Solar Eclipse!

I'm ten minutes away from the north limit of the shadow in Portland. Work is near the middle of the shadow but we cancelled the day on account of the area going nuts with transit issues.

I saw the one in 79. It was awesome. So what I may do is shoot my Cinestill 800T outdoors that's in my Leica IIf/3.5 Elmar 5cm. Unless the marine air is overhead. In which case I'll read a book. And it sounds like we will be socked in with clouds until about noon......
 
Bethanne and I are going to our favorite cemetery, if it isn't overcast. Heck, we go there when it IS overcast anyways, so we might be there. I'll take my 4x5 and a few film holders with. I'm not getting caught up in the gear of this all. I think too many people get that mindset and instead of experiencing life, they just witness it behind a window or through a tunnel of sorts. Anyway, I'll have my camera pointed at the ground, looking at all the crescent shaped points of light that the holes between the leaves will be projecting like so many pinhole cameras. Actually, I may bring my pinhole camera as well, stick a ND4 filter on it and shoot a 3 minute exposure which will capture the entirety of the event. I can't get caught up in gear though! I've done that too much in the past. Two large format cameras, pointed at the ground. That's it.
We'll enjoy the birds and maybe see a groundhog.

Phil Forrest
 
dmr said:
16 days 2 go! :)



This is, of course, manual focus, using live view to compose. I've found it somewhat clumsy trying to focus on the sun, so I plan to focus on a far-far away object with the filter off and then pop the filter on. That's what I did for the shot above.
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Why not set the lens to infinity?
 
giganova said:
Do you think I could capture cool scenes with a 21mm lens on B&W film? Will the eclipsed Sun be too small to see that it is an eclipse?

My plan was to set my M4 with the 21/3.4 SA on a tripod, with a great scenery in the Rocky Mountains where I will be, and cycle through 1/500 sec to 1 sec exposures.

I was also wondering whether I should put a red filter in the lens. This would give pitch black skies with a B&W film but won't affect the sun's penumbra.

Any thoughts?
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A 21 will give you a tiny speck in the sky. You also run the risk of burning a hole in the shutter before and after the total eclipse.
 
froyd said:
Why not set the lens to infinity?
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This was discussed over on the astronomy board (as well as here in another totally unrelated topic) and the consensus is clearly that setting the lens hard at the infinity stop is a Bad Thing {tm}.
 
I'm right on the line for 90%, and that's good enough for me (Otherwise I'd have to drive darn near 300 miles towards the TN/NC border for a view of tonality). Won't be shooting any sun photos though. A viewer box may come in handy for sharing with the neighbors. Will have to go looking for the dapple on the ground as no trees in the immediate vicinity. If it isn't raining or cloudy that is. This valley is notorious for ruining astronomical events.

PF
 
We are planning a 6 hour drive south to view. No reservations just going to drive until we find a nice dirt road to tailgate on then trek back home for work.

No intention on photographing the eclipse as many images will be available after by people much better prepared with deeper pockets.

We will be bringing one of my telescopes, likely the Tasco 14T I restored last fall it has attachments for solar projection, should work fine for us to view the eclipse indirectly.
 
B-9 said:
We are planning a 6 hour drive south to view. No reservations just going to drive until we find a nice dirt road to tailgate on then trek back home for work.
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You better leave the night before. With millions of people migrating from all sides to this narrow strip of totality, what would otherwise be a 6 hour drive will likely become a 12 hour drive.
 
70% cloud cover predicted for where I'll be... I guess I'll just be looking at clouds changing to various shades of brightness unless the forecast changes. On a positve note, overcast skies will make for good portrait photography :p
 
boggles me that we have to remind people not to stare at the eclipse (sun).

dont really care for this phenomenon but looking forward to the thousands of pictures at the comfort of my phone
 
Yup, and my sister asked yesterday if pointing her cell phone at the sun during the eclipse might damage its camera, and I confirmed that it would and that she should protect it with the same sort of eclipse glasses that she's going to use for her eyes. That's when she had that "aha" moment because she was just going to look up at the sun from her place of work without any eye protection. She's looking for glasses or welding goggles now. She's getting some for our mom too. They're both up in the Portland area, so they'll have 99% coverage.

Scott
 
Scott, it's a bit scary to think just how many people will make that unthinking mistake!
 
skucera said:
Yup, and my sister asked yesterday if pointing her cell phone at the sun during the eclipse might damage its camera, and I confirmed that it would and that she should protect it with the same sort of eclipse glasses that she's going to use for her eyes. That's when she had that "aha" moment because she was just going to look up at the sun from her place of work without any eye protection. She's looking for glasses or welding goggles now. She's getting some for our mom too. They're both up in the Portland area, so they'll have 99% coverage.

Scott
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She might find the same shortage of both glasses and welder's masks that we have in my area. Some people are selling paper frame eclipse glasses for $50 a pair!

As a photographer, and a good brother, why don't you give your sister a nice present and develop a roll of BW film, preferably in 120 format after unspooling it in bright light? According to the NASA site and other authoritative sources, fully dense/black silver-based film is an appropriate filter for solar rays. I've used this method several years ago and it works very well. If you use 120, you have enough material to cut the film into the shape of an eye mask, but that's gettin' awful fancy.
 
giganova said:
You better leave the night before. With millions of people migrating from all sides to this narrow strip of totality, what would otherwise be a 6 hour drive will likely become a 12 hour drive.
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very true,

We do plan to leave Sunday afternoon in anticipation of serious traffic.

Here in mid-Michigan the wal-mart, meijer, and even the tractor supply stores are sold out of glasses and welding masks.

The local eye glass store made out like bandits, there was literally a line of people waiting outside for "Official NASA Eclipse Glasses" last week.

I have seen on Facebook people from our area driving over an hour east/west to find any kind of glass or spectacles to view with. Frantic pleas for known locations with glasses in stock...

It going to be crazy... how many will actually try to view this event with their naked eyes
 
Some cardboard viewing glasses are certified by ISO to comply with the ISO 12312-2 solar-filter safety standard.

Some cardboard viewing glasses have an ISO logo (but no ISO 12312-2 text). One can not find documentation or only incomplete documentation regarding authentic ISO compliance. Some sellers offer on-line documents from non-ISO labs that claim although there is no actual ISO certification, the solar film meets the ISO12312-2 standard.

Amazon has automatically refunded the purchase price of all solar protection products if the sellers can not provide Amazon a complete set of ISO certification documents. About three weeks ago NASA and other legitimate organizations published a list of ISO certificated manufacturers and the companies who sell these products. Other professional astronomy organizations published similar lists.

Solar filters for viewing and photography do three things:

  1. attenuate visible light energy brightness by at least 16 stops
  2. filter IR to levels that will not damage the retina
  3. filter UV above 800 nm to levels that will not damage the retina

The main cause of retina damage is phototoxicity rather than thermal burning. Initially, retinal biochemistry is disrupted because of molecular damage. Then molecular oxidation products cause further damage to retinal cellular function.

The primary cause of camera damage would be excessive temperatures.

Materials that can achieve [1] may, or may not achieve [2] and, or [3].

Products that actually comply with ISO12312-2 do all of these.
 
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