Solar Eclipse Photography tomorrow am

An excellent view from the car park at RSPB Ham Wall in Somerset, although at first it was very unpromising. I was hoping for the landscape shot of a lifetime of the eclipsed sun and Glastonbury Tor but the fog wasn't playing. We began to see the sun just before 9.00, partly eclipsed, through cloud and fog. After max eclipse the cloud cleared around the sun so the home made filter came out. The light was quite eerie. I saw the total eclipse of 1999 (from a yacht in the Channel) and that was the same, athough darker. It didn't get dark, the birds didn't stop singing, they just quietened down. Pics later as we got our solar scope out afterwards looking for prominences and I've just got home. Was anyone else's eclipse accompanied by booming bitterns?
 
Andrew Davies Photography said:
I got a few lovely close ups and have to say the 8 stop ND worked spot on with no issues , also tried to get a few landscapes , this is the nearest i have got with some people using telescopes on the hill in the same shot for some sort of perspective.

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I think that's probably the best shot of it posted so far, the only one with it in context rather than just a shot of the Sun looking like a crescent Moon.

Like some others, I ended up using Nature's filter (hefty cloud cover) and a polarising filter that fell conveniently to hand to cut as much as possible. NOT to view directly (only 1 pair of Mk 1 eyeballs!) but to shoot the usual close up with a 1200mm (35mm EFL) bridge. Even with live view its sensor seems to have survived unscathed despite the clouds thinning a couple of times when I was aiming at it, although that was at close to maximum obscurity.

Hope no one fried a sensor and hope even more that no one fried their eyes.
 
Andrew Davies Photography said:
I got a few lovely close ups and have to say the 8 stop ND worked spot on with no issues , also tried to get a few landscapes , this is the nearest i have got with some people using telescopes on the hill in the same shot for some sort of perspective.

eclipse3c.jpg
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Like that Andrew; I was puzzled as to how to get a landscape type shot with some context, thinking you'd need wider than 35mm to make it work. What lens was that?
 
sturisoma said:
But on a more positive note, go to your local tanning salon and ask for some wink-ease which are little sticky eye protectors. You could put these on an old filter , or even just some plastic, and stick them in front of your lens. They protect eyes from UV at very close quarters so I expect they'll give your sensor some protection.
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NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

UV ain't the problem. It's the IR that will cook your eyeballs and your sensor.
 
I didn't hold up much hope of seeing yesterday's eclipse as the morning was very overcast in the part of Oxford where I work. I taken protective glasses and was prepared for the hole in a sheet of card method of viewing but as I time went on the cloud cover stubbornly remained so I just got on with work. Eventually the cloud thinned enough that we could just make it out.

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The photo below with the clouds was one of the last I took before the sunlight broke through and I put my camera aside to view with protective glasses on.

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ChrisR said:
Like that Andrew; I was puzzled as to how to get a landscape type shot with some context, thinking you'd need wider than 35mm to make it work. What lens was that?
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70-200 !! I was over the other side of a river so had to go with the long lens, i had a 16-35 on me too but for that shot 70 mm worked out good.
 
If you look at the moon tonight you'll see a much longer solar eclipse that you can safely look at and photograph to your hearts content, identical to the one on Friday!
 
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