Post your practice, tips, and eclipse shots.

Moab Man

Senior Member
With the coming eclipse, I know there are a lot of people wondering how to shoot it. I know I have been helping people left and right. So please post up your practice shots and tips so that we help others out.

Here is one of my shots and what I did.

WARNING: DO NOT PHOTOGRAPH THE SUN WITHOUT A SOLIDLY ATTACHED SOLAR FILTER!

Shot on a D7100 with a solar filter.
Lens: Tamron 150-600mm
Settings: f/8, 1/100, ISO 100, WB set to sunlight

I shot this handheld, but suggest a tripod as my shutter speed is really slow for this length of lens.

W_DSC_1791.jpg
 

Bikerbrent

Senior Member
Which solar filter? I'm a little disappointed there is no detail in the sun (like sun spots). Have been debating some time rather it is worth spending the money on a filter. If this is all I can expect, the answer is NO.
 

Fred Kingston

Senior Member
sun1.jpg

Just a few minutes ago in bright full Florida sun

450mm ISO 200, 1/80sec F10 Hndheld with an ND10000, ND4, and and ND6 in a Cokin holder.
 

nikonpup

Senior Member
check your batteries! most cameras now have a battery check feature that check your battery age and number of shots taken since last charge and charge %. if you shoot the event start to finish you will thank me. :) i did not buy a lens filter $$$, i will try doing movie/time lapse and normal pictures.
 

Dawg Pics

Senior Member
This is the max we got here in the Dallas area. I wasn't going to shoot images, but then, I got the bug at the last minute. I made a filter out of one of the solar cards I purchased knowing that the sun's disk would be smaller than the card. I taped it onto cardboard and then taped that to my lens filter. It was further secured by the lens hood, then I checked for light leak before I left the house. I used live view and the crop mode on my crop camera. Worked great. The biggest challenge for me was the drift in my tripod head and realigning the camera to the sun. I had to use shadows to like up the lens.

Several people stopped their cars to look at it, and I gave out some extra viewers I had. I think images with landscapes or people are much more interesting, but this was a learning experience for me, and I did learn a lot. :)

eclipse max_5001536.jpg
 
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Dawg Pics

Senior Member
Waning eclipse. I think my focus may have been a little off on this one. I had a hard time seeing to focus, and I couldn't use autofocus with my set-up. 300mm with extender.

eclipse waning_5001572.jpg
 
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nickt

Senior Member
Quite a hazy day here in NY and heavier clouds rolled in right at show time. I was lucky to get a reasonable shot every 10 minutes or so. I used my 70-300 lens with nd400 filter. I don't think I would leave it on a tripod pointed at the sun, but for a quick handheld shot, I don't think I did any harm. I manually focused on infinity and left it. ISO 100, 1/8000, f32. They say nd400 is not adequate protection so I put frosted taped over the viewfinder and just used it as a rough screen to see light/dark and confirm the sun was in the frame somewhere. The camera body shielded my eyes from the sun. I cropped the image down a good bit and had had to drop exposure down -2.5 in LR. The images came out looking like b&w, so I warmed them up with white balance.
Here's a few.
D72_3567.jpg


D72_3568.jpg


D72_3584.jpg


D72_3616.jpg


D72_3627.jpg


D72_3644.jpg
 

Slipperman

Senior Member
here's a question for everyone..
why did mine come out so pure white when everyone else got a nice orangy glow? i used a minus EV in camera (0.7) and turned it down even more in Camera Raw (1.0). even tried the white balance trick but no go.
 

RocketCowboy

Senior Member
here's a question for everyone..
why did mine come out so pure white when everyone else got a nice orangy glow? i used a minus EV in camera (0.7) and turned it down even more in Camera Raw (1.0). even tried the white balance trick but no go.

What filter did you use?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Dawg Pics

Senior Member
1/200
f5.6
ISO 100
300mm (Tamron)
exp comp -0.7
Opteka variable ND filter,
ICE ND1000 stacked

so maybe too much filtering, too little?

This is what I gathered.
White light filters vs colored filters. The filter I used tints the sun orange, but white light is closer to the natural sun (as we see it) when it is high in the sky. Baader film and glass filters are white light filters. I don't know what wavelengths the ND filters transmit, but they aren't designed to add orange tint to bright, barely colored sunlight.

Disclaimer:I am not an astronomer, nor do I play one on tv. This is just my understanding based on the research I did when looking at filters and such. (And from what I barely remember when backyard astronomy was my hobby.)

Oh, then there is Photoshop (or white balance as @nickt did to his images) ;)
 
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