The question I get the most about my 2024 solar eclipse photos is: how did you do that wide-angle solar eclipse picture with the time-lapse of it moving across the sky?
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Camera settings
I used my Fujifilm X-H2 with a Fujifilm 10-24 f/4.0 lens, set for about 16mm (24mm equivalent in full frame) with a solar filter, locked down on a tripod.
For the time-lapse shots that were not during totality, I used the built-in Interval timer set to take a picture every 5 minutes for the eclipse duration, from 1:58 pm to 4:30 pm in my time zone. I set my camera to ISO 200, 1/125 sec, and f/8. I set the drive mode to Bracket, with an AE Bracket (exposure bracket) of 3 shots - zero exposure, +1 stop, and - 1 stop, so I had some wiggle room in case I got the exposure wrong.
During the total eclipse, I removed the solar filter and shot a 9-stop bracket centered around 1/20th second (still ISO 200 and f/8). This gave me a shot exposed to the landscape (to use as a base plate for the time-lapse stack) and a shot exposed to the eclipsed Sun and its corona.
Processing the pictures
The trick: Open as Layers, blend mode "Lighten."
The key to processing these pictures was loading them into Photoshop as layers. If I used Lightroom, it would be easy - select all the photos, then right-click and edit in "Open as Layers in Photoshop.". Since I use Capture One, I copied all the pictures I wanted into a folder. I opened Photoshop, used the menu item "File | Scripts > Load files into a stack…", and selected all the photos in that folder. That gave me a Photoshop document with all the layers as separate photos.
Time-lapse shots
The easy part was the time-lapse shots with the solar filter. My base exposure - ISO 200, 1/125 sec, f/8 - were the shots I used. (It turns out I didn't need to bracket, but better safe than sorry!) Those shots were completely black, except for the white dot of the Sun. Photoshop's "lighten" blending mode takes the brightest part of each picture when it blends the two, so all I had to do was select all the time-lapse shot layers and change the blend mode to "lighten." This gave me a black picture with the Sun moving across the sky.
Total eclipse landscape plus eclipsed Sun
The slightly tricky part was the total eclipse landscape. I needed two shots here: the landscape shot (where the eclipsed Sun was still very bright and a blown-out white circle) and a shot exposed for the eclipsed Sun—which, like all the time-lapse shots, had just the Sun and the rest of the photo was completely black. I picked my favorites from the "no filter, just total eclipse" 9-stop bracket I shot.
Without the solar filter, my total eclipse landscape shot was from the lowest part of my 9-stop bracket: ISO 200, 3 sec, f/8. That exposure showed me a landscape similar to what I saw with my eyes: very dark but still visible. I made that shot my "base plate" and moved it to the bottom layer in my stack of layers in the Photoshop document. Then, I edited it to clone out the blown-out Sun and make it look like the rest of the blue sky. (There are many ways to do this in Photoshop, but I used the patch tool to bring in a different part of the sky.)
Then, I took the eclipsed Sun shot I liked most, ISO 200, 1/20 sec, f/8, and treated it like all the time-lapse shots. (It was a black photo with nothing but the Sun's corona surrounding the black dot of the Moon.) I moved this layer just above the base plate landscape and set its blend mode to "lighten."
And that's it! Lighten blend mode did all the work besides a bit of cloning.
(Thank you to Lee Varis for explaining layer blend modes to me in a class a few years back. I know enough about Photoshop to be dangerous, and blend modes are the key to this picture).
The Corona and Prominences
The Sun's corona shot is more straightforward. Fujifilm 150-600 lens, ISO 200, 1/250 sec, f/8. This was during totality(obviously), so I removed my solar filter, and I was taking a 9-stop bracket to try to get the full range of the Sun's corona. (That didn't work as well because of the thin, high-layer clouds we had.)
I could see the big triangle-shaped solar flare (prominence) with my naked eye as a red dot on the bottom of the Sun. I didn't know what it was until I saw the telephoto picture.
But how did you figure out all these settings? (Practice, Practice, Practice)
The best advice I got (from multiple sources on YouTube) is: don't make the eclipse the first time you try to take pictures of the Sun. Practice beforehand to make sure you know what your settings are.
Practice with the Moon (no solar filter needed!)
The Moon makes an excellent test subject for eclipse photography. You get practice focusing on an object far away and tracking something moving about as fast as the Sun. And, yes, the Moon (and the Sun) are moving fast! In my telephoto shots, it would only take a couple of minutes before the Moon completely left the frame. Taking pictures for an hour meant constantly shifting my camera. To the right and down, right and down, every couple of minutes. This taught me to give up on my ball head for the telephoto shots. All it took was one slip, and I completely lost the Moon. I switched to my geared head, which let me make precise adjustments. (Right and down).
I also practiced my wide shot, with the interval timer set to shots one minute apart. Then, I loaded them all into a stack of layers in Photoshop, set the blend mode to lighten, and turned off layers until I got the distance between each step that I wanted. Five minutes was the best time between shots for me.
Practice with the Sun (with a solar filter)
When I got my solar filter, I did more test runs in the weeks leading up to the eclipse. March in Ohio is mostly cloudy, so I only got a couple of full-sun test runs. I used these runs to figure out my exposure - that's where my ISO 200, 1/125 sec, f/8 setting came from - it was the best exposure with my solar filter. I also figured out how wide I wanted to shoot on the landscape shot - I thought 18mm (28mm full frame equivalent) would do it, but I learned that wasn't wide enough, and I needed to go to 16mm (24mm full frame equivalent) to fit the whole arc of the Sun into the frame.
I also learned that focusing on the Sun is harder than it seems. "Just set it to infinity focus" didn't work; it turns out most lenses focus past infinity, which leaves the Sun blurry and out of focus. I learned to use autofocus to get close, then tweak with manual focus, looking at a sunspot as my focusing target. This is easy with my Fujifilm camera; Manual Focus mode works with back-button autofocus by default, so I would hold the AF button down to autofocus, then turn the focus ring on the lens to fine-tune if it needed it. I left the camera in Manual Focus mode because once the Sun was in focus, it stayed focused as long as I didn't touch anything. (I also learned it is hard to focus without a towel draped over me and the camera to block out the Sun - it is so bright I couldn't see the viewfinder.)
I also learned that I had a LOT of camera shake with my telephoto lens on my tripod, so I switched to a remote shutter release to minimize vibrations.
Oh, and I also went out and bought a Star Tracker so I didn't have to spend as much time repositioning my lens. It was expensive, and I'd spend the money again.
What I learned on the day of the eclipse (whoops)
On eclipse day, I set up my tripod, lined everything up, pointed my camera where Photo Pills AR mode said it should be pointed, and was ready to go. Then…whoops. I moved my tripod a few feet to the left to get my car into the garage, but I did not put it back. That's why my time-lapse gets cut off on the right of the frame before it finishes.
Also, to make my life easier during totality, I set up a custom mode (C7) on my camera for the 9-stop bracket based on my ISO 200, 1/20 sec, and f/8 settings. I missed that the Custom Setting was empty, and all settings were at the camera defaults. The default image type is JPEG only, not RAW+JPEG like I always shoot. It's the first thing I change on a new Fujifilm camera, and I missed it. Luckily, the bracketing gave me well-exposed JPEGs, but I don't have the RAW photos that I can push and pull as much as I'd like to recover some of the subtle details in the corona. Grr. Next time, instead of switching to the custom mode and starting to change everything, I'll save my current settings to the custom mode first, then start changing. That way, I'll start with all the stuff I always have set up, not a (basically) factory set of settings.
Finally, I'd try to get in one more practice run with my custom settings set up and process those pictures. I didn't do this because my custom settings were for totality (when the solar filter is removed). Testing without a solar filter would be a Bad Idea. (I've seen pictures of cameras with telephoto lenses pointed at the Sun and the resulting melted shutters and image sensors. Yikes).
Useful Eclipse tools
Two general Eclipse sites that I kept turning to for information were Eclipsophile and Mr. Eclipse.
I used The Photographers Ephemeris app and website for planning, and the Photo Pills app, especially its AR mode, which showed me how the Sun would move from my front yard.
I also used http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/SolarEclipseExposure.html as a baseline for my during-the-eclipse camera settings. I read somewhere to use Inner Corona \<0.2 as the base of a 9-stop wide bracket, and that gave me a good setting to start from.
Finally, I used Windy.com for its cloud cover map. Cloud cover is notoriously tricky to predict, but this website did a good job for me. The GFS map had the best long-range cloud map, and the NFS map had the most accurate short-range cloud map for this eclipse. (Your mileage may vary; this is the first time I've tried to track cloud cover over a long time range, so I only have this eclipse as a data point for cloud accuracy.)
Next eclipse?
This eclipse turned me into an umbraphile, someone who wants to chase eclipses. Hey, there's one in 2026 in Spain, 2027 in Luxor, Egypt, and 2028 in Australia. Maybe I'll see you at one of those!
Questions
Questions or comments? Leave them in the comment section below.
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