22-01-02 | Photographing the Sun

Have you ever tried photographing the sun? It’s incredibly difficult without the proper equipment so you’ll want to make sure you have everything you need to tackle the task.

Camera & Lens

Any DSLR/mirrorless camera and long lens.. heck you can even use your phone camera and a telescope.

• solar filter
• camera/phone
• long lens/telescope
• tripod

I use a full-spectrum Canon SL2 as my camera body and Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 as my lens. When you add in the 1.5x crop factor of a full-frame lens on an APS-C sensor I’m gettin ~900mm, which is in the shorter telescope range. This makes me a happy boy on the cheap compared to some other astro/solar imaging setups.

I’m not a telescope guy, but I know there are some that have camera mounts. You might already have an old DSLR and telescope in the attic right now. Go check ’em go check ’em go.

Filter

There’s no way to do this safely without a filter. Some people use high-rated ND filters (ND1000+ stacked), but the simplest and safest way I’ve found it to use solar filter sheet.

These solar filter sheets come in 4×4″ up to 12×12″ squares. They’re $10-15 on Amazon and worth it for a little solar fun. I got the 6×6″. Be sure to measure the end of your lens/telescope before ordering.

Here’s the solar filter I bought made by Thousand Oaks.

My wife made a cardboard housing for it to slip over the lens hood and it’s been smooth sailing ever since.

Dipping my toe into solar photography made me want a 1500mm+ telescope so I can see more, but this camera stuff is an endless money pit so tread lightly and be happy with your phone pics taken through a borrowed telescope for now.