Solar Eclipse Photography

birdshooter

I've been getting ready for the solar eclipse on August 21st. I've built my own solar filter by buying the solar film from Thousand Oaks Optical and cutting the thin film with a razor knife the size of my filter 77mm. The UV filters are fairly cheap and the solar film is sandwiched between the two UV filters. Putting this solar filter on a 300mm lens and then trying to focus is not easy. I have to manually focus first, thn tape the focus ring down and then reinstall the solar filter. I found that ISO:200, f/11 at 1/500s gives me a pretty good image of the sun, bright orange ball. I tried to use a ND4 ND6 filter but it was not dense enough and the sun was too bright. I'd love to hear other combinations of camera, lenses and settings.

David_S85

Hello, birdshooter, welcome to the DGrin! Yes, don't mess around trying to cobble other filters together. You need to cut the light by 1/100,000ths, and also cut out the UV and other non-white light to be safe. Thousand Oaks is the way to go.

Just FYI, we already have a thread going on the eclipse over in the Other Cool Shots forum.
https://dgrin.com/discussion/261166/the-2017-total-solar-eclipse-over-usa-on-aug-21-resource-thread#latest

Allen

I also just bought the 8x8 black polymer sheet from Thousand Oaks. I have to cover a 500 so starting with 10x10 piece of cardboard, cutting ~6 in hole in middle, taping polymer sheet to it. Then gluing a collar/cylinder to back so I can slip over lens cap. This will on before and after but removed at totality. I hear glasses are not needed at totality so why would filter on camera be needed then. Problem is, a whole new game, figuring out exposure without filter.

Luckily I'm in St. Louis so have many choices of spots. Might go to my daughters as it's 2m 15s totality there. That's driving past the 2m 40s spot but lots more private, what's 25sec, and I can stay overnight to avoid traffic.