My Plan for Photographing the Solar Eclipse
The area I reside in, Findlay, Ohio is squarely in the path of the totality zone of the April 8 solar eclipse and there is a tremendous amount of excitement and anticipation locally for the event. What I would like to do in this blog post is outline a workable and safe methodology for photographing not only the upcoming April 8 event, but any solar eclipse. This is my plan for shooting the eclipse and I think it’s a fairly solid plan.
I would be remiss if I didn’t start this post out with the First Commandment of solar eclipse photography:
1. Thou shalt not look directly at or point your camera at the Sun without adequate protection!
By adequate protection I mean glasses and lens filters that have been certified safe for solar viewing that are marked ISO 12312-2.
According to local retired ophthalmologist and amateur astronomer Eric Vandermark of North Baltimore, Ohio “…if you look at the sun you are concentrating the sun’s rays on your retina. There is no pain but it will burn a hole in your retina, causing a blind spot in your vision. There is no treatment, and it will last forever.”
“Any optical device you use, such as a telescope, camera or binoculars, must also have a special solar filter.”
Optics can magnify the intensity and brightness of sunlight, and this can cause damage to your equipment and (most importantly) intensify the sun’s damaging effect on your eyesight.
With that out of the way, lets focus on other important factors that will help you successfully experience a solar eclipse.
Don’t Forget to ‘Be Here Now’
A total solar eclipse is not an everyday occurrence. The April 2024 event will be the last total solar eclipse visible in the contiguous United States until August 23, 2044. This will be the last chance for many of us to view a total solar eclipse.
My point is, don’t spend the whole duration of totality fussing with your camera equipment. Sure, it’s going to be great having super shots of the event, but between shots take the time to pause and live in the moment for a while.
In my experience, a solar eclipse can be a time of great serenity. I will never forget my first one - just a partial eclipse. I think it was spring of 1984. I was not focused on photographing the event, just experiencing it. I was at Riverbend Park, near a wooded area with lots of chirping birds. As the sky darkened, the birdsongs faded as if it was dusk and soon there was complete silence. As the darkest period ended, one by one the birds began to sing again almost as if it was a new dawn. It was a magical moment and one I will never forget. I cherish that memory much more than any photo I could have taken. Allow yourself time to just be present in the moment and you won’t be sorry.
Equipment
Filters and Glasses
I mentioned earlier in this blog the absolute necessity for protecting your eyes and optical gear (cameras/telescopes/binoculars) while viewing most of a solar eclipse. Solar filters and glasses can be purchased from a number of sources at a wide variety of price points.
Safety approved glasses for wearing while viewing the eclipse can even be had for free at many public libraries through The STAR Library Network (STAR Net), managed by the Space Science Institute. Learn more about this program at SEAL: Solar Eclipse Activities for Libraries – STAR Library Network (starnetlibraries.org)
Information on where to find ISO-Complient solar filters for your camera lenses, telescopes and binoculars as well as glasses has been researched by The American Astronomical Society, which makes it’s findings available at this link: Suppliers of Safe Solar Viewers & Filters | Solar Eclipse Across America (aas.org).
When choosing solar filters for your camera lens, keep in mind that you will be removing the filter during the brief period of totality at the height of a total eclipse when the sun is obscured by the moon. You will need to remove the filter at this point, change your exposure settings and then be prepared to quickly reverse this process when totality is over. Choose a filter that you can remove and replace quickly.
Cameras
Contrary to what you might think, you don’t need pricey equipment to get decent eclipse photos. Most cameras will do, even phone cameras work for wider angle shots. For the purposes of this post I will be concentrating on the equipment I will be using: Interchangeable lens DSLR and mirrorless full frame cameras and telephoto lenses. If you plan to use your cellphone to photograph the event, here is a link you might find helpful: How to photograph a solar eclipse with a smartphone 2024 | Space .
Lenses
Although it is possible to take dramatic photos of a solar eclipse with a wide angle or normal lens these shots tend to include a fair amount of landscape, with the sun being a relatively minor player in the image. I am hoping for tight solar images with no terrestrial details. For this kind of photo, a telephoto lens is needed that will be of sufficient focal length to get a good sized image of the sun. In fact, my plan is to get a series of images of different phases of the eclipse and composite them into one photo which shows the sun at every phase. For that, I plan to use a 500-millimeter lens on a camera with a full frame sensor (the equivalent of 35mm film in a film camera.
A 500 mm telephoto should give enough magnification to make the sun a good size in the frame, but not enough to cut off the corona in the images I make during totality.
During a total solar eclipse, within the path of totality there is a brief period of darkness as the moon completely covers the sun. The sun's outer atmosphere, known as the solar corona, which is normally invisible due to the relative brightness of the sun, becomes visible. The wispy tendrils of the solar corona shoot out a considerable distance from the solar disc and if you have framed the eclipse too tightly with a telephoto with too great a focal length, they will be cut off by the edge of the frame. A telephoto with 500-600mm focal length on a full-frame camera should provide enough ‘breathing room’ within the frame to capture most if not all the corona.
Tripod and shutter release
I plan to use a tripod to support my camera and lens while shooting the eclipse. In my opinion there are several compelling reasons for using a tripod or other camera support for this project.
I plan to try and capture all the phases of the solar eclipse. Depending on how much of the eclipse you intend to document, the process could take hours. Handholding a camera and telephoto lens pointed upward toward the sky would get pretty heavy for that amount of time.
Also, during the period of totality, the sky becomes dark and you will have to set the shutter speed at a relatively slow speed. A tripod will become essential at that point, especially with a long telephoto lens.
For the same reason, some type of remote shutter release should be used to avoid camera vibration from tripping the shutter button manually during long exposures.
Camera Settings During the Eclipse
Focus
First of all, I plan on setting my lens focus to manual. The autofocus will be turned off and I will use manual focus. Autofocus doesn’t always work well during the extreme conditions of a solar eclipse.
On many lenses, racking your lens all the way to ‘infinity’ doesn’t always result in optical infinity. Once you manually set the focus it shouldn’t change during the course of the eclipse, but you should probably check it occasionally to make sure lens creep hasn’t shifted the focus of your lens slightly, especially with some zoom lenses.
Exposure
By the same token, I plan to set my camera to manual exposure mode. The extremely high dynamic range of a solar eclipse (about 12 stops) makes it difficult to use autoexposure effectively during this event.
The eclipse will be in three phases: The progression from full sunlight leading up to totality, totality itself, and the progression back to full sunlight after totality.
For the periods before and after totality, when I will be using a solar filter over the lens, the exposure will not change that much and can be left the same. I intend to determine this exposure by making test exposures with my solar filter in place, before the day of the eclipse.
Where things will get interesting will be during the period of totality. The light will change wildly and rapidly during this brief period of varying degrees of darkness. I will have to remove the solar filter from my lens during totality and begin to bracket my exposures to compensate for the high dynamic range. I plan to use the following guidelines (which I found online) as a starting point in my bracketing:
ISO”: 200
Aperture: f/8
Shutter speed:
Outer Corona: 2 second
Mid Corona: 1/4 second
Inner Corona: 1/125 second
Diamond Ring: 1/125 second
Baily’s Beads: 1/8000 second
Prominences: 1/2000
The above exposures are just starting points. I plan to bracket each exposure during totality by five stops.
At the end of totality I will put the solar filter back on my lens and go back to the same exposure I used for the progression leading up to totality.
My plan is to combine my eclipse images into one of those neat multi-image compilations showing the entire progression of the event in one image. But you and I both know what happens to even the most well-laid plans, right?
Which brings me to…
The Cosmic Wild Card: Weather
Remember how those April showers bring May flowers?
According to the Spectrum News One website, the odds for decent weather are not good. A look at the weather records through the years 1979-2022, between April 1-April 15 from the hours of 12 p.m. to 4 p.m., Ohio had cloud cover between an average of 60 to 70%. The totality of the solar eclipse April 8 will cross Ohio between 3:10 and 3:15 p.m.
To complicate the odds even more, we are experiencing an El Niño pattern this year, where clouds occur even more often in our area. This brings the odds down to 80%-90% chance of cloud cover during the eclipse period.
But all is not lost even if the clouds do roll in. In 2017 I was able to get a few decent shots during the solar eclipse during brief breaks of thinning in the cloud cover, so don’t give up hope!
