04-18-12 – Sun in Frame

Oh, hai! I just noticed this had been scheduled. Glad I bought that solar filter for the telescope! (though in truth, unless we get some kick-arse sunspots started stat, the images are rather dull).

Damnit Jim. I was hoping I was the only one with that thought.

Wish I’d have had that thought three weeks ago when the mega spot that was visible through welding glasses and all the prominences were out.

I’m a little concerned about this contest.. I have a Canon PowerShot S5 IS and right at the beginning of the manual it says “Do not point the camera directly at the sun or bright light sources. Doing so could damage the camera’s CCD or your eyesight.” Is this just a cover-your-ass liability statement or am I really at risk of hurting the camera (eyes? who needs eyes anyway? :p)?

From what I’ve read so far, SLRs are relatively safe because of the internal mechanics as long as the shutter speed is kept short, but I haven’t been able to find out if my camera is a “true” SLR.

Any advice is appreciated.

If you’re concerned about shooting into the sun, you can always use a filter of some sort to give your camera some protection. It can be a piece of colored glass or plastic, pantyhose or other translucent material or an actual polarizer or sun filter. Of course your results will be “abstract” of a sort depending on your filter but that’s my 2 cents.

Here’s the general rule:

50mm is more or less WYSIWYG for 35mm. Smaller sensors like a p&s will be a shorter focal length. Most APS-C is 35mm native. If the sun is the center of your subject, and you’re using some sort of metering mode, you’ll be fine at your natural length or less. If you’re shooting longer than the native length, you’ll want to stop down manually or use energy rejection (ie a neutral density filer). More than twice the focal length, and you have to use energy rejection.

Also, beyond just the sensor, you want to use energy rejection at anything over 100mm. At that level of magnification, you’re likely to have solar energies focused on the edge of an intermediate piece of glass which will end up melting the glue and ruining the lens at best and bursting your lens into flame at worst. It’s hard to give exact numerical data, but know that the more focal length you have, the more shade you want. a 16x (4-stop) NDF will be absolutely plenty for anything landscape or scenic. When you get into higher levels of energy rejection, the scale shifts from stop or times-factors to an exponential scale. Welding glass starts at shade 5 which is roughly equal to 16 stops and is not good for looking at the sun with bare eyes or anything above 100mm. If you want to go above 100mm, shade 10 is a minimum, and shade 14 is recommended. Likewise with your bare eyes.

Aluminized mylar (potato chip bag) actually makes a decent ERF if doubled over. Just check for pinholes before pointing your lens at the sun with it.

I was planning on doing one of those shots where the sun is huge in the frame, with a silhouette of a person in front of it. My longest focal length is 200mm and I know is not enough. Any suggestion on what should I be shooting with, 400, 500mm? Maybe I can borrow a tele converter from a friend, I believe it’s a 1.7x, but I don’t know if it will cover my need.

How huge are you looking for? The deeper your focal length, the tighter your aperture needs to be to keep your depth of field so that the sun and your subject are both focused.

I need a clarification on the Sun may be obscured difficulty. I have a shot where the rising Sun is above the horizon but directly behind a building, the light is breaking around the building making it clear the Sun is up and in frame but not all visible as the big round ball of exploding gas.

(Better give the image so a clearer judgement is made:

http://freeversephotography.com/fark/IMG_2218.jpg

Is this within the parameters of the theme?

Gray See Ass!

I’ll also bow to U-Man‘s discretion but I would agree with Elsinore that there’s not enough sun visible in that shot for this theme.

/ennuipoet rushes to the Themes forum to suggest “Sun Behind Buildings”