How to photograph a partial solar eclipse?

Question

There will be a partial solar eclipse tomorrow visible from Europe, Africa, Asia. I'm looking for photography tips. Looking for ideas for a typical amateur photographer but also for someone having a telescope.

Posting your photos after the eclipse would be a great bonus.

Asked by asalamon74

Answer

If you don't have a solar filter, the standard way to protect yourself when viewing a solar eclipse is to project the image via a lens or even a pinhole onto a suitable background. Why not set up a rig in which you use, say, an old camera lens projecting the image onto matte paper in the back of a darkened box and photograph that image? Fred Espenak briefly describes this approach in a Web article on solar eclipse photography. You can experiment today on an uneclipsed image of the sun. On another site there's also a curious pinhole camera setup illustration that is provided without comments. The "lens" is a precise pinhole in stiff metal foil mounted to a camera body cap. It looks easy and cheap to make. Starting out with a dense ND filter in front of this rig (or maybe a crossed pair of polarizing filters) might be advisable to avoid damage to a digital sensor.

Answered by whuber

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How to take photos of a solar eclipse without damaging one's eyes or camera?

Question

This upcoming May parts of the USA will experience a solar eclipse. So this leads to me wondering how you photograph the sun/solar eclipses and ensure that you do not damage the camera (or your eyes)?

Asked by Lynda

Answer

WARNING:

All care and no responsibility !!!
This is YOUR eyes at stake - exercise due care.
If smoke curls gently from the camera, odds are you have got it wrong.
Be very aware that a camera optical system MAY focus the suns rays into a viewfinder - even if the main image is defocused.

Don't be scared away by the potential risks - just be certain that you have adequately allowed for them.

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Main methods are

• A suitable neutral density filter.
  Absolute certainty of performance is needed.
  Beware pinholes !!!!
  People have had eye sight damaged (not surprisingly)

• Photograph a projected image.
  Safer.

I have seen articles in the past suggesting heavily exposed film as a good filter. X-Ray film said to be goo - a vanishing resource in this digital age. YMMV.
Pinholing a risk, and density not well controlled.

It is highly likely that a suitably sensible person could make a safe and suitable filter from a range of materials.

It is is also likely that some people could end up with eye damage because they were less careful or competent than they needed to be :-(.

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There is much useful material available on web.

Hoya NDx 400 500:1 neutral;density filter
Sunspot image example given
Care with eyes!

Baader astrosolar ND material - make your won - excellent as page with information and warnings. They say -

• ND 5 ( 0.00001 transmission) (1/100,000) for direct visual use, and

• ND 3.8 (0.00016 transmission) (16/100,000) for photography only.

Instructions on DIY filters using their material

DIY artiocle using their material

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Good DIY advice here

Solar eclipse photography links from above:

{1} Solar eclipse photography ...

Notes:

• However, unless you're a complete die hard, don't bother. Photos of the sun before totality are considerably less interesting that photos of the moon. The best you'll get are a few sunspots.

  Instead, I recommmend indirect photos, which can include interesting background and human subjects. For example, you can photograph the image of the cresent sun being projected onto a piece of cardboard through a pinhole. You will probably be with a lot of other excited people, with lots of fancier equipment than you. Use them as your subjects. My best before eclipse photos are of a crowd of people surrounding a large telescope, projecting the solar image onto an 8x10 ground glass.

{2} NASA - ECLIPSE PHOTOGRAPHY

Some excellent suggestion. They also note as below. Note they say

• A mylar or glass solar filter must be used on the lens at all times for both photography and safe viewing. Such filters are most easily obtained through manufacturers and dealers listed in Sky & Telescope and Astronomy magazines. These filters typically attenuate the Sun's visible and infrared energy by a factor of 100,000. However, the actual filter attenuation and choice of ISO film speed will play critical roles in determining the correct photographic exposure. A low to medium speed film is recommended (ISO 50 to 100) since the Sun gives off abundant light. The easiest method for determining the correct exposure is accomplished by running a calibration test on the uneclipsed Sun. Shoot a roll of film of the mid-day Sun at a fixed aperture [f/8 to f/16] using every shutter speed between 1/1000 and 1/4 second. After the film is developed, the best exposures are noted and may be used to photograph all the partial phases since the Sun's surface brightness remains constant throughout the eclipse.

They also contradict the advice above re photographing at totality :-)

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This simple search will give lots of useful material

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NB - the following are my personal observations only - treat with due care:

In my personal opinion, the stated necessary degree of attenuation for eye safety is excessive. Full solar flux is about 100,000 lux, so a 100,000:1 filter will reduce the light level to 1 lux which is far lower than necessary for safety. A bright LCD screen is about 300 lux - brighter than you want to stare at for any time (he said, staring deeply into his monitor at close range 'just to see"). 10,000:1 attenuation to give 10 lux seems OK and 1000:1 to give 100 lux is getting somewhat bright.

The results from the Hoya NdX 400 at 500:1 seems to support this.

Answered by Russell McMahon

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Can the sun damage the camera sensor? Under what conditions?

Question

I want to experiment taking photos where the sun appears. I'm afraid of what might happen if I take one with a narrower angle (where sun would be bigger). Can the lens act as a magnifying glass and burn the CCD or CMOS sensor?

EDIT

Since my query is a little bit obvious, I will reformulate it to:

Under which circumstances (zoom, exposition, aperture, etc...), can the sensor be damaged by the sun?

Answer

Taking direct photos of the sun can destroy your camera, not to mention your eyes. It's exactly as you are afraid, the lens will act as a magnifier and multiply the suns intensity right on your cameras internals. What this effects can vary. Long exposures against the sun can cause permanent damage to your camera's sensor, but besides that, your camera's shutter curtains, and af sensors are also at risk when shooting right at the sun.

Now, taking photos of sunset and sunrises is okay, as is taking photos in direct sunlight (though this does require some finesse to get a good exposure), but pointing your lens right at the sun is not recommended (especially for long exposures).

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Is getting the starburst sun shine like this photo from post processing or done at capture?

Question

I can't believe that the following photograph is without any post processing.

Is that starburst sun shine in the photograph an outcome of post processing or is it the result of a trick at capture time?

Either way, how can I get an image like that?

Answer

It can be done in post-processing, of course, but that's the result of shooting a bright light source using a very small aperture (high f-number) and having a 9-bladed iris in the lens.

Different iris shapes will show different "star" patterns. This one has 18 points, which means it came from either a 9-bladed or 18-bladed iris, and since nobody makes lenses with an 18-bladed aperture iris at the moment, it must be a 9-bladed iris. You can practice creating the effect by shooting a small light bulb or candle flame against a dark background to find out which of your lenses gives the best effect and how to control the star pattern with your aperture setting.

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Is getting the starburst sun shine like this photo is in post processing or at capturing?

Question

I cant believe that the following photograph is without any post processing?

Is that starburst sun shine in the photograph is an outcome of post processing or it is the result of a trick at capture time??

if so how to get an image like that?

Answer

It can be done in post-processing, of course, but that's the result of shooting a bright light source using a very small aperture (high f-number) and having a 9-bladed iris in the lens.

Different iris shapes will show different "star" patterns. This one has 18 points, which means it came from either a 9-bladed or 18-bladed iris, and since nobody makes lenses with an 18-bladed aperture iris at the moment, it must be a 9-bladed iris. You can practice creating the effect by shooting a small light bulb or candle flame against a dark background to find out which of your lenses gives the best effect and how to control the star pattern with your aperture setting.

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Is ND400 insufficient for some sun moments?

Question

I've taken a shot of the sun using my Tamron 70-300 (at 300) on my Nikon D5000 at 1/4000 and F40 and had attached the ND400 filter.

The shot was taken mostly to test the filter so I ignored the dirty window through which I shot.

However I was surprised to find out that even with all the controls turned to minimum luminosity and having the filter installed the sun was too bright. Maybe the time of day (local time around 09:00 AM, today, November 29th) was inappropriate for taking such pictures?

Or maybe the filter is not enough?

Answer

The pixels are not overexposed in any channel, and applying a heavy curve will reveal the darker edges and some dark spots. What you have is an exposed-to-the-right image of how the sun looks like - it is a big shiny ball. IMHO you should have enough data in RAW to tweak this into a usable image.

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Why does color reflection appear in photographs of sun or fire?

Question

What is the new color that forms in the image when photographing a sun or similar things (see attachment with a rose glare)?

Why and how it forms?

Is it good for a image?

How to increase or decrease it?

Answer

You can get all sorts of interesting shapes and colours when shooting directly into a lightsource like that. All pieces of glass reflect a certain amount of light and transmit a certain amount, so you actually get flare from everything in your scene every time you shoot, only it's usually much dimmer than the rest of the picture so you don't see it.

When you shoot into a lightsource like that, what shows up white (the flame in this case) is actually way way brighter than white, it's just the camera sensor only records up to a certain brightness. So because the object emitting light is very bright, the internal reflections it generates are much brighter and so they show up as flare.

As different colours of light are bent different amounts by the lens optics they are also reflected different amounts so it's not unusual to have strongly coloured flare. Whether it's good or not is up to you, like many things in photography some people will like it and some wont.

You won't eliminate flare when shooting directly into a bright lightsource, but it will change position as you move, also different lenses show different types of flare and to different degrees, so you just have to experiment as it's hard to predict. Filters on the front of the lens can make flare worse as there's an extra glass surface to reflect light.

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Can I take pictures of the sun without damaging anything? [closed]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Can the sun damage the camera sensor? Under what conditions?

.. and by that I mean not damaging :

• my eyesight
• my camera
• my lens

I imagine a proper ND filter could allow me but I'm not sure

Answer

A large number of people, both amateurs and professionals, photograph and optically observe the sun regularly. The filters required are well known - a search on 'solar photography' will turn up many references.

Be aware that if you get it wrong you can destroy your eyes or your equipment in moments.
Looking directly at the sun will rapidly damage your eyes.
Looking at the sun through a concentrating lens system allows it to happen quicker, or very much quicker ;-(.

Full daylight is nominally 100,000 lux.
A modern LCD screen on full brightness is typically 300 lux at the panel surface. 100,000/ 300 =~ 3000:1. In practice a 400:1 ND filter will do what you want.

For example, Hoya makes an NDx400 ND filter that is intended for solar photography as well as other applications.

Resulting in -

Above images from here

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These images are all hot liked to websites. Identify ones which appear liable to be of direct relevance and click the photos to open the link. (Obtained using Google search + images).

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What does a hexagonal sun tell us about the camera lens/sensor?

Question

In this picture, we see that the sun comes out as a hexagon. I am sure it is not arbitrary. What does the hexagon tell us about the instrument that captured the image?

Answer

It tells us that the aperture contains either three or six blades and that where these blades meet there is a corner which results in Fraunhofer diffraction.

It also tells us that the lens was stopped down, as if it were wide open there would be no corners to cause diffraction, regardless of the number of aperture blades.

Incidentally the number of (distinct) points to the star is equal to double the total number of unique orientations* in the sides of the aperture shape i.e. three blades would be six points, six blades would also be six points as a hexagon has only three unique orientations in its sides.

* a hexagonal aperture has six sides but only three unique orientations as there are three pairs of parallel sides.

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How to take a good landscape picture against the sun?

Question

I like hiking, and usually take my DSLR with me. I often find myself in front of beautiful landscapes, with the sun really high or directly in front of me. The resulting pictures are usually pale, ie they lack contrast (I don't know if I'm clear). Also, the sky is usually very clear.

This can usually be post-processed, but what are the techniques for getting good pictures in such conditions ?

Answer

I think this is an example of: use the opportunities you have, rather than the ones you wish you had. The situation you describe is tricky, and it'll be difficult to get the kind of grand, well-lit landscape that you seen in magazines. But, as Kyle suggests, perhaps there are different interpretations of the scene that could work. Some specific suggestions (some of which are mentioned in other answers as well):

• Keep the sun off your glass (not just out of the frame): shoot from the shade, use a lens hood, shade the lens with your hand or a hat, etc.
• If you want a blue sky, underexpose or shoot in manual, spot-metering off the sky.
• A polarizer will help.
• Make note of interesting scenes and come back when the light is better.

Good luck!

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