Totality over Laguna de los Peces

Captured on 12 August 2026 from Laguna de los Peces in Zamora, Spain, during the total solar eclipse.

I had planned every setting, every exposure and every second of the event. But when totality arrived, I found myself torn between continuing to photograph the moment I had prepared for and simply looking up.

This image combines three exposures captured moments apart to record the brighter inner corona, the fainter outer structure and the red solar prominences visible around the Moon’s edge. It was one of the frames I managed to bring home from those brief seconds of totality.

© João Machado · @jpmachado_18 · @aurabyjpmachado

Canon EOS 250D with a Canon EF 75–300mm f/4–5.6 lens at 300mm, mounted on a tripod. A three-exposure bracket was captured during totality. The solar filter was removed only for the total phase.

Three bracketed exposures were aligned and manually blended in Adobe Photoshop to retain detail across the inner and outer corona. Curves, colour balance and selective colour adjustments were used to control the brightness and preserve the visible red solar prominences. The image was then cropped and exported in sRGB. No astronomical elements were added, removed or repositioned.