is >> I didn't think about it. That gap between them is an advantage, not a not a disadvantage. >> It's really not a gap. It's an overlap. >> Right. Right. >> It's an overlap of the lenses. And now the one thing it didn't remove or can't really easily remove are the feet at the bottom of that pole trip that it's really not a tripod. It's a pole with three little feet that stick out at the bottom. >> Were you nervous at all about people knocking that one over? >> Especially on these rocks. I I basically had to dig a spot out and plant those three feet and put some rocks on top. And even then it it's a little flimsy. >> And one one disadvantage of the placement we need it needed to be close to the people because in a 360 camera since it's for Pyister Radian, people get really teeny unless they're super close. And a couple of people ended up walking right in front of it. But uh I don't know it's it still works. You you definitely get the feel of the environment I think with that. >> So that's one use of the the uh Insta 360. But another maybe even more uh nifty use is capturing the entire 360 video and uploading that to a site that can process and handle and and play 360 video. And what those sites like YouTube can do is allow the user to pick the viewing direction with either with their cursor on a computer and change the viewing direction in real time as the video is playing. So I want to look over here, I want to look over there, or if you're on a mobile device, you basically say an iPhone, you just move the iPhone around to the direction you want to view as the video is playing. It's it's a pretty nifty feature. >> Very cool. We're going to get into a little bit of the tricky bit that you had to do in order to edit that video. So I should spoil a little bit. There are two videos. Uh one is the compilation of all the different sources that he have and the other one is the 360 video. But that turned into a whole whole computing challenge too. So I want to talk about the uh compilation video because this was really impressive that it's really easy to make a long boring video. That's really easy. What's hard to do is to make something crisp and short and compelling and uh as Bart said when he described your video, it told a story. So, you managed to take this amazing experience and get it down to two and a half minutes. >> So, it's [clears throat] not something that anybody's going to click away from because it's only two and a half minutes and the good part's right there in the middle. So, let's start talking about how you did this. >> Yeah. So I basically I brought in the video from all four cameras into Final Cut Pro on a Mac Mac M1 Studio and um did my editing with Final Cut. Uh again I think I mentioned that Final Cut can synchronize all those videos and you form something called a multicam clip and then later you can edit that clip. But um uh and again it just uses the audio to synchronize across the full the full duration of all the videos. I think Wally Cherinsky taught you about that, right? >> He he may have he may have brought it to my attention first and then I don't know if he actually taught it. >> He told you it existed. >> Yes. And then I dug around and that solved a lot of my problems. I didn't even know Final Cut can do that. It was in the early days when they were just adding this feature to Final Cut. >> Okay. So, I heard the video and audio. I I heard the audio from the video over and over and over again as you were you were doing the editing. So that's the creative process, right? >> Yeah. So yeah, the creative process is knowing or deciding when to cut from one camera view to another because you've got all the views available, but when do you want to see one view versus another? And it it was clear that I had some stakes in the ground which were the uh the diamond ring coming in to totality, totality itself, and then the diamond ring coming out. Those had to be captured because that's the show. >> That's that's the big event. >> Um but I didn't have to stay on the the total eclipse for its duration. For instance, I wanted to show I I had a couple shots of just the horizon to show how dark or light it was. So, I showed the horizon with I think the GoPro just a couple second clip to so you could see it's starting to get dark, but it's still twilight. Then I had during totality I cut over to the same shot, but now it's dark. Now you can see the effect >> cuz if you're just looking at the eclipse, it doesn't tell the whole story. You want to see the environment, too. You want to see the people and hear the people. So, I I would go back and forth depending on what might be interesting to the viewer, what I think might be interesting. >> I think part of what you captured too again with the uh I think it was the GoPro was that it was suns setting >> cuz when you go into an eclipse you the sunsets basically. >> Yeah. Very fast sunset [laughter] near not immediate but pretty fast. >> Now, I don't think you captured how cold it gets. That's I'd like you to add that next. >> Okay. Maybe smell of vision, too. So you you set all of these switch points and you're doing this by you've got four views in like four tracks at the same time and then a a main track that you're clipping. >> Yeah, Final Cut does it pretty well. They they um the editor shows you four thumbnail shots of one of each of the cameras and uh and as you play you see all of them moving and then there's the main viewer which is which of those shots have you selected for your final your final edit and switching between them is a matter of just clicking a button on which of those four you want with your cursor. You just click this one. Now I want this one. Now I want that one. And you have the ability to select either just switching video or just switching the audio or switching both. >> And so I kept the audio. I didn't switch too much because I wanted the good audio from that uh Pocket 3 with the remote mic. >> I did add some other audio but from the other cameras, but most of it was from the Pocket 3, but I did a lot of the video switching. So, it's only a two and a half minute video and the eclipse was 95 seconds in totality. Did you keep the whole 95 seconds? >> No, I didn't. Um, and typically this is more important for a longer eclipse, but I do a time lapse, you know, in this case, I think it was a 4:1 uh speed up of the video um compressed at 4:1 so that the the 90 seconds was more like 20 seconds or 30 seconds, I forget. So I did not do that with the diamond ring forming coming in and out. I kept that real time. But as soon as I reached totality, not a lot is happening. So there what you would see as as uh as I sped it up 4 to one, you could start to see the actual sun moving across the frame, which is kind of a neat effect. >> I think you did it gently enough that I didn't I didn't notice. And it's because you did cut away a couple of times in the middle of even that 20 seconds, but it really captured the again, it's the feeling and the reaction of the people and the audio is what makes it too is you just hear people >> gasping as they see it. I mean, it's a screaming in joy and delight is just so emotional. >> Yeah. There's a crescendo as you reach totality and everyone just whoops and hollers and claps and whistles. It's it's a great view. And then at the end when when the total eclipse is over and you've come out of the diamond ring and people kind of sense that it's done, there's also usually applause and a lot of discussion. It was fun to capture that, too. >> Now, you actually threw some music in too. >> Yeah. I um there were um there were two songs that I thought complimented the parts of the eclipse and one was uh during the totality phase itself and I so I just timed it. Basically, I had the audience reaction, faded that as as they were done with the whooping and wall hollering uh into the the music and then brought their audio back as it came out of totality because they're starting to >> talk again and laugh and not laugh but >> applaud. There's there's glee. >> There's glee. Yeah, I guess there is some laughing. Enjoyment. And then as the sun set because you close the video with the sun with the eclipse setting and by this time we're all drinking wine again. >> Yeah. So I do a cut and then I I think this was um about 50 minutes later I cut to the sun setting. It's got a maybe a quarter of it is still partially eclipsed but I speed that up as well. I don't know if that was 401. And so you can actually see the sun setting with this bite taken out of it coming right down below the horizon with another song approach. >> An interesting effect happened that there there have been fires in Spain and so there was a the smoke in the air didn't bother our view of the eclipse at all but as it set in the sun it was actually darker than you would expect. So you took the solar filter off for the sunset part. >> Yeah. I and you know when the sun is setting um it is naturally darkened quite a bit enough that most people can actually look at a sunset. >> Yeah. You think about it you do right you watch and so your camera can take it too. And in this case it really I had to turn up the sensitivity a little bit because the sun was so dark due to the fires from the the smoke from the fires. Um, and I think that that may have knocked down as well the corona during the totality phase. Normally the corona is a little brighter than I than I saw this time. >> That occurred to me just more recently. I was looking at this corona. It's not as bright and I think it might have been due to the the haze from the >> Yeah. >> the fires. >> Yeah. Because in in Chile it was it was pretty dramatic. But we did see something that was even cooler during the during the eclipse. explain what that was. >> Yeah, we saw what I think is the largest solar prominence or solar flare that we've ever seen on an eclipse. You know, this is a perfect chance. In fact, astronomers use total solar eclipses for studying the sun, but this is a chance to see the outer surface really more the atmosphere of the sun and when they are there are prominences that loop out with falling magnetic fields >> and those >> what is it? It's plasma coming out, right? >> Yeah. Yeah. It's it's superheated plasma, millions of degrees in in temperature. Um several times larger than Earth. >> I believe Jeanluke said 10 times the this diameter of of the Earth was how big that >> particular one. Yeah, it it really stood out. It's like I said, largest we we had seen during the eclipse. >> It was interesting. He estimated that while standing on the roof and then I went and I read some other astronomer saying the same thing that it was 10 times the size of the Earth. So, uh, his his thumb width view of it apparently was accurate. >> Yeah. >> So, that's the that to me is the big show is your 2 and a half minute video. But you also produced a video of the 360 uh cameras view and this one took a real nerdy turn in the middle creating this one. >> Yeah. Um, and and it was for a small reason, but so when you do this 360 video, there's kind of a reference angle. the the reference pointing angle and it's one of the perpendicular angles of one of the two lenses. I forget which one. And that happened to be pointed 90 degrees to where the eclipse was occurring. And although with a 360 you could resteer it and see the eclipse, I wanted that to be the initial viewing angle of this 360 video. So I had to find a way to rotate this this 360 video by 90 degrees. You used to do that in the Insta3 software, didn't you? >> Well, yeah. I tr they say you can do that in Insta3. I attempted it, but YouTube did not recognize. And by the way, YouTube is where I put these videos where I host the video, but uh YouTube was not recognizing the uh default initial angle. It was not behaving. And I don't know why. There may have been a trick I wasn't doing correctly. So there's another option, but it involves a lot of work. And that is so think of the pointing angle as something that's in the metadata of the video. Something that just says instead of starting with the natural angle, start here for the viewer. >> Okay. >> Uh the the other way to do it is actually rotate the video by the desired amount and just have it start where it would naturally start in terms of viewing angle. same viewing angle, but you moved all of the data. >> Yes. And I I didn't know how to do this, but I I thought there was a way to do this. So, brought in my nifty um large language model. I think it was perplexity. >> Uhhuh. >> And uh started asking it how how do you rotate one of these videos? And that's when I got a little deeper than I had intended. I was so happy when I came into your office and I saw you in Homebrew installing something and you've never installed homebrew before. This is all command line utility people, folks. So, this is he's typing terminal commands to do this. So, you installed Homebrew and then uh what what uh what tool did it have you install? >> Yeah, so Homebrew gave me access to some tools that I needed to do this rotation of the video. And one was XF tool, which I think allows you to get access to the XF data, the metadata on the video. >> Yeah, that works with photos and video. And I've used that before. By the way, anybody who doesn't know what Homebrew is, it's essentially like an app store, but you don't buy anything. It's for command line tools, but you go once you install Homebrew, you can say brew install XIF tool. >> And it's a little on the nerdy side. I wouldn't recommend it for a little >> someone who who's just starting out. So, this was performing a coordinate transformation and how many frames did it go through to to rearrange it? >> Um, so even though this was a short video, it had uh I think it was 5,000 frames. >> Wow. >> That it had to rotate. And this is 360 degrees of video. So, it's >> four rad of videos. >> It's twice the the twice the number of pixels as you'd see in a 4K video. Wow. like it like two two four or 5K videos worth of data for each frame. >> Okay, >> so it's doing a trans a coordinate transformation of 90 degrees for every pixel of those 5,000 frames and that really uh exercised my uh Mac Studio. >> You always like using um IAP menus to watch your processes processors and they were they were chewing away. Yeah, I think I've got 10 uh core CPUs and it took 12 13 minutes of to the rails of CPU processing to complete that coordinate transformation and and it was a two and a half minute video made three minute. >> So when it was done it was it was perfect. >> Yeah, it did exactly >> No, it wasn't. There was more to do. >> Well Well, okay. I mean this was part of this was part of what uh Perplexity told me to do. >> Okay. But what you know after it does this rotation what um apparently this uh XF tool strips off the XF data that it that the original video had and um so you need to reapply that XF data the metadata to the video and uh so there's another FFmpeg tool that allows you you know through through the terminal that allows you to grab the metadata from the first video and reapply it to the second. Now there are a couple there are a couple parameter changes because of the new angle I believe >> but most of that data doesn't change. >> So what kind of data was missing that you had to put back? >> Um you like yaw pitch roll whether stitching is applied what is the audio type uh what's the projection that parameters that you get with a 360 video. So, this was not as creative as an endeavor, but it definitely stretched your your brain in learning new things, right? >> Yeah. This video was just intended to give the viewer uh a chance to play with it, play with the video and look in any direction they want during an eclipse. >> And that one came out really cool. It's actually a little longer. I think it's three and a half minutes long, >> right? because I I wanted to capture a little more of the beginning and end where it's starting to get dark and it's starting to get light again. So, I think it was about three and a half. >> So, you did do editing. You did edit it down, but it wasn't all this mixing of different uh cameras and microphones and so which mic audio did you use? >> I think I I think I stayed with the Insta 360 audio. >> Okay. Okay. >> And which wasn't bad. It's not as good as the X3, the Pocket 3. >> Wow. So, with all this, uh, one of the things I'm always, uh, harping on you for is to make sure you backed things up. I think it was a couple of days later. In fact, we might have already been in Ireland by the time I said, "So, Steve, do you have a copy of that video yet?" >> Yeah, that was a little late, but better late than never. So, we we learned this uh lesson on another trip. >> Yeah. You always want to back up your v your your critical videos and photos and whatever you've taken and have independent copies that don't live together, that don't stay together. When we were in uh Peru on our way back from we'd done Machu Picchu and we done uh the Galopagos, uh the last thing we did before we got on the plane was I had Steve give me his backup drive and I gave him mine and his backpack got stolen that had his original all of his original audio in it and video in it and and photos. And back then I don't think we had iCloud photos or anything like that. and I had a a GoPro, so that wasn't on right cloud. >> But because we had backed it up, we we uh and it was se in a separate bag. It worked. So this time you downloaded to your Mac, which gave you a second copy, but your Mac and your C and your cameras were all in the same bag, so I carried your backup drive again. >> Yep. Yeah. And that's would recommend that to anyone who [laughter] who treasures their video and and photos. >> Right. So, let's uh wind this up with would you say you're happy with the results and what would you do differently? >> Definitely happy with the results. I think it it was one of our best experiences and I think the video captured most of that minus some rock sounds and other things [laughter] but and people stepping in front of a camera here and there but but no big complaints with that. Um, I think the the things that um that I learned is that uh well the biggest thing that I really want to improve on is how I apply the solar filter. This is a threaded mount and it takes several turns of that of that mount to get it securely on the camera. And you're doing this at a time that's very critical. It's it's just just before things get spectacular. And it it took probably 20 seconds to screw that thing on. And then at one point I even dropped it. I think when I was >> that was putting it back on. You didn't drop it taking it off, which was good. But uh yeah, I wonder whether there's a bayonet mount or something we can get for your camera. >> Banet mount or a flap mount that just flaps closed or something. There's got to be a better way to do it. I'm sure there is. I I need to investigate that. >> Yeah, we'll have to start now before the next solar eclipse we end up going on. >> Yeah. The other thing I I think I would do is I I would adjust the video sensitivity a little more given how dark, you know, you don't really know in advance how dark it's going to be. I based this on other eclipses, >> but this one was darker >> and I think I could have maybe estimated that based on um you know how the sun was not quite as bright even when it was in full illumination with the solar filter. >> We also want to give a shout out to Jean Luke for finding such a great location. You know, there's there's people who went to Iceland to watch the eclipse and it was just all clouds. But our location, he studied places all over the planet of where it was going to be in totality and found historically 20 to 30% chance of cloud cover in that area, which doesn't sound good, but turned out to be great. Uh that that really worked out for us. >> Big big props to JeanLook. He's he's the best, and that's part of the reason we go on these trips. Plus, it was at a vineyard. >> That helped, too. It's nice to have a little wine and some snacks. Um, the lighting could have been improved, but all in all, it was a good experience. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks for coming on, Steve. I I watched how much work you did and how long it took you to do that, and I know you love doing it, but I think you really came out with something that was just fantastic. If people want to see that 2 and a half minute compilation video and the 360 version, and of course, subscribe to your videos, where would they go? Probably the best place to go is YouTube. Uh YouTube spsheridan or you just can type in spsheridan in the search bar of YouTube and my channel should come up. >> Very good. Thanks again. Uh we'll see you in another uh seven years. I guess we'll let you back on the show >> till our next eclipse. I hope it's less than that. >> I hope you enjoyed this episode of Chitchat Across the Pond. Did you notice there weren't any ads in the show? That's because this show is not adup supported. It's supported by you. If you learned something or maybe you were just entertained, consider contributing to the Podfeed podcast. 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