Photographing the sun

Cougar281 · Mar 23, 2024

I plan on trying to take pictures of the upcoming eclipse, and have been experimenting, but I'm in a place where I'm not sure the best approach. I have a 16.6 stop ND filter and a 20 stop ND filter. I've gotten some neat pictures so far with both. The 20 stop tends to be darker (obviously) unless I use long exposure times, but using the 16.6 stop yields shorter exposure times, but they seem to still be brighter. What I've noticed is that I seem to get more detail in the form of sunspots with the 20 stop filter. The main goal is to try to make a composite of the eclipse, with multiple shots before, during and after, so technically, the sunspot detail doesn't matter all that much, but it would still be cool to capture that detail. I have some more experimenting to do, but I'm sure there are more experienced people here, so for anyone with more experience, should I go with the 20 stop filter and higher exposure time, or the 16.6 stop filter and the lower exposure time? I'm also unsure of what AEB would be best - I've tinkered with 1 stop and 2, not sure which is better... For situations like this, it would be neat if we could do more than three shot AEB - like maybe -2, -1, 0, +1, +2.. Any other tips or tricks?

I've attached two images, 1373 being with the 20 stop filter and 1295 being the 16.6 stop filter.

VidThreeNorth · Mar 24, 2024

A "topic" has been started in the forum called "Best way to capture the eclipse?" at "Beyond the Basics". If you read through that and click the links you should get some good ideas.

What camera and what lens did you use for "IMG_1373.JPG". It looks about the best. Being visibly darker, it is not "over exposed". I assume that this is the best you can do right now?

Ok, I see in the EXIF data that "IMG_1375.JPG" was taken with a Canon EOS 90D. So both the same setup?

Cougar281 · Mar 24, 2024

Yes, it's a 90D with a 70-300L F4-5.6. I've seen that B&H article, which got me started.

I'm not really sure that I could say it's 'the best I can do', I need to do more tinkering I think. Having more than 300mm (480mm on the 90D crop body) of reach probably would help some. But with what I've got to run with, it's kind of one of the better ones in terms of being able to see the sunspots so far. With solar photography, it seems to be a fine balance between being exposed 'just right' to have the sunspots visible and being 'over exposed' enough to wash them out. That was also the third shot in the AEB release, which with how my camera is set, would have been on the + side of the bracketing (It's set to 0,-,+). I don't recall if I had it set to 1 stop AEB or 2. But I did realize that the 90D can take up to seven images for AEB, so that is an option.

I attached the other two images from 1373's bracket for comparison. Again, these were shot with the 20 stop filter. I Also added IMG_1312.JPG that was shot with the 16.6 stop filter, F10, 1/800s, ISO 200, that I'd say came out similar to the 1373 image in terms of sunspot visibility, but a bit brighter. The 16.6 stop filter with ISO100 or maybe 200 and higher shutter speeds may be the ticket. I also have a BR-E1 release so I can set the camera off taking images without physically touching it or needing to use the timer release.

Technically, I'm probably over thinking this in terms of my main goal - trying to make a composite of the various stages of the eclipse. I've probably got that more or less as nailed as I can get it without actually photographing eclipses (the fun will begin at totality, switching from high stop filter to no filter and adjusting exposure) - I'd just like to try to pull as much detail as I can out of it while I'm doing it. Just because lol. But there is only so much detail and sharpness that we can get out of such imagery considering we're shooting through the atmosphere.