Go Play Outside! 😎
See It: While preparing for the August 21, 2017 total solar eclipse, I noticed that, with good focus and exposure, I could capture a few sunspots on the surface of the sun. As I practiced taking consistently good images of the sun over a few days, I also realized the sunspots were in different locations from day to day. As we setup our gear on the morning of the eclipse, I mentioned the sunspot movement to a fellow photographer and he told me that features on the surface of the sun appear to revolve around the sun about once every 27 days, combining both the rotation of the sun and the movement of the earth around the sun. I happened to have good images from three consecutive days of practice, so I combined them into this looping animated GIF image. You will need magnification of at least 10x and solar safety glasses or solar filter to see sunspots. [Caution: You must only view the sun through safety glasses or protective filter compliant with the ISO 12312-2 standard to prevent damage to your eyes or camera.] More about sunspots, solar rotation, solar safety glasses.
Shoot It: These three images were shot through an ISO 12312.2 compliant solar safety filter mounted in front of the camera lens. [Mount the safety filter BEFORE pointing your camera at the sun to prevent eye and camera damage! It is only safe to look directly at the sun through solar safety glasses or a solar filter.] Camera was a Canon 7D DSLR (crop factor 1.6), Canon EF70-200mm f/2.8 lens + 2x teleconverter at 400mm and f/8, 1/500-640-800 sec, and ISO100-100-200, with mirror-lockup enabled and 2 second shutter delay, on a tripod, on August 19-20-21, 2017 at 10:59 – 9:27 – 8:50AM. Location:(goo.gl/maps/BbuSrx4kSiz). Basic adjustments in Photoshop Lightroom to match brightness and color temperature.
Improve It: Why did I use f/8 for all three images? What problems are you having with your photographs? Let me know at Inquiries@GibsonOutdoorPhoto.com and I will share some tips to overcome these issues in a future blog post.
Go Play Outside! 😎
-Scott