Shooting sun and moon

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

JohnR66 wrote:

> I got a decent shot of the moon:
> http://home.att.net/~jriegle/moon.jpg
>
> ...But the sun is terrible. The color is exaggerated as I was really
> punching up the contrast to get the sunspots to show. I thought the moon
> would be more difficult to shoot, but the sun is impossible to get a sharp
> shot.
> http://home.att.net/~jriegle/sun.jpg
>
> Both were shot with the Canon 300 f/4 L and the 2x converter. The moon was
> shot one stop open from the 'Sunny 16' rule. With the sun, I tried various
> settings. I had a dark filter made of acrylic over the front of the lens. It
> gave a brownish color cast. Perhaps it is distorting the image somehow. Any
> tips for better sun shots?

You might want to drop by a welding supply store and get some
dark welders glass.. It will probably be optically better than
acrylic plastic. (If you shoot RAW, you should be able to get
rid of any cast a filter will cause.. Just choose the sun
as the white point)...

This is someting I always think of trying but never get
around to :-)

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

>You might want to drop by a welding supply store and get some
>dark welders glass.. It will probably be optically better than
>acrylic plastic.

Amen to that. Look for an 11 grade or higher, make sure you are on a
tripod and manually focus - your shot looks out of focus, apart from
any other issues caused by the acrylic.. Note that welders glass is
not really designed for high quality optical use either, and you really
need to maybe visit a telescope shop and ask about 'real' sun filters.
They range from mildly to ground-shakingly expensive.

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

JohnR66 <nospam@att.net> wrote:
>I got a decent shot of the moon:
>http://home.att.net/~jriegle/moon.jpg
>
>...But the sun is terrible. The color is exaggerated as I was really
>punching up the contrast to get the sunspots to show. I thought the moon
>would be more difficult to shoot, but the sun is impossible to get a sharp
>shot.
>http://home.att.net/~jriegle/sun.jpg

Not bad at all, IMO. Getting clear pictures of the sun is really hard.
I've used a 2540mm telescope with a 10 inch aperture and had results
that weren't a lot better.

>Both were shot with the Canon 300 f/4 L and the 2x converter. The moon was
>shot one stop open from the 'Sunny 16' rule. With the sun, I tried various
>settings. I had a dark filter made of acrylic over the front of the lens.

A plastic filter? Hmmm. Try a pair of crossed polarizing filters
(make sure the front one is a linear polarizer - not circular).

> It
>gave a brownish color cast. Perhaps it is distorting the image somehow. Any
>tips for better sun shots?

Midday. Don't do it any time in the morning or afternoon as the
Earth's atmosphere will distort the image. The daytime atmosphere is
a lot more turbulent than nighttime, so you want to shoot when things
are clear and steady.

Not much you can do about the solar atmosphere short of spending a few
thousand for a hydrogen alpha filter.

--
Ray Fischer
rfischer@sonic.net

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

In article <d8tmvs$c4d$1@bolt.sonic.net>,
Ray Fischer <rfischer@bolt.sonic.net> wrote:
>JohnR66 <nospam@att.net> wrote:
>>
>>Any tips for better sun shots?
>
>Midday. Don't do it any time in the morning or afternoon as the
>Earth's atmosphere will distort the image. The daytime atmosphere is
>a lot more turbulent than nighttime, so you want to shoot when things
>are clear and steady.

Yeah, I've tried photographing the sun at nighttime when the atmosphere
is clear and steady, but that darned 8,000 miles of solid earth keeps
getting in the way. :-)

Anyway, for the OP, Kodak's famous Astrophotography Basics tech bulletins
are available on the Kodak website at:

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/consumer/products/techIn...

[mind the wrap]

A bit of the Getting Started page and the partial phase information
on the Solar Eclipse page have good info about photographing the
uneclipsed sun. The folks on sci.astro.amateur should have some
good advice, too.

Maybe we'll get you hooked and you'll start chasing eclipses, thusly:

http://www.wintertime.com/OH/eclipse-outer.jpg
http://www.wintertime.com/OH/eclipse-inner.jpg`


Patty

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

"JohnR66" <nospam@att.net> wrote in message
news:6Tqse.329435$cg1.254817@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
>I got a decent shot of the moon:
> http://home.att.net/~jriegle/moon.jpg
>
> ...But the sun is terrible. The color is exaggerated as I was really
> punching up the contrast to get the sunspots to show. I thought the moon
> would be more difficult to shoot, but the sun is impossible to get a sharp
> shot.
> http://home.att.net/~jriegle/sun.jpg
>
> Both were shot with the Canon 300 f/4 L and the 2x converter. The moon was
> shot one stop open from the 'Sunny 16' rule. With the sun, I tried various
> settings. I had a dark filter made of acrylic over the front of the lens.
> It gave a brownish color cast. Perhaps it is distorting the image somehow.
> Any tips for better sun shots?
>
> Thanks, John

You could also try a Nuetral Density X400 filter, it will give 9 stops with
little distortion.

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

Jim Townsend <not@real.address> wrote:

>You might want to drop by a welding supply store and get some
>dark welders glass.. It will probably be optically better than
>acrylic plastic. (If you shoot RAW, you should be able to get
>rid of any cast a filter will cause.. Just choose the sun
>as the white point)...

I have many pieces of #14 welding glass, some fairly large ones
(about 8x11 cm). I use them over the objective of my 9x60
binoculars. With a filter size of 77 mm that would just fit
your lens with a little jerry-rigging. They only cost me about
two bucks each, and I've used them at 2 solar eclipses as well
as two planetary transits, so I think they've paid for themselves!

--
Ken Tough

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

On Fri, 17 Jun 2005 02:49:38 GMT
"JohnR66" <nospam@att.net> wrote:

> Any tips for
> better sun shots?


There's a product out called "baader film" or something similar,
which is cheap and widly used to make "eclipse glasses" and also
used to make filters to go over the front of telescopes to
enable solar viewing. It's not that expensive IIRC, and could
easily be turned into a camera filter I'm sure.

-Chris D

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

JohnR66 wrote:
>
> I got a decent shot of the moon:
> http://home.att.net/~jriegle/moon.jpg
>
> ...But the sun is terrible. The color is exaggerated as I was really
> punching up the contrast to get the sunspots to show. I thought the moon
> would be more difficult to shoot, but the sun is impossible to get a sharp
> shot.
> http://home.att.net/~jriegle/sun.jpg
>
> Both were shot with the Canon 300 f/4 L and the 2x converter. The moon was
> shot one stop open from the 'Sunny 16' rule. With the sun, I tried various
> settings. I had a dark filter made of acrylic over the front of the lens. It
> gave a brownish color cast. Perhaps it is distorting the image somehow. Any
> tips for better sun shots?
>
> Thanks, John

As kids, we used to get a piece of glass and a candle, and smoke the
glass with the unburnt carbon in the candle flame, then use it to look
at the sun. Was quite safe, since the black coating stopped IR and UV
as well as visible light. An old UV filter, or even a good one, could
be used for this, since the soot will wipe away cleanly when you are
finished.

Colin

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

>As kids, we used to get a piece of glass and a candle

Hmm. Having been involved in looking at safety precautions for viewing
solar eclipses in the past.... while heavily 'smoked' glass does
provide quite good reduction of IR/UV/visible light, it is almost
impossible to get any sort of uniform coverage. Non-uniformity would
affect exposure accuracy and image clarity. It is also very easily
smudged or scraped off.

>From B. Ralph Chou, MSc, OD at:
http://www.eclipse99.com/safety.html

"Smoked glass had very good performance in terms of transmission of
visible light and infrared radiation. However, it is a dangerous filter
material for two reasons. First, it is very difficult to produce a
heavy uniform coating of soot on glass. Second, the coating is very
fragile. It is very easy to destroy the filter by handling it."

As for using a good UV filter for this...? Applying strong localised
heat, and what is effectively a load of burning, reacting hydrocarbons
to a filter could be an expensive mistake. I would certainly not apply
it to a good multi-coated one, anyway..

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

Only purpose-made filters including welder's glass of grade 13 (yes,
that is an uncommon grade, but 12 is strictly speaking a little too
bright) or higher are considered safe for human eyes when observing the
Sun. Crossed polarizers, smoked glass, acrylics, developed photographic
film and the like are all likely to pass too much UV, IR, or both. They
could very well damage a camera sensor also.

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

In article <6Tqse.329435$cg1.254817@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>,
"JohnR66" <nospam@att.net> wrote:

> I got a decent shot of the moon:
> http://home.att.net/~jriegle/moon.jpg
>
> ...But the sun is terrible. The color is exaggerated as I was really
> punching up the contrast to get the sunspots to show. I thought the moon
> would be more difficult to shoot, but the sun is impossible to get a sharp
> shot.

John-

I wonder if you could rig-up some kind of pinhole camera big enough for
you (or at least your camera) to be inside?

If you photographed the projected image resulting from a small pinhole in
a foil sheet, it should be reasonably sharp (diffraction limited?). The
brightness would be reduced and image size would be determined by how far
it is between the pinhold and the projected image.

Fred