Will the Solar Eclipse damage my camera?

[wyldeguy]

I'm trying to understand what I'm missing here. Eclipse, from what I understand, means you don't see the full sun. You see a shadow created by the moon. The sun is as intense as it always is, not more or less during eclipse.

The eclipse shots in my mind are usually a bright circle that got bitten out. Do you need a long exposure for that? If you're trying to photograph the sun's surface for the Sun spots, that's a different story.

Please correct me if I am wrong as I always want to learn. But show me the logics.

Basically what happens is the that the moon in itself acts like a lens, even though it's a solid opaque object. The light from the sun may only form a ring around the moon but that light is almost all of the light the sun is putting out in our direction. I can't remember all of the details but hopefully you get the idea. I bet if you can find a video of an eclipse happening you could probably notice the intensity of light increasing slightly around the edge as the moon comes into position. Unless the film maker was adjusting settings as it happened. I heard that settings are changing all the time when it comes to eclipse photo/video taking. Something like 8 stops between start and totality.

 

[MJ]

Hello everyone, I was just wondering if anyone ended up shooting photos of the eclipse today. If yes let's see them!

Greetings from Vienna, AT!

 

[Pancho]

Just took some photos of the eclipse. Canon 7DII + 70-200F4 + BW ND1000, ISO 100, F8, 1/100 for the first one, F14, 1/1000 for the second and F14, 1/2500 for the last one. The wether was cloudy... Images have been cropped.

 

[Aichbus]

5DII + EF 400 5.6 L + Canon 2xIII + Kenko 1.4x @ f/32. 1/8000 s ISO 50

I held the button that actually closes the aperture (don't know hot it's called in english) pressed, so that the light that passed through the lens was quite dimmed and moreover I deliberately did that handheld. Since the lens has no image stabilisation, the sun hit the same spot on the sensor for only fragments of a second. It was difficult enough to "find" it.

No damage occurred.

 

[JoeKerslake]

Stacked a Big Stopper and 2 stop ND grad.

200mmx1.6 ISO 100, 1/2s @f/22

 

[NorbR]

13 stops of ND filter in front of my 70-200, 1/640 @f11 and everything was peachy (I was still covering the lens between exposures, though, just to be safe).

There's even a visible sun spot.

 

[JoeKerslake]

13 stops of ND filter in front of my 70-200, 1/640 @f11 and everything was peachy (I was still covering the lens between exposures, though, just to be safe).

There's even a visible sun spot.

Or sensor spot!

 

[NorbR]

Or sensor spot!

Nope ^^
Well there may be a few of those as well ... but at least one was moving with the sun

 

[JoeKerslake]

I was kidding

I had a shot with some nice detail in the sun, but I just haven't had time to mask it yet.

 

[NorbR]

And here is the mandatory composite.

Perfect viewing conditions here in Switzerland, quite lucky really. This was a fun experiment, I don't get to shoot everyday at f11, 1/640, ISO 100 and 13 stops ND (EV ... 29?! Am I counting that right?)

 

[zim]

No damage to phone, cloud helped!

 

[GammyKnee]

Very cloudy here in Ayrshire, Scotland, but got a couple of brief glimpses of it:


Eclipse 2015 [IMG_1400] by GammyKnee, on Flickr

1/640 sec, f8, ISO 400 with a meagre 3-stop screw-in ND (yep, it was that cloudy).
[The vignetting is just PP]

 

[sunnyVan]

First and foremost, protect your eyesight. Never stare at midday Sun directly. Never use a binocular or a telephoto lens through the optical viewfinder to look at the Sun.

Regarding the comments about magnifying glass, I get your point. But also keep in mind that it takes at least minutes to burn a piece of paper or a poor ant. It's a flawed idea to think that the magnifying glass could all of a sudden turn the sunlight into laser beam. Exposure time of the Sun is nowhere near that long. In fact I was looking at some pictures posted on Flickr. This particular picture shows only the sun's rim. Its exposure value is iso 100, f5.6, 1/4. Are you saying exposure value like this could fry the sensor?

Here is another thing I don't understand. Not saying that the comment is right or wrong. If you point a wide angle lens at the Sun, it takes up very small part of the frame; with a tele, you fill up the frame. Both pictures are as focused on the sensor as the other. The brightness values are different because of different compositions. The tele shot may strain the eye a bit on the LCD because it looks so bright. (Don't look at the Sun with a Tele through the optical viewfinder!!) Are you guys saying that the "brighter" shot somehow produce more heat on the sensor than the less bright shot? Are you saying that when brightness exceeds certain value the sensor will be damaged?

My point is that nothing is going to happen to the sensor Unless you point the camera at the Sun for an extended period of time for a long exposure. In this instance long exposure time is not necessary and therefore nothing will happen.

An ND filter is needed only if you stop down and use very high shutter speed and the subject is still too bright. All you get is an overexposed shot and that's all. It gives you a bad picture but not a bad sensor. You need protection for the eyes far more than the camera. Intense light even at short period of time can blind the eyes. And I really think that some are confusing these concepts.

Eclipse is not necessarily a once in a lifetime event but I don't think you could see it very often in the place you live. To miss an opportunity for a potentially great shot is sad. Yes, it's been done before and there's plenty of pictures like that but honestly how many of us have seen it in person? The only time I'd be hesitant to pull out the camera is when I'm in a bad neighborhood.

 

[anthonyd]

The reason sunrises/sunsets don't burn your camera is the same reason it is colder in winter* - and it has nothing to do with distance from the sun/amount of atmosphere between you and it**.

It has everything to do with the atmosphere.

It's because you are at an angle to the sun.

If I hold a disk horizontally at noon and then the same disk vertically at dusk then this disk is perpendicular to the sun at both times. The "angle to the sun" is really the angle at which the sun light hits the atmosphere and thus the length that this light has to travel within the atmosphere. This is also why the sun is red(er) at dusk/dawn, more of the violet/blue part of the spectrum is scattered away because the light has to travel longer inside the atmosphere (which contains molecules that scatter more violet/blue than red).

 

[mackguyver]

No.

??? - great advice, not.

If you point a camera and lens directly at the sun without the appropriate astronomy filter (ND and Polarizers will not work), you are very likely to harm the sensor and your eyes. This is the danger of asking for advice on the Internet.

Enjoy the eclipse - safely 8)

Not trying to argue with you since you're a respected member here. But what's your conclusion based on? Harming the eyes, yes. But harming the camera? How so? In what way? Again I'm only trying to learn.

I'm sorry I was rude like that. I've been in constant pain for the last 2+ years affecting my sleep and obviously my mood sometimes, so I apologize.

As others have replied, the lens acts like a magnifying glass and can seriously damage your sensor and even eye if you look at it long enough. Quick shots of the sun when it's low on the horizon are generally safe, but for an eclipse, the sun may be in the middle of the sky and you're likely to shoot several pictures, increasing time on target - and radiation through the lens.

 

[PhotosbyChuck]

I understand the worry about the camera sensor, but as long as we're talking photography without LiveView, the shutter is protecting your sensor very well.

You don't need special H-Alpha filters to protect your gear (although they will give you greater detail in the sun). That's the one thing I wish I had been able to do ... get more detail in the sun than I did.

The shot below was from the 2012 transit of Venus. As you can see, it's the whole sun ... not just some sliver of it. That black disk at the top is Venus. The other black spots are sunspots.

I used an ND-10 filter and 1/1000 shutter @ ISO 100. To compose the shot, I did use LiveView for a few seconds. I did not keep in on. My sensor is just fine nearly 3 years later.

Do follow all of the advice about your eyes tho. I used brief LiveView with a connected laptop to protect my eyes.

I can't offer you any advice about video. I'd think you'd need a good filter for shooting a video of the eclipse. I'd be more concerned with heat causing the camera to shut down early. But again, I'm not much of a videographer.

 

[epsiloneri]

Basically what happens is the that the moon in itself acts like a lens, even though it's a solid opaque object.

No, you're thinking of a gravitational lens, the moon is not nearly massive enough to bend the light enough to produce the corona. Instead, it's the solar outer atmosphere that is visible during the totality.

When the solar corona is visible during the totality, it is totally safe to view the sun with the unaided eyes, binoculars, even telescopes without filters... BUT... as soon as even a fraction of the photosphere is visible again, it becomes seriously hazardous for your eyesight to be looking for even a short time into the sun.

The total light from the corona is less than a millionth of the solar output. During a partial eclipse, the Sun is much to bright to directly look at (unless the Sun is very close to the horizon or behind clouds). Solar filters commonly filter out about 10^5 of the light - that is, 16.7 photographic stops. Just for reference.

And about detectors...

My point is that nothing is going to happen to the sensor Unless you point the camera at the Sun for an extended period of time for a long exposure. In this instance long exposure time is not necessary and therefore nothing will happen.

Yes, you are right in that the exposure is important, and that even wide-angle lenses can be dangerous. The intensity on the sensor depends on the f-ratio and not on the focal length, but for the same f-ratio, if you have a longer focal length then the image of the Sun will cover more pixels and thus heat the pixels more quickly. Unless you have the camera mounted on a tripod, the image of the Sun in a wide angle lens is less likely to stay put on the same pixels for a longer duration. And, remember, that if you use live view, you are effectively exposing the sensor for much longer than by just taking a quick exposure.

Just to re-iterate - it is VERY dangerous for your eyesight to look at the Sun through fast optics (unless very close to the horizon or behind a cloud layer, or properly filtered by solar filters). Short exposures will not damage your detector - long exposures, or extended use of 'live view', probably will.

The reason sunrises/sunsets don't burn your camera is the same reason it is colder in winter* - and it has nothing to do with distance from the sun/amount of atmosphere between you and it**. It's because you are at an angle to the sun. The same quantity of light from the sun is spread out over a wider area so it's intensity is greatly reduced.

Haha, you're trying to troll us or what?

 

[epsiloneri]

This was a fun experiment, I don't get to shoot everyday at f11, 1/640, ISO 100 and 13 stops ND (EV ... 29?! Am I counting that right?)

Yes, 29.32. Great shots!