Seeking advice on eclipse photography
- Thread starter Mark1953
- Start date
Fred Kingston
Senior Member
Fred Kingston
Senior Member
I would agree... the sun is pretty big. You don't need to amplify light, as much as reduce it's effects... sun filter
Welcome!
Please feel free to introduce yourself here - https://nikonites.com/forum/forums/new-member-introductions.35/post-thread
Please feel free to introduce yourself here - https://nikonites.com/forum/forums/new-member-introductions.35/post-thread
BF Hammer
Senior Member
Mark, I plan to use a Sigma 150-600mm lens with a full frame Z5. Based on my 2017 eclipse experience, 2000mm would be far too much if you want to capture the corona, which is kind of the point of photographing a total eclipse. If you were only going to be in a partial eclipse zone, a telescope would be an interesting way to go since you would never see the corona.
So my 2017 experience was that I was trying to do too much in a compressed amount of time. I also made some bad decisions with my setup. I intend to correct all that this time around. If the weather works out, I will be set-up on the plains of southern IL during tornado season. I could be doing thunderstorm photography instead.
So that photo is a D80 with a Nikon 70-300mm lens I no longer have. I decided I did not know how to manually focus with a tiny optical viewfinder with any accuracy, so I used autofocus (mistake) and I also set to Program Exposure mode (lack of confidence I could find good manual exposure, another mistake). Note also the lens has a problem with purple coma fringing due to the high-contrast at the edge of the moon's disk.
Among other mistakes, I had a D7000 available and a Nikon 500mm relex lens. I never seriously considered that 500mm lens due to the same manual focus concern I had. But it would have solved the purple coma fringe. I put the D7000 to duty taking a time-lapse with a wider-angle lens since it had a built-in intervalometer. Also a dumb choice. I still have the 500mm reflex lens and it is going to be put to use mounted to my D750. The camera will be set up with a telescope star-tracker mount and I will have it doing a time-lapse of the partial eclipse stages with a hand-made solar filter. It's a filter I made in 2017 that I kept around. I have practiced photographing sunspots with this setup last year. The lens is kind of soft, but it won't matter that much for the partial phase.
The primary camera setup will be a Z5, Sigma 150-600mm C, and I will use a 150mm square glass solar filter for the partial phases. The camera will be on a heavy tripod using a gimbal head so I can aim faster and easier. I nearly always plug in a remote shutter release cable when I use a tripod, and I will for this. I have also practiced photographing sunspots using this setup last year. The Sigma can make a sharp photo and I can easily use the LiveView screen to zoom in on a sunspot to micro-adjust the focus. I also learned to pick a middle-range f-stop and stick to it. Adjust shutter speed and maybe ISO in manual mode to dial in the exposure. If you stick to only adjusting one variable with the limited time during the total eclipse, it will go much better. You may even have time to enjoy just looking a few seconds.
So my 2017 experience was that I was trying to do too much in a compressed amount of time. I also made some bad decisions with my setup. I intend to correct all that this time around. If the weather works out, I will be set-up on the plains of southern IL during tornado season. I could be doing thunderstorm photography instead.
So that photo is a D80 with a Nikon 70-300mm lens I no longer have. I decided I did not know how to manually focus with a tiny optical viewfinder with any accuracy, so I used autofocus (mistake) and I also set to Program Exposure mode (lack of confidence I could find good manual exposure, another mistake). Note also the lens has a problem with purple coma fringing due to the high-contrast at the edge of the moon's disk.
Among other mistakes, I had a D7000 available and a Nikon 500mm relex lens. I never seriously considered that 500mm lens due to the same manual focus concern I had. But it would have solved the purple coma fringe. I put the D7000 to duty taking a time-lapse with a wider-angle lens since it had a built-in intervalometer. Also a dumb choice. I still have the 500mm reflex lens and it is going to be put to use mounted to my D750. The camera will be set up with a telescope star-tracker mount and I will have it doing a time-lapse of the partial eclipse stages with a hand-made solar filter. It's a filter I made in 2017 that I kept around. I have practiced photographing sunspots with this setup last year. The lens is kind of soft, but it won't matter that much for the partial phase.
The primary camera setup will be a Z5, Sigma 150-600mm C, and I will use a 150mm square glass solar filter for the partial phases. The camera will be on a heavy tripod using a gimbal head so I can aim faster and easier. I nearly always plug in a remote shutter release cable when I use a tripod, and I will for this. I have also practiced photographing sunspots using this setup last year. The Sigma can make a sharp photo and I can easily use the LiveView screen to zoom in on a sunspot to micro-adjust the focus. I also learned to pick a middle-range f-stop and stick to it. Adjust shutter speed and maybe ISO in manual mode to dial in the exposure. If you stick to only adjusting one variable with the limited time during the total eclipse, it will go much better. You may even have time to enjoy just looking a few seconds.
Fred Kingston
Senior Member
If you're prone to using filters for other scenarios... You might consider looking at one of the Cokin X series vendor's offerings... They use 100mm square filters... I like the Cokin X-Pro holder because it lets me stack 3 filters whereas most others only allow 2...