subject: Several Useful Common Tricks To Shoot Eclipse Without Astrosolar [print this page] To photography lovers, eclipse is a good material. Not only because it is seldom happened, but also beautiful. It is a good experience that not to be expected, but once you have a chance, you should take serious about it. Basically, AstroSolar and filter is needed.
Is it impossible to take great photos if you dont have them at hand? The answer is definitely no. Now I will show you how to get great photos by using the common items around you. What the function of AstroSolar? It is used to reduce the light of the sun. So we can also use some other objects to replace it though they are not as perfect as AstroSolar.
Black thin socks
This method sets all the easy to use, high universality, high success rate in one. Whatever the thin black socks for men, women and children can come in handy. You just need to cover the sock on the lens to reduce the light. Because of the unique texture sense of the sock, the photos will have a unique hazy effect.
Sunglasses
Sunglasses reduction method is simpler, you just need to put the sunglasses in front of the camera, completely block it, and then you can achieve the optical reduction purposes. The photos of shooting dark glasses have the effect that similar with the human eye and the picture is awesome. This law applies to the smaller diameter of the lens while useless to the large-diameter lenses.
Waste film
Because the restriction of the film size, waste film method can only be used to the small-diameter lens, but you can also use multiple photos superimposed on the expanded dimensions of the film. Moreover, because the film has its special color, so the photos shot with it can avoid the single white and black color of Eclipse photos. Sometimes, it also makes the thing worse.
Some other useful settings:
Exposure compensation
Set the exposure compensation in reducing 1EV-2EV to ensure that the details of clouds around the Sun.
Spot metering
The metering point is set directly to the sun and use the not dim part as the basis for metering.
Aperture priority mode
Recommended to use a small aperture (first choose to F8-F11 and reduce it if needed) to ensure sufficient depth. In addition, be sure to use tripod when shooting, it is best to use shutter cable in order to guarantee the clarity of the photos.
Note: the above tricks reduced optical performance cant comparable to professional lighting equipment, so if you are using tricks, never look at the sun for a long time. The shooting time should not be more than 2-4 minutes.
