Sunset Partial Eclipse Thursday

This Thursday, October 23, a large part of the world will experience a partial solar eclipse. In my neck of the woods, the sun will be setting while in this state. I plan on having my D90 out with the 300mm f4.5 at one of my favorite sunset spots. I just hope that the skies are as clear as they have been the last two days.

If it works out photographically, please post your "Sunset Eclipse" shots for the rest of us to enjoy.

WM

Not having any ND filters, I have to hope that my old Vivitar 85-205 stopped down to its smallest aperture of ƒ22, with a shutter speed of 1/4000 of a second and ISO 100, will be sufficiently low exposure to photograph the sun. I intend to try. Probably better run in “Live View” mode rather than trying to look directly through the viewfinder.

Perhaps I'll try some test shots tomorrow, while the sun is up, just to see if it's within my available exposure range to shoot it directly.

Bob Blaylock said:

Not having any ND filters, I have to hope that my old Vivitar 85-205 stopped down to its smallest aperture of ƒ22, with a shutter speed of 1/4000 of a second and ISO 100, will be sufficiently low exposure to photograph the sun. I intend to try. Probably better run in “Live View” mode rather than trying to look directly through the viewfinder.

Perhaps I'll try some test shots tomorrow, while the sun is up, just to see if it's within my available exposure range to shoot it directly.

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Just be careful not to burn your camera's sensor... Personally, I'd advise against using live view directly towards the sun but I've been found out wrong on a few occasions before. But it's your camera after all.

Bob Blaylock said:

N Probably better run in “Live View” mode rather than trying to look directly through the viewfinder.

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Marcel said:

Just be careful not to burn your camera's sensor... Personally, I'd advise against using live view directly towards the sun but I've been found out wrong on a few occasions before. But it's your camera after all.

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Please don't use your viewfinder to shoot this event, but use your camera's LCD display in LiveView mode. When I shoot sunsets, I keep the camera in live view; it's much better to burn your sensor than your retina!! But to keep from burning either, I also keep my camera turned 90 degrees to the sun so that the majority of the time, the image of the solar disc isn't impacting either my lens or camera components. A quick turn of the camera toward the sun, with the lens set to manual focus and pre-focused to the infinity setting, lets me take a few shots before I return the camera to the 90 degree position. I'm starting my exposures at ISO 200, 1/1000 sec and f5.6 or f8 with a Nikon 300 f4.5 lens.

I did some test shots of the sun, to get some idea what I was up against.

As I feared, even with my Vivitar stopped all the way down, and the shutter speed at 1/4000″, the sun's too bright. Live View mode, I noticed afterward, imposes a minimum of 200 on the ISO rather than the 100 I thought I had set for.

There was some hazy cloud cover, not enough to conceal the sun. Some of the clouds around the sun are exposed just about right,but the sun itself is completely washed out.




I also tried using my 18-55mm “kit lens”, which can stop all the way down to ƒ36. Still too bright.




A few hours ago, I had this bit of inspiration:



A cardboard disk with a pinhole, and a bit of foam rubber to hold it in place. Will it be enough? I'll have to wait 'til the sun is up and out to test it, but here's a test I did using a luminaire in my home, same ISO, same shutter speed, one shot at ƒ22 on the lens' built-in aperture, and the other using this pinhole.



This may all be for naught. It looks like there's a good chance that it will be cloudy and rainy where I am tomorrow, denying me any view of the eclipse.

Ancient Vivitar 85-205mm ƒ3.8 zoom lens mounted to my D3200.

1/4000 of a second at ISO 100, aperture set by the crude pinhole aperture accessory that I described above, but now with an even smaller pinhole.

I'm amazed that nobody else has posted any eclipse pictures here, yet. Surely there are others here with much better equipment and techniques than I had at my disposal, and better weather conditions, who ought to have taken better pictures than I was able to take.

Anyway, here's something else interesting. Alas, I was not able to find as spectacular an example this time as I found in another eclipse some years ago, but where you have sunlight filtering through trees, the gaps between leaves and branches end up acting somewhat like the pinhole of a pinhole camera. You don't really notice it normally, but during a partial solar eclipse, the spots of light that are cast through such obstacles take on a crescent shape, reflecting the shape of the partially-eclipsed sun. This is from yesterday's eclipse…

I use Baader solar film when photographing the sun or you could use a welding mask insert, but never ever point your camera at the sun to photograph the sun with nothing even ND filters do not block out the harmful UV rays...

Bob Blaylock said:

I'm amazed that nobody else has posted any eclipse pictures here, yet. Surely there are others here with much better equipment and techniques than I had at my disposal, and better weather conditions, who ought to have taken better pictures than I was able to take.

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I was washed out by clouds and haze. There were over ten others at the beach where I went for the event and not one of us got anything.

BTW, I really like your inventiveness and problem solving!

WM

Amazing shot Scott.