With the shortage in solar filters for cameras, I went for a very quick and dirty DIY solution to capture the great eclipse of Aug. 21st. Here’s how:
- I cut off a film out of a pair of eclipse glasses. A lot of the actual filter is hidden behind a lot of paper and glue. So I cleaned that all up with some nail polish remover. The result looked like this:
2. I had a broken camera filter ring (you can also use a step-up/step-down ring if you have one). I glued down the ring to a piece of cardboard that I had made a hole in, and stuck the film on top of the cardboard. Here’s what the end result looks like:
3. You’re gonna need a zoom lens to capture the sun at a good size. I just used the 135mm kit lens that I had. You’re gonna get better results with something with more than 200mm zoom. At that level, you’re not gonna get any vignetting. Here it is on the camera:
I took a picture of the sun with it today. At F/36 with the shutter speed of 1 second, the result looked like this:
Not too bad. It certainly shows how dirty my lens is!! You might also want to try it with two films depending on how good of a quality your pair of eclipse glasses are.
Have fun on eclipse day.
EDIT
And here’s the composite result on eclipse day:
