The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
There has been some strong solar activity lately and a check of Spaceweather.com showed some good sunspots. They rotate left to right and yesterday would have been a little better but skies were on the murky side and my day got hijacked, so I got this this morning. Zoom in twice to see the detail.
Specific Feedback
All comments welcome!
Technical Details
Sturdy tripod, remote release, Tele-Vue SolSearcher, Spectrum solar filter (pretty much the ultimate ND). Cropped to 16% of the full frame. Texture slider full right in LR, into PS for a careful Nik Detail Extractor then a careful layer of Viveza Structure.
DO NOT try this at home without a proper solar filter – they are way more than a heavy ND, filtering both UV and IR that will cook your shutter and sensor. There are less expensive films but a good glass filter will give you more detail and less chance of a pinhole. There are others that will capture more of the surface detail, but the turbulence in our own atmosphere as well as the sun’s will limit details.
Hi Diane,
wow, that looks amazing. This is an object that we actually see almost every day. But everyone knows the sun only as a glaring ball in the sky. The details you have made visible with your shot are awesome.
I first wondered about the ISO you used. But it makes perfect sense when I think about it. 1000mm focal length probably makes the fast shutter speed necessary to capture sharp details of the sun.
So you don’t seem to have underestimated calling your filter “the ultimate ND”.
That’s a good point. And it’s even unhealthy to look through the viewfinder into the sun when using a DSLR.
Thanks, @Jens_Ober – it’s amazing to be able to do this! If anyone is interested in more information on a solar finder I can add it, along with the easy way I finally figured out to attach it to the camera. (They seem to be designed for telescopes.)
Here’s a screenshot of the picture from SpaceWeather displayed at its high resolution:
Ahhh, why not!
It’s a good way to find out if the camera manufacturer is telling the truth when they say it’ll smoke the sensor on a mirrorless camera.
I’ve taken images of the sun with a #12 glass welding helmet filter and it worked pretty good, it’s the equivalent to a 12 stop ND filter, but now that I think about it, I did stack an additional 4 stop ND filter on top for a total of 16 stops of light.
I was taking images of the last solar eclipse in 2017, it was a total eclipse for us since we were directly under it’s path across the U.S., I’ll have to dig into my archives to find them.
Pretty neat event and it was my only chance to ever get a shot of one.
Thinking back on it, I was afraid I wouldn’t get it because of heavy scattered cloud cover but the clouds moved out of the way just in time to get a centered shot. I remember now that I was sure to be disappointed but I got lucky!
As I recall, the images were pretty clear since the sun was at about 70 degrees above the horizon (in August) which means I was only shooting through about 65 miles worth of atmosphere.
When the sun is right on the horizon, you’re shooting through more than 10 times that (depending on your elevation and the elevation at the horizon).
It involved a frantic run to central NE. I had the camera on a tracker shooting to partial phases and Ted pulled off the solar filter just a split second before totality, hoping for Bailey’s beads or the diamond ring, but I didn’t get either, on either end. (That tiny bit of light for a split second has been deemed tolerable for a camera, and mine survived.)
I certainly didn’t do anything near what you did in terms of the image or the trip, I simply setup in my yard with a still camera on one tripod and a video camera on another tripod.
After viewing what you did, neither my still shot nor my video is worthy of posting or even going through the trouble of digging them out so I’ll just leave my snapshot style media where it’s at.
I guess it’s still true that you get out what you put in. Mine was barely any effort to do and the results show that well.
The corona varies hugely in brightness and is a challenge to capture – HDR is the only way to get even 20% of it. There is another one coming up in a year – next April 18, and the centerline will again be not too far from you, @Merv. I fervently hope to have decent weather somewhere I can get to.
Fascinating!! Your image opens a whole new ability to appreciate that “glaring ball in the sky.” I’ve never photographed the sun, and your technical skill to do that is impressive.
I love your eclipse image that you linked to as well; that’s beautiful!
