Venus transit

[epsiloneri]

Is anyone planning to shoot the Venus transit tomorrow? From where I live the Sun will rise with Venus transiting, so I'm considering cool sunrise options (weather permitting). A distant familiar building in the foreground, or just the Sun reflecting in open water are some ideas I have. For planning location, I've found Google Earth useful.

In case you wonder if it's worth it: consider that few alive today will have a chance to see another Venus transit. Next one is in December... 2117.

 

[dr croubie]

Yeah, I only just found out about it an hour ago and just packed a whole lot of stuff to take to work tomorrow (will be a lunch-hour shoot).
Jupiter 250/3.5, two 2x TCs (so 1000mm f/14 to f/64), ND400, ND8 stacked, will that be enough? (add an extra Kenko 1.4xTC if i have to).
Also taking 70-300L (although I know it flares like crazy pointing straight at the sun), and a pinhole set (at 42mm they're f/177 pinhole, f/91 zone sieve, f/55 zone plate, plus a metre of extension tubes and bellows), and the lensbaby pinhole why not.
If I cook my 7D, i've also packed the EOS3 with a roll of 50ISO velvia.

Anyone know if that's dark enough? Or should I stop past the local camera shop on the way to work and see if they rent out ND10,000s?

 

[mws]

I'm not going to be able to shoot this, but I'm really excited to see what kind of photos people capture of this.

Also a great bit of software for planing this sort of thing is Stellarium

 

[squarebox]

I'm going to be shooting tomorrow weather permitting... It is suppose to rain in the morning.

I will be shooting with a 18-200 EF-S on a 550D with a ND5 (10,000) filter. Same i used for shooting the eclipse a few weeks ago.

i totally wish i had a longer lens and one that i could use teleconverters with.

I think i read somewhere you need to have at least N3.8 to shoot a solar eclipse. Just don't look through the viewfinder as it's blocking UV and IR. Gotta use Liveview.

 

[lol]

I'm planning on it, but the weather is planning otherwise with cloud and rain expected. Also due to my location I have less than 1h window so the chances of getting a clear shot are extremely low.

 

[squarebox]

Apparantly the trick for getting the black drop effect is to blur the shot a little.

Luckily for me, I'm in Japan and we have a 7 hour window

 

[epsiloneri]

Anyone know if that's dark enough? Or should I stop past the local camera shop on the way to work and see if they rent out ND10,000s?

If you live somewhere where the Sun will rise or set with Venus transiting, then you really don't need to go that dark (just as you often can shoot the sun during last part of sunset without filters). If you have the chance to catch the Sun before the transit event, i.e. today, you can try out your equipment beforehand and practice on a couple of sunspots that are on now, and that you should be able to catch. Venus will be much easier to get than those sunspots, though.

 

[awinphoto]

Where I am it's starting around 3pm my time and ending well past sunset our time. I will take a whack at it if clouds work well for me... Got a filter used for the eclipse... flimsy film, not solid glass filter, but worked well last time. Prob wont be as "wowing" as the annual eclipse but once in a lifetime things anyways.

 

[TrumpetPower!]

Yeah, I only just found out about it an hour ago and just packed a whole lot of stuff to take to work tomorrow (will be a lunch-hour shoot).
Jupiter 250/3.5, two 2x TCs (so 1000mm f/14 to f/64), ND400, ND8 stacked, will that be enough? (add an extra Kenko 1.4xTC if i have to).

That'll probably be enough to prevent the Sun from being photographically overexposed, but I still wouldn't look through the viewfinder at all or leave the camera pointing at the Sun for more than a few seconds at a time (use live view to frame and focus). The Sun puts out an awful lot of energy at wavelengths neither you nor your camera can see, and that energy can and will fry your eyes without you feeling a thing or burn a hole in the shutter curtains or do any number of other nasty things.

You know that trick of starting a fire by using a magnifying glass? You know what a camera lens is? And the trick still works with the bottom of a coke bottle....

I'll have the 400 f/2.8 with a Baader solar viewing telescope filter. The filter will probably come off a couple minutes before the Sun reaches the Phoenix skyline...at which point it'll be live view for the camera.

I'll also have a pair of those cheesy eclipse glasses for me to look at without the camera.

Cheers,

b&

 

[dr croubie]

Well, i've just woken up, apparently it starts in about half an hour, just after sunrise.

well, what would be sunrise, because there's about ND20,000 worth of clouds covering it. No chance of eye damage (or photos) today by the looks. Still gonna take the camera in the car to work and hope the cloud goes...

 

[dss166]

I got lucky, the clouds just cleared enough to get a few clean shots. Taken east of Atlanta, GA. 50d with a 70-300L at 300mm, 1/8000, f32 with a 77mm 3 stop B&W ND hand held in front (don't have an ND for the 70-300 yet.)
Processed raw with the new lens correction feature in DPP at 50%, -2 exposure adjustment and a lot of cropping. Let me know what you think.

 

[dss166]

One more

 

[vargyropoulos]

I also got a few minutes of the Sun breaking free from cloud cover... just enough time to throw the 70-300 on the Rebel XT. I only had a UV filter on the camera so I could not see Venus while the Sun was completely out of the clouds... way too bright even 30 minutes before sunset when this photo was taken... I had to wait for the Sun to be partially hidden with some clouds

 

[TexPhoto]

I had about 5 minutes as it started, then lost it for 1/2 hour behind clouds. Then it popped out again for 5 minutes an I go these.


Untitled by TexPhoto, on Flickr


Untitled by TexPhoto, on Flickr

 

[jhpeterson]

It was a mostly clear evening in the Upper Midwest and I was able to capture this only a few minutes before sunset.
I'd been busy working on a couple outdoor projects, but at the last moment ran inside and grabbed a 300mm 2.8 L and an EF 2x (III) converter.
Handheld and set on manual exposure, ISO 200 (my default), I shot several frames at 1/8000 with apertures ranging from 32-64. Second-guessing, I could have dropped the ISO to 50 and would have enjoyed sharper results due to less diffraction, but isn't that what hindsight's for.

 

[Act444]

wow, amazing shots guys.

 

[squarebox]

Man these are all amazing shots... I just took it head on as it was directly above me with no clouds.

I had bigger issues just getting the thing in focus. I don't know why, but between when i focused on liveview and when i actually took the picture, my shots got blurry.

 

[dr croubie]

Nice shots guys!
I went for a look outside just at the beginning of lunch (the windows in my office face a warehouse, not outside), and saw that the sun was completely free of clouds.
So I ran outside, set up the tripod with the Soviet baseball-bat telescope, managed to get off a few decent shots on the 7D.
I also tried the EOS3 with the iso50 Velvia, turns out the 3 doesn't like playing with lenses with no AF confirm chip (anyone else had this?), and had to turn it off/on again to reset the mirror (I'm not sure if the shutter was open the whole time, i guess i'l find out when I develop it)

Anyway, with the sun full on I was around 1/2000s at f/8-11 (so f/32-44), when bits of cloud went past they were down to even 1/4s.

Then I tried my Zeiss Sonnar 180/2.8 with only one 2x TC, when the cloud was over I was shooting wide open (360mm f/5.6) at 1/250s or so, in full sun it was 1/1000s at f/8 (really f/16).

So that ND400 + ND8 + B+W MRC UV combination didn't work too badly, hopefully I don't find too many dead pixels showing up in the next few days (and I can still see fine, mostly it was live-viewed). I'll see what I can do about processing them tonight when I get home from work...

 

[epsiloneri]

We too had clouds After a while the clouds fortunately parted momentarily, presenting a spotted Sun along with Venus 8)

400mm+TC1.4x+7D, Baader solar film, ISO100, f/5.6 & 1/400s.

 

[dr croubie]

If venus is in the top part of the moon, is that because all of you guys are northern-hemispheres? My Venus was in the bottom-left corner of the sun (in Aus)

Here's two of my shots, at 1pm, so fairly high in the sky, about an hour before it exited (possibly the only cloud-free time all day, although I reckon the ones with cloud look better).
First is 250x2x2=1000mm, 1/1600s, possibly around f/8 (f/32).
Second is 180x2=360mm, 1/250s, probably f/5.6ish (f/11).

One thing I learned today was that the Zeiss Sonnar 180/2.8 with the Soviet 2x TC makes for some very lovely purple-glowing images wide-open...