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.
Amen.
To me, it’s an angle formula question. The sun will be 1/2 degree, 30 arc seconds (give or take a couple) regardless. Your subject, then, needs to be far enough away to fit in that frame of view (regardless of how many pixels you fill in your frame). So we can use sines and cosines and such to determine that a six foot tall subject, to fit within the ‘frame’ of the sun, needs to be about 700 feet away, at least (nevermind getting the subject and sun to line up). On a horseback? (12 feet tall) 1400 feet away.
If you try it, use a f/stop setting 2-3 times your minimum, and shoot aperture priority; you should get a fine silouette if you focus infinitively.
It’s ironic that with a fine telescope, objects even 1/2 mile away come out blurred against a setting sun; sometimes, bigger isn’t always better. I’ll probably use one, but it’s either the sun is focused, or the landscape is; but not both.
I look forward to seeing your efforts!
