Eclipse Photography

Preparing to Photograph the 2024 Eclipse

Lot’s of eclipse images coming from me on my social sites and lots of talk about the eclipse here, it’s fresh in my mind, it was life altering and while it’s still fresh I want to talk about how to prepare for the 2024 eclipse. Remember, I’ve done this once, having said that I have a game plan and a lot of things that I learned from this one experience. Without further ado, here goes.

Unlike the 2017 eclipse totality for the 2024 eclipse is going to pass within about 50 miles of where I live. Today I talked with a lady about our excursion to see the eclipse and she said “well they say we will have like 99.9% here.” This brings me to my first point:

Drive as far as you have to, do whatever is necessary, take off work, rent a hotel room years in advance, whatever it takes, get on the center line of totality. If you aren’t on the center line totality won’t last as long, you’re going to want it to last as long as possible. Also worth noting, a partial eclipse will leave you miserably disappointed. Now that we have that out of the way.

If you are planning to photograph the eclipse, proceed. (see my results here)

I waited until the last minute this year, I didn’t get what the big deal was. The more I researched the more I realized that I probably needed to make an effort to not only see this but also photograph it. You have 7 years, get a game plan now.

With my limited 3 weeks for planning I had one shot that I wanted to get, that was my sole focus. I wanted a close up of the corona radiating out behind the moon. That is what I spent my money to capture, that is what I spent my time researching. My secondary plan was a wide angle time lapse, which mostly failed because I didn’t study how to do that. What I studied, what I set out to get, I got, nothing more, nothing less.

The issue with waiting until 3 weeks before the event is that most of the stuff I wanted, and discovered I needed, was well past sold out. Getting a solar filter was near impossible, getting a telephoto lens was near impossible, getting a tracking mount to counter the earths rotation, was impossible. So I had to make due with what I could get. I ended up lucking out and getting a proper solar filter from the camera shop that was in the town where we stayed to see the eclipse, don’t plan on this, buy a solar filter now. My back up plan was an ND filter with a major risk of frying my gear.

Telephoto shots are fun and challenging, if it’s telephoto shots you’re after then start planning your rental or purchase of that telephoto lens, now. Get the solar filter for it, probably a year in advance, if not sooner. The other option is to get a wide angle time lapse photo, or just a wide angle photo of totality in general. The principles are essentially the same for this, the difference is you should have no issues securing a wide angle lens. It may however be wise to get the filter as soon as possible. My personal game plan for 2024 is to do both. I now know the basis for shooting the time lapse and shooting the telephoto, the plan is to get the tracking mounts for both to counter balance the earths rotation and trigger both remotely.

The biggest thing I can suggest is to practice. Go out with your lens and your solar filter as soon as you get it, the sun moves fast across the sky due to the earths rotation, if you don’t have a mount to counter balance this you need to practice. The longer your focal length the faster it will move. Run through the settings, make your game plan and just practice, practice, practice.

I cannot emphasize to study and practice enough. There were two guys behind me who were VERY cocky about being professional photographers, the were very confident and very full of themselves. After totality I heard them both talking about how they didn’t get the shots. They missed the diamond ring, they didn’t bracket enough. Know what you’re getting into and practice. Run through the setting changes, run through all of it.

If you’re not shooting telephoto shots remember that totality is dark, super dark. It’s like shooting under a full moon. If you’re zoomed in with a telephoto on the eclipse itself this isn’t much of a concern. You’ll be able to rock shutter speeds of 1/100 and still get great results. If you’re trying to capture the landscape around you you’re going to have to slow it down, open the aperture or bump the iso. Know what you want to capture and plan accordingly.

Last but not least, consider not shooting the eclipse. It’s an insane, unbelievably beautiful, incredible, experience. Soak it up, enjoy it, and don’t worry about the camera. Photographing things is my joy in life, going to see something like this and not trying to photograph it would be a let down to my internal being. If photography isn’t important to you, maybe it’s a hobby that isn’t ingrained within your being, pass on the photos and just soak it up. Plenty of other people will take photos of it.

Photographing the Solar Eclipse

What was it like to photograph the solar eclipse? In one word,  exhilarating. I studied relentlessly for 3 weeks leading up to the eclipse. There are plenty of resources out there from people who have been chasing and photographing eclipses for far longer than I have been taking photography seriously. These people are a wealth of knowledge.

I armed myself with a Canon 400mm f:5.6 and a proper solar filter. The solar filter was a bit tricky. I decided I was going to go for this way late in the game so I was stuck with a 16 stop ND filter from Format Hitech. It had a severe ghosting issue. By the time I contacted them and got it sorted out all they had was 13 stop, but they overnighted me one for free. This worked, it was ok but not ideal. I also have a 10 stop B+W filter that I had planned on using if the 13 stop produced ghosting… it did.

We drove to Casper, Wyoming for the eclipse, this was the best chance for no clouds, and ironically we ended up with some cirrus clouds for most of the event but it did not spoil it at all. In Casper there was a camera shop with an abundance of proper solar filters, I bought one. This was the best decision I could have made. It allowed me to look at the sun through the viewfinder without having to use live view and also alleviated all concerns of frying my retinas and my camera.

Shooting the partial phases was easy, super straight forward with no stress. Just point the camera at the sun, adjust every so often and take the photos. This was a cake walk. Totality was another beast entirely. Totality was fast, really fast. I naturally had a shot list and had rehearsed and practiced the shutter speeds, taking the filter off, all of the critical stuff dozens of times before hand. The kicker being there was only one shot at this, I was nervous. I wanted to get the diamond ring, and baileys beads and the entire bracketed set of shots from totality itself. This was a tall order but I am happy, and proud to say, I nailed it.

You can see the shots here.

So how did I nail it? Practice.

Lot’s and lot’s of practice. I had an exposure chart. That I found here. I ran through it over and over again before the big day. I practiced with a remote and without. I ran through all of the bracketed images while my wife timed me. I had it down to 55 seconds. Ultimately I must’ve been able to do it much faster than that because I have 3 full bracketed sets of images and still had time to enjoy the eclipse while not staring through the camera view finder.

It wasn’t a complete success, I had my sights set on the bracketed shot, that was my goal, that’s why I drove 2400 miles in 3 days to ensure my best chance at no clouds, I wanted that shot bad so that was my focus. I also set up a 40D with a 16-35 in hopes of getting a sweet time lapse. That was a failure. I did absolutely no research on how to properly do that, and it failed. Obviously I should’ve just set it to AV and let it properly expose on it’s own, that’s not what I did. I set it in manual and just miserably failed. That’s ok, that wasn’t my goal and in theory I have another chance at this in 7 years.

I plan on shooting it again in 2024. Obviously there is a lot that can happen in 7 years but I’d like to talk about my plan now. My plan is to have 3-5 cameras rolling for that one. I want one shooting a wide angle video, preferably a full frame with something super wide like the 11-24. Just to capture the entire environment. I also want to get the time lapse right this time. I know how to do it, I know how to get it in camera, this should not be an issue at all. Then I want a longer lens focussed in on the sun, 400mm was perfect for getting all of the rays coming off of the sun but I’d like a tighter shot, maybe 800, or 800+ a 1.4 extender giving me 1120mm, along with the 400mm. I have 7 years, which should be ample time to put together a solid plan, acquire the necessary gear and lots of time to practice. I also plan on getting a tracking motor for the telephotos. Tracking the sun across the sky is easy enough but it would be far less stress during totality if the camera just auto tracked the sun.

Anyways, it was a ridiculous experience, there is no words to describe it, it was beautiful and wonderful and exciting all at the same time. Photographing it was amazing. I heard several photographers around me talk about not getting the shots though, if you aren’t confident and if you don’t do your practice and research I suggest ignoring taking photos and just enjoying it because it is truly a surreal experience.