Are you Photographing the Total Solar Eclipse?

If you would like to post, you'll need to register. Note that if you have a BCG store account, you'll need a new, separate account here (we keep the two sites separate for security purposes).

Member's gallery
Definitely going! Lake Ouachita State Park, AR. shooting 400mm and 800mm. No TCs. trying to keep the ISO at 200.
on the transitions from Partial to total, ~60seconds, I'm trying to shoot 18fps with, f/8, 9 X 0.5stop brackets around 1/2000. This is timed with the internal interval shooting
for totality, I'm trying 12 bracketed shots. 9 X 1.7stop brackets around 1/160 (slowest shutter speed is 1/1.6) This is timed with a TX283 remote.
Partial phase is shot with filters on and another TX283 remote one bracket every 1 minute
I am using a motorize mount.
Gordon Telepun Solar eclipse timer.
Lots of Mr. Eclipse (Fred Espenak) data
Jubier

I shot the 2017 eclipse. Missed the transition shots. Got pretty good totality shots. Looking to improve
 
Member's gallery
TCzPhotos said:
We have a wildlife refuge near use and the birds always seem to be on the move at sunset. I wonder if the eclipse will fool the birds into thinking the sun is setting.
Click to expand...
When I was observing the 2017 eclipse in Oregon, we were backed up to a wilderness area. As the moon progressed across the sun, it became more and more like twilight. We noticed that the temperature was lowering for a total of 8 degrees F, the light wind died down, and the birds stopped chirping just before totality.
 
Member's gallery
As Patty describes, please don't used ND filters rather than solar filters. There is potentially a big difference - and you don't know. Only a proper solar filter is certain to be safe. You can burn your retina, melt your shutter, melt your sensor, or damage or melt lens elements and coatings. If you are burning your retina, you won't feel it at all, and won't know until days later. It can't be fixed. It's not worth the risk.

The highest energy wavelengths are in the UV spectrum. That's not visible light, so you can be burned by light you don't see. UV light is stronger than visible light in terms of energy. UV light unfiltered is what gives you sunburn. Magnify it and it can be very harmful.

I'm going to be in Illinois - between Carbondale and Cape Girardeau. I still have not picked the location. In 2017 I arrived very early in the morning at my location and had no traffic. I was second to arrive. Going home traffic was bumper to bumper and stop and go for nearly two hours.

You do need to take the filter off the lens for the diamond ring and totality. It's a great event and worth seeing.
 
Member's gallery
I don't know if anyone else had has this experience, but the Thousand Oaks SOLARLITE polymer film (on my DayStar Filters units) seems to be about ND5.6 instead of ND5.0 which is kind of a standard solar film level, and even implied in their literature. Seems to be a well known fact regarding SOLARLITE. The "recommended" exposure settings for ISO 200 under a full clear sky seem about 3 stops underexposed in my testing. So, I think I've been robbed of 2-3 EV of light. Will probably end up around ISO 1600 on my D500. Boo.

Only way to improve is to order some Baader 5.0 film (16 stop), but I think it's not worth spending the extra money at this point.

Anyway, I'll have to stuggle with slower shutter speeds or higher ISOs, and I think I'm going to go with higher ISOs. I don't think it will be highly deleterious, my goal is to just get a solid exposure with maybe a full stop of room at the top of the histogram. I'll be autobracketing like mad just so I don't have to stress. Having motion blur would be worse, and I'll be contending almost for sure with wind up in Vermont.
 
Last edited:
Member's gallery
If it looks like a clear sky I think I might now. I’ve figured out the settings I need for my astro cam on my astro setup so I should be able to do tracking with intervals to make a little movie. Won’t get totality at home but about 85-90% so it’ll still be interesting.
 
Member's gallery
Soopahmahn said:
I don't know if anyone else had has this experience, but the Thousand Oaks SOLARLITE polymer film (on my DayStar Filters units) seems to be about ND5.6 instead of ND5.0 which is kind of a standard solar film level, and even implied in their literature.
Click to expand...
I have same experience. I went to
Glass filters from Seymour Solar for this years pix. In 2017 I sacrificed shutter speed instead of iso.
 
Member's gallery
In addition to the sky, keep an eye on your surroundings after totality ends. In 2017, we were walking back to our car, and I got several photos of the ground with my phone. Our car was parked under trees, and the openings in the leaves were acting like pinhole cameras.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_2681.jpg
    IMG_2681.jpg
    1.1 MB · Views: 25
Member's gallery
Late to the party here. In 2017 I went to Oregon for the total eclipse. Totality was relatively short, under two minutes. I spent way too much of that futzing over my camera to take some photos. Afterward, I saw that my total eclipse photos looked like everyone else's total eclipse photos, and I have not looked at them since.

This time my wife and I will be flying to Mazatlan to join some "world experts" for the eclipse, which will last much longer. I am NOT going to take photos, but will record the experience on the video recorder of my brain. In accordance with the preceding post, I will keep an eye out for weird shadows before and after totality, but even there I have vowed not to get carried away.
 
Member's gallery
GrandNagus50 said:
Late to the party here. In 2017 I went to Oregon for the total eclipse. Totality was relatively short, under two minutes. I spent way too much of that futzing over my camera to take some photos. Afterward, I saw that my total eclipse photos looked like everyone else's total eclipse photos, and I have not looked at them since.

This time my wife and I will be flying to Mazatlan to join some "world experts" for the eclipse, which will last much longer. I am NOT going to take photos, but will record the experience on the video recorder of my brain. In accordance with the preceding post, I will keep an eye out for weird shadows before and after totality, but even there I have vowed not to get carried away.
Click to expand...
Your experience is why I will not be raising the camera during the eclipse.....(of course that's if the clouds don't obscure it first).
 
Member's gallery
Soopahmahn said:
I don't know if anyone else had has this experience, but the Thousand Oaks SOLARLITE polymer film (on my DayStar Filters units) seems to be about ND5.6 instead of ND5.0 which is kind of a standard solar film level, and even implied in their literature. Seems to be a well known fact regarding SOLARLITE. The "recommended" exposure settings for ISO 200 under a full clear sky seem about 3 stops underexposed in my testing. So, I think I've been robbed of 2-3 EV of light. Will probably end up around ISO 1600 on my D500. Boo.

Only way to improve is to order some Baader 5.0 film (16 stop), but I think it's not worth spending the extra money at this point.

Anyway, I'll have to stuggle with slower shutter speeds or higher ISOs, and I think I'm going to go with higher ISOs. I don't think it will be highly deleterious, my goal is to just get a solid exposure with maybe a full stop of room at the top of the histogram. I'll be autobracketing like mad just so I don't have to stress. Having motion blur would be worse, and I'll be contending almost for sure with wind up in Vermont.
Click to expand...
It was my understanding that the TO Solarlite film used in their ‘Full Aperture’ filters is 16 stops (1/100000th transmission) which would be an effective ND 5.0 (or 4.8, following the ND 0.3 scale used by Lee Filters and Tiffen). I’d be interested to know more about the source(s) you mention (Xavier Jubier?). I’ve purchased two of these slip on filters, one for a 120-300, the other for a 600 PF, so want to make sure I factor this into my settings.
 
Member's gallery
I photographed the last eclipse and it is a wonderful experience and a very exciting time. So exciting in fact, that it is very easy to forget about taking the filter off while in totality. Yes, speaking from experience!
 
Member's gallery
MMoretti said:
It was my understanding that the TO Solarlite film used in their ‘Full Aperture’ filters is 16 stops (1/100000th transmission) which would be an effective ND 5.0 (or 4.8, following the ND 0.3 scale used by Lee Filters and Tiffen). I’d be interested to know more about the source(s) you mention (Xavier Jubier?). I’ve purchased two of these slip on filters, one for a 120-300, the other for a 600 PF, so want to make sure I factor this into my settings.
Click to expand...

Yes, note how Xavier Jubier's exposure chart indicates TO SolarLite to be ND 5.6: http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/SolarEclipseExposure.html

Also, deep in forums like Cloudy Nights I've seen threads comparing TO Solarlite to Baader 5.0 and other options, and it was the general consensus in the threads I read that there was a 2-3 stop difference. So I find that to be sufficient, combined with my backyard experience compared to "reference" exposure suggestions, to believe Xavier's statement that SolarLite is a 5.6 film.

To your statement regarding the TO Full Aperature filters, yes it's the same film "Solarlite," and they do state in their product FAQ "SolarLite and Silver-Black Polymer Films are completely safe for unlimited visual and photographic (16 f/stop reduction) use when used as instructed." I'm not entirely sure where the disconnect is. The only other difference I know to be true between Baader AstroSolar and TO Solarlite is that the Baader is a white light filter (even visible spectrum attenuation = a white sun), while TO Solarlite is a "natural" color filter that projects the image as orange (how we "like" the sun to look).

Personally I prefer the orange look and I think it might be a little bit of a pain to try to alter it in Photoshop after the fact. So personally I'm not going to jump ship and buy Baader AstroSolar just to get the two stops back (if I did, I would do my own apples-apples comparison to prove out what seems to be the case regarding TO filter density).

If you want to replicate what I'm seeing, do test shots on a bright clear afternoon and try to use Xavier Juber's exposure recommendations. I think you'll find the TO Solarlite recommendation (two stops slower) to be closer to what you think is the right exposure (not necessarily perfect, but 2 stops closer...)

Curious to see what you find out! I'm going to post an image or two later to see if the group has an opinion on what the "best" exposure is... should we be ETTR (no clipping), or is it ok to underexpose from that level by a couple of stops...
 
Member's gallery
I reached out to TO this afternoon to sort out the ND 5 v 5.6. Their nuanced reply:

The filters are close to ND-5. Simply do some test exposures to determine the best exposure for your equipment.

In all fairness, they are likely being flooded with questions these days ahead of the eclipse.
 
Member's gallery
^ I'm not surprised. And, to be perfectly clear, from my perspective, Thousand Oaks haven't done anything wrong here IMO -- I just had incorrect information/expectations.

New twist: I found out that the filter box I ordered to slip over my Nikkor 14-24mm causes massive vignetting and lets tons of light spill in. So... I think I'm ordering some Baader film anyway to make a custom filter for it :ROFLMAO:

Time permitting, I think I'll convert one of the Solarlite filters I have into a Baader filter, and do an A/B comparison using my spot meter. Need the skies to clear up...
 
Member's gallery
We'll have 92% at totality here in NJ. The last eclipse in 2017 we only had about 75%, so this will be an improvement. I had to hold my iPhone up to my 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope's eyepiece for that. (Note: I used a solar filter on the telescope for that.) Amazingly, most of the photos were sharp, but had some artifacts since I was holding the iPhone to the eyepiece.

This time, I'm debating on whether to setup the telescope again, with my D500 attached with a T-adapter and using the Live View function on the camera, or photograph with the Z8 (with its own solar filter to protect the camera's sensor) and the 180-600mm lens.

Even without 100% totality here, I think it will be at least as much fun as back in 2017. :)
 
Member's gallery
My wife's stepfather was blinded in one eye by looking directly at the sun -- DON'T DO IT without eclipse glasses. Although we'll be in the area of totality I'm not getting a solar filter on the odd chance that the sky will be clear. Besides, I'm not particularly interested in astronomy of any kind -- one of my failings I guess.
 
Member's gallery
Just a follow-up, I don't have comparison images but by using spot metering on the sun's disk, I established the following "ideal" partial eclipse exposures for the two different types of film. Same lens and filter, but I cut out the TO Solarlite and used rubber cement to fix some Baader Astrosolar film in its place.

TO Solarlite: f/5.6, 1/250s, ISO 200
Baader Astrosolar: f/8.0, 1/800s, ISO 200

So that's >2 stops difference, even if some viewing conditions may have changed and influenced the sun's brightness (possible).

Also while I have lost the charming orange glow that I liked (which can be adjusted in post), there is virtually no light spill outside of the sun's disk with the Baader film. So this may make subject detection masking, or general image cleanup, even easier.
 
Member's gallery
Abinoone said:
A total solar eclipse will occur across a broad swath of North America in exactly one month, on April 8th, and I’m interested in trying to capture the event. Fortunately, I live along the path of totality, so will be ideally situated. Have you done this sort of thing before and, if so, what tips do you have about how best to obtain the best images? I’ve never done solar or astrophotography, so am not entirely sure where to start. At the very least, I know that I’ll need a good solar filter, but what else is recommended? Which focal lengths work best? Short or long exposures? Suggestions are encouraged and welcome.
Click to expand...
Before the eclipse became national news, I was going to... now it's not worth the bother of traffic and crowds. It's not like I could photograph the eclipse in some unique way.
 
Member's gallery
I purchased a NISI 16.6 stop solar filter. Trials on the sun show it will work well - posted elsewhere on this site. Trial runs showed 1/1000, f/8, base iso to work well with some minor variability possible on each of those. Got the 95mm filter which is perfect for the Nikon 500mm PF lens with TC14Eiii w/ FTZ and Z9.
Shot a 30% in Saudi a few years back. It was fun to shoot, but the photos were nothing special. That is why I am trying again.
 
Last edited:
Member's gallery
Random question - for those who have done this sort of thing before - how early do the crowds form? I'm staying with some relatives in VT - about 1:15 away from my "secret location" which I'm sure I'll be sharing with 500 others but not sure how early obsessive dedicated people might show up.
 
Member's gallery
^ I'm concerned about this too. I'm scouting locations in Burlington the day before, making a primary and a backup selection, and then planning to basically claim space at 8-9am on Monday and wait. Bring a pack lunch and an empty water bottle :ROFLMAO:
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top