Eclipse from Albuquerque

roakey

Equipment: Canon 7D, Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II (@ 200), Canon 2x EF Extender (II?), Lee filter holder and Black Polymer filter from Thousand Oaks Optical.

EXIF data attached.

Had to really crank up the ISO at Sunset. I’m very interested in how people are taking pictures with “weak ND” or no filters and not frying their equipment, since those shots are spectacular (and not noisy like mine)!

Next opportunity, total eclipse in 2017!

All I used Photoshop for is turning these into jpegs after cropping them, no other processing

First contact:


Full annular eclipse:


A hint of Baily’s beads:


At sunset, with some ground features visible:


Roger

joe-bob

Excellent!

JC

Nice shots, I like the setting one with the foreground detail.

I shot with a 400mm lens, stacking 1000x and 4x ND filters, had to take the 4x off for the last quarter of the eclipse, and drop my exposure times down from 1/3200 to 1/400, and open up my aperture a little bit. Focus set on infinity, tracking using Liveview. I wasn't worried about damaging the sensor, if you look at transmission charts, for VNIR the ND filters were reduction enough, and the internal infrared cut-off filter in front of the sensor, well, cuts off the IR. The only thing I was worried about was the shutter staring at the sun for two hours with the 400mm lens focusing the IR, and I didn't want to keep putting on and off the lens cap, so I just had a gray blanket to throw over the camera in between shots.

It's taking me a while to make my mosaics, I'll post them soon if people aren't saturated with eclipse shots yet.

Colorado CJ

Awesome shots! For filters, I used a Hitec 2.7 ND filter (9 stop I believe). That wasn't quite dark enough, so I added my 3 stop graduated ND filter to the holder, making sure to adjust the filter so the whole aperture was covered fully at F16 with the dark part of the filter.

This made for some not so great color rendition (purplish), which I fixed in post.

How expensive was that polymer filter? After shooting the sun for the first time Sunday, I think I'll start looking for a dedicated sun filter.

I'd love to get a High Alpha filter, but they are very pricey.

williaes

I guess I am either lucky or just not that worried about it. I only had my regular cheap UV filter on my D300. I haven't seen any problem with the camera since then. If it damaged anything on the sensor it hasn't shown up yet. I also used a point and shoot along with a film camera. The point and shoot appears to be fine also. Now the film camera was another story. I had what I had hoped would be great shots until I got home and needed one more shot the finish off the roll. Guess what, somewhere from loading the camera to taking shots the film never advanced past the first frame. Wasted the entire roll of film by winding it all back into the canister.

kdog

Really terrific shots, Roakey. I'm jealous you were able to get the full ring of fire. One of the best I've seen yet.

DsrtVW

I was hoping that someone would post some from NM it must have been great to have it happening at sunset. I used a Cokin 007 IR filter (50%reduction) on my D7000 with 28-300mm and shot with out filter on D300 and 200mm with 2x TC just cranked up the f stop to max and shutter to 1/8000. I have shot a lot of sunsets but just dont leave the camera between shots pointed at the sun. Used a welding filter to view through viewfinder on D300 to compose and focus

roakey

Colorado CJ wrote: »

How expensive was that polymer filter? After shooting the sun for the first time Sunday, I think I'll start looking for a dedicated sun filter.

If you've got a Lee, Cokin, etc. filter holder, a 6x6" sheet (which you cut down) is $10 plus shipping. The material is at the very bottom of this page: Thousand Oaks Optical. I actually ordered a larger sheet since it is a film and can become easily damaged -- I have replacement film for the future.

TOO carries screw-in camera lens filters for about $60, but because all they're holding is a thin, flimsy film, I didn't like the price-risk ratio, so I went with the sheet film.

I bought a 4x24x1/16" piece of "basswood" at the local hobby store, cut a 4x6" piece, hacked out the center with a razor blade, glued the filter film to it (matte side toward the lens) and it slipped in my Lee holder just fine (though it is very fragile -- I'm looking for a better solution).

The page pointed to above does have a comment about the glass and R-G solar film possibly causing internal reflections, which is why I stuck to the black polymer mounted matte side inward.

Roak

Ps. TOO is only one of many places that carry solar film -- I didn't have any strong reason to use them except they just happened to have other things I was looking for (solar observing glasses and a telescope filter).

roakey

Thanks everyone for the comments!

I had it in my head that pointing the camera at the sun for more than a millisecond (I exaggerate) = instant shutter or sensor death. Doesn't appear to be the case, which is great to know. Makes sense to stop all the way down and don't keep it pointed at the sun between shots (or, more likely, cover it up). Will have to try it next time!

Unfortunately there's no dry runs before the 2017 eclipse which has the added feature of corona photography! Guess I'll be attending many Colorado Springs Astronomical Society meetings before then to learn from those folks!

Roak

ChrisJ

These are really great shots!

I also have a Thousand Oaks black polymer solar filter, and I was able to shoot at ISO 100, f/4, 320-800ms. My lens was only 200mm (no TC), but my shots weren't noisy at all. Ah, you are a lot further East, so it was further down the horizon...