Filter for direct sun photography

[PeterJ]

Since having a further look today at few a links you'd provided and noticing a link on Wikipedia that shows the area that will be covered I realised it won't be too dramatic from here with probably only 10% covered. Anyway I'll proceed as planned, no harm seeing how it goes and from time to time I've seen some shots that would be interesting straight into the sun that I wouldn't want to take without a proper filter so I'm sure I'll find some other uses for it.

[PeterJ]

Since posting I found a good Javascript eclipse calculator, coverage was only 1.6% so as you'd expect nothing too dramatic. But anyway thought as promised I'd better come back and post initial results with the 7D + 2x III + 70-200 f/2.8. I have a few more to sift through and might be able to sharpen but after a quick look this was probably the best at f/9 and 1/200 using the Thousand Oaks filter:



Anyway good practice run for the fuller eclipse next year, might even see if I can get more up north of the country where it'll be a full eclipse .

[handsomerob]

nice shot! thx for sharing.

[epsiloneri]

Nice! The softness of the sunspots and lunar rim is likely due to the low angle of the Sun over the horizon (giving a large airmass with turbulence). Was it handheld or on a tripod? I find the best focus for partial eclipses is achieved using "live view" on the lunar rim.

[PeterJ]

Nice! The softness of the sunspots and lunar rim is likely due to the low angle of the Sun over the horizon (giving a large airmass with turbulence). Was it handheld or on a tripod? I find the best focus for partial eclipses is achieved using "live view" on the lunar rim.

Thanks for your earlier advice epsiloneri, I hadn't thought about air turbulence but at that time it was getting close to a mountain range that does have a lot wind and cloud cover. I was using a fairly decent tripod and shutter release, only thing I realised later is that I should have used mirror lock-up as well, just had it in stuck in my mind not to use it because of the sun but of course wouldn't have mattered with the filter .

I had a play around with various focus options yesterday taking a few test shots with manual / AF and viewfinder / liveview. Apart from liveview / contrast detect AF which was a dodgy as usual I didn't find much difference between all of them, so ended up just taking an initial phase-detect focus on the center AF point making sure it was on the edge of the sun. Would that  have technically been an OK thing to do, the lens seemed to be spot-on the infinity mark for 200 but would the practical focus change over 30 mins or so?

[nubu]

Hi!
I also use the Baader filters http://www.baader-planetarium.de/sektion/s46/s46.htm that can be cut in all sizes for use IN FRONT of eyes, lenses and telescopes...

Attached you find some examples of use on
1) EF 100-400 (no sunspots during that eclipse)
2) EF 500/4 (during sunrise with "solarpower" foreground)
3) same eclipse but later with the sun higher up, leading to colour change!
4) 6" telescope showing the now much more active sun a few weeks ago

Always EOS 7D or 5DII...

With such a protection view and makeing pictures are save!!!

Cheers
Franz

[dilbert]

The filter to use for solar photograph is a H-Alpha filter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-alpha

... a quick browsing shows these filters to make even B&W look cheap

That's not to say that you cannot use other filters (you can), but that H-Alpha filters are specifically designed for photographing stars.

[lol]

The commonly available H-alpha photographic filters are NOT for photographing the sun. They're primarily intended to be used with deep sky objects. You need a much narrower bandwidth than the deep sky H-alpha filters to do that. Look at the dedicated solar scopes for an idea. I have an entry level H-alpha filter at 12nm bandwidth which I also tried with the sun just to see what happens. It doesn't resolve any detail you don't already get without the filter. The narrowest one of that type I've seen is 3nm. A dedicated filter in a solar scope is 0.1nm or less. You need it to filter out the other stuff and only look at the sun's H-alpha.

So unless you do go for the dedicated setup for the sun, you might as well go cheap with the reflecting filters for safety.

[TexPhoto]

Shooting video of the sun with my 400mm f2.8 has not damaged my sensor at all, and most of us have included the sun in a photo from time to time without effect on the sensor.

Eyes on the other hand do deserve more protection. I use a welding shield I have, and can stare at the sun all day long.

[epsiloneri]

I had a play around with various focus options yesterday taking a few test shots with manual / AF and viewfinder / liveview. Apart from liveview / contrast detect AF which was a dodgy as usual I didn't find much difference between all of them, so ended up just taking an initial phase-detect focus on the center AF point making sure it was on the edge of the sun. Would that  have technically been an OK thing to do, the lens seemed to be spot-on the infinity mark for 200 but would the practical focus change over 30 mins or so?

If you change nothing else, the focus should stay fairly constant (it can change if e.g. temperature or humidity changes appreciably). For accurate focus I use live view with magnification and manual focus. Phase detection can be a bit challenging sometimes in difficult conditions, but if it worked for you, then fine.

I would highly recommend you to attempt to catch the 2012 total solar eclipse, it's much more impressive and a completely different experience that does not compare to a partial eclipse!

[epsiloneri]

I also use the Baader filters http://www.baader-planetarium.de/sektion/s46/s46.htm that can be cut in all sizes for use IN FRONT of eyes, lenses and telescopes...

Very nice Franz, in particular the one in front of the power station! I looked at your link, the films seems to have quoted neutral densities between 3.4 and 5. That seems a bit low, are you using multiple layers? Are the quoted numbers photographic stops or magnitudes?

[epsiloneri]

Shooting video of the sun with my 400mm f2.8 has not damaged my sensor at all, and most of us have included the sun in a photo from time to time without effect on the sensor.

You have shot the sun with a 400/2.8 with video without a filter at all? Without destroying your sensor? I have a hard time believing that, and I will not be tempted to prove you wrong by trying it out myself...

[nubu]

I looked at your link, the films seems to have quoted neutral densities between 3.4 and 5. That seems a bit low, are you using multiple layers? Are the quoted numbers photographic stops or magnitudes?

ND 5 (17 apertures) is for visual work, ND 4 (13 A) for photography to give you short exposures. One may combine these filters with one of their solar continuum filters to have higher contrast:
http://www.baader-planetarium.de/sektion/s37a/s37a.htm. For Visual work I use the ND 4
plus a narrow band continuum. Its very nice and save since they all have IR/UV blocking.

I used the later for the detail pic with the 6" telescope shown above...

Franz

[TexPhoto]

Shooting video of the sun with my 400mm f2.8 has not damaged my sensor at all, and most of us have included the sun in a photo from time to time without effect on the sensor.

You have shot the sun with a 400/2.8 with video without a filter at all? Without destroying your sensor? I have a hard time believing that, and I will not be tempted to prove you wrong by trying it out myself...

Take a look at my video from about 0:28 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUp7fmM2wY0 Have shot similar scenes 10-20 times with 5DII and 7D.  Think about it though.  If the sun was going to damage your sensor, it would do it with a 50mm, or a fisheye.  It would just damage a smaller area.  And an f1.4 50mm would put a much brighter if smaller spot on the sensor tan a 400 f2.8.  And again we all include the sun in a photo from time to time, and I'm sure those who shoot video do so with video.  And yet there are not 1000s of reports of sun damaged cameras out there.

The only light source I've ever heard of damaging a DSLR sensor is lasers, typically at concerts/ laser light shows.

[dr croubie]

I still blame the sun for the dead pixels on my 7D, it was just after I took photos of the eclipse of 04/01/2011 that I noticed all the dead pixels. Was with my 70-300 non-L and 15-85, at 300mm and 85mm, so both f/5.6 for framing but f/18-22 for the pics, some at f/36, speeds from 1/640s for the wide-shots but 1/2500-6400s for the 300mm shots.
I started off with the viewfinder but gave up after half a second and moved to live-view, I tried to keep my finger on the DOF-preview button but couldn't always. If I had an ND, that would have been when to use it, but I didn't at the time.
It was 2 weeks later doing long-exposures that I noticed the dead spots and put my camera in *3* times for warranty-fix (took them that many times to actually get rid of them all). I've just had another look, and I can even see the dead pixels in high-iso shots I took that night after the ecplise, and I can't see them in night shots taken a week before.

So yeah, I'm not pointing my camera at the sun ever again, without a pinhole or 20+ stop ND. Feel free to do it to your own camera though...