Capturing the Total Solar Eclipse with Canon Explorer
Keith Ladzinski April 1, 2024
0 Comments
The Moon's shadow will be sweeping across the United States on April 8th in a highly-anticipated total solar eclipse event. Canon Explorer of Light, Keith Ladzinski, a National Geographic Photographer and Emmy nominated director, shares his tips & tricks for all shutter bugs out there to capture the moment of a total solar eclipse, forever.
Choosing a Camera Just about any camera will work to capture a solar eclipse, but some will produce a better experience depending on your expectations. Canon's EOS R series of cameras will probably be the camera of choice for photographers looking for the highest image quality and most equipment flexibility. Choosing a full-frame sensor camera like the EOS R5 or EOS R8 can produce high resolution images with low noise. APS-C frame cameras such as the EOS R50 or EOS R100 will benefit from the smaller APS-C sized sensor due to the 1.6x crop factor. The smaller sensor produces a cropped image compared to the uncropped full-frame sensor. Your sun disk will be significantly larger with the APS-C sensor than with the full frame sensor.
Choosing a Lens Choosing a lens to photograph the sun or moon depends on how large of a sun or moon disk you want. The size of the disk is controlled by two things: your mirrorless camera's sensor size and the focal length of your lens. You should be looking for a sun disk 1/3 to 1/4 the height of your sensor. A 400mm focal length like what you'd get from the RF100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM Lens produces a 1/4 size sun disk on an APS-C sized sensor. If your plan includes shooting a time-lapse sequence of the entire 2.5-hour solar eclipse with a horizon or other foreground feature, you will be using some very wide angle lenses like the RF15-30mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM Lens.
Canon RF100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM Lens
Choosing a solar filter Solar filters can transmit or restrict different wavelengths of light. Non-silvered glass and metalized Mylar produce a blueish-white sun disk while professional silver/black polymer solar film produces a yellow sun disk.
A truly safe filter for viewing and photography should have a CE or ISO certification and goes over the front of the lens, this includes the rear filter tray when using super telephotos. There is a difference between solar filters used by the public for viewing the solar eclipse and photographers photographing the solar eclipse. Some are saying that ND filters that restrict 14 - 16.5 stops of light are safe.' These may be safe for photography use only but not for direct viewing. Restricting the light being passed through a filter is only part of the story. A safe filter for photography and viewing also restricts infrared and ultraviolet light beyond 800nm. Neutral density filters don't do this. Not having a solar filter or having a plain ND filter can burn a hole not only through the sensor of a camera, but also melt the aperture blades too!
Choosing a Tripod and Head Many photographers use their tripods reluctantly. In the case of the upcoming total eclipse of the sun in April, it's a must. The eclipse is almost 2 hours long and your arms will be exhausted if you don't use one.
Make sure your tripod can support more than what your camera, lens and tripod head weigh. Consider a tripod with four-section legs (versus a three-leg tripod) if you are travelling - four-leg section tripods fold up smaller and fit in suitcases easier and are often the same height as three-leg tripods when fully extended. Make sure your tripod comes up to eye-level, without fully extending the center column, because your lens will be pointing almost straight up, and you won't want to hunch for over two hours to see your LCD screen. You can also bring a camping chair to sit in.
More important than the type of legs you buy, it's the tripod head that counts. Unlike typical photography, you won't be aiming your camera and lens more-or-less straight ahead. This is a morning to midday event in most of North America, and you will be aimed almost straight up to photograph the sun during this eclipse. That's not something many tripod heads are designed to do, let alone with a large super-telephoto lens mounted. There are many types of heads that are usable, but the most preferred for this purpose is an astronomical equatorial head, gimbal head, and ball and socket head.
What to do when the eclipse happens There are two parts to a total eclipse. The partial phases occur as the moon begins to partially cover or uncover the sun's disk. Throughout this phase, you have the full intensity of the sun visible and need an actual solar filter over the lens. As the moon progressively covers more of the sun, there will be a point where only a small piece of the bright sun remains visible, and surrounding the moon is a bright ring of light from the sun. This is sometimes called the diamond ring effect. If you want to successfully photograph this conclusion of the partial phase, leading up to eclipse totality, you'll need to remove your solar filter and then photograph it. But be extremely careful, without a solar filter in place, the direct sunlight - even from just a small segment of the sun - can be damaging.
Baily's bead of a total solar eclipse is seen in Chonqing, China
About 15 seconds before totality, you can remove the solar filter to photograph the remaining diamond ring effect, and about five seconds before totality, there are still a few tiny rays of sunlight peeking between the valleys of the craters on the moon. This creates what has been named Baily's beads, after English astronomer Francis Baily. Once the moon completely covers the sun, after Baily's beads, totality has begun and you are photographing the corona. Totality during this ecli
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
08/09/2026
Comcast Technology Solutions (CTS) has announced a multi-year agreement with A E...
08/09/2026
Spectra Logic today announced the availability of Media Insight, a new capabilit...
08/09/2026
Rogers Communications and Quebecor have announced a 12-year sublicensing agreement for French-language national NHL games beginning with the 2026-27 season. TVA...
08/09/2026
Skyline Communications and Bridge Technologies will demonstrate two integrations...
08/09/2026
Boland Communications will make the European debut of its 4K55HDR7SNB 55-inch super-narrow-bezel monitor at IBC2026 (Stand 12.C57, RAI Amsterdam, September 11-1...
08/09/2026
Ateme and Comcast Technology Solutions (CTS) have announced a collaboration comb...
08/09/2026
Haivision has joined the IBC Accelerator Media Innovation Programme as part of t...
08/09/2026
Blackmagic Design has announced price reductions on its PYXIS 6K and Cinema Camera 6K models, effective immediately through Blackmagic Design resellers worldwid...
08/09/2026
AI-Media will demonstrate its LEXI Suite at IBC2026 (Booth 5.C34, September 11-1...
08/09/2026
Bitmovin and Ad Insertion Platform (AIP) have announced the first live deploymen...
08/09/2026
Grass Valley will demonstrate story-centric media workflows at IBC2026 (Booth 9.A01, RAI Amsterdam, September 11-14), connecting newsroom production, content ma...
08/09/2026
M2A Media and Ateme have announced a partnership integrating Ateme's video processing solutions into M2A Media's MediaToAnywhere platform for live sport...
08/09/2026
Ikegami will exhibit at IBC2026 (Stand 12.A31, RAI Amsterdam, September 11-14), including a Day 1 introduction of new cameras in the UNICAM XE series. Additiona...
08/09/2026
Broadcast industry analysts will be gathering plenty of insights at the 2026 IBC Show this weekend in Amsterdam, but Caretta Research has offered up some though...
08/09/2026
SENSHI and DAZN have announced a global broadcast partnership that will bring SENSHI's live events free to viewers in more than 200 markets. The partnership...
08/09/2026
New architecture built with Evertz will bring 4K HDR to Monday Night Football, N...
08/09/2026
Built for rap producers, by rap producers
Sauceware Audio, the independent plug-in company founded by Grammy-nominated producer Jacob (Travis Scott, 21 Sava...
08/09/2026
Classic Sound Techniques design revived
Warm Audio's latest release delivers a meticulous recreation of the preamp circuitry employed by the Sound Techn...
08/09/2026
Latest soft synth inspired by the Memorymoog
XILS Lab have just launched a software instrument that draws its inspiration from Moog's iconic Memorymoog,...
08/09/2026
The Airport Chaplain takes off as SBS's biggest launch of 2026
8 September, 2026
Media releases
1.67 million viewers on National Total TV to date
Best...
08/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/09/2026
Mo-Sys, the world-leading developer of virtual production, camera robotics and image tracking technology, has completed a business restructuring, which has incl...
08/09/2026
New York, September 8, 2026 The TSAmediaHUB audiovisual contribution and distribution infrastructure developed by Telef nica's Audiovisual Services area re...
08/09/2026
Expanded Riyadh operation brings Asharq and Thmanyah services together on a resilient on-premises Pebble platform.
Pebble, the leading automation, content mana...
08/09/2026
Techex, a pioneering leader in live video workflows, will showcase its broadest software feature set to date at IBC 2026 (Stand 2.B45), extending its lead in so...
08/09/2026
Visitors to Grass Valley's booth at IBC2026 will be introduced to new Framelight X capabilities that connect content acquisition, management, editing and pu...
08/09/2026
BCNEXXT will showcase the latest evolution of Vipe at IBC2026 (Stand 2.B09), introducing a series of innovations designed to deliver higher-quality audience exp...
08/09/2026
Bitmovin, a provider of video streaming solutions, has partnered with Ad Insertion Platform (AIP), a leading innovator in advanced ad insertion technologies, to...
08/09/2026
Brainstorm, a leading manufacturer of real-time graphics and augmented and virtual production, is announcing a major package of enhancements to its Suite 7 soft...
08/09/2026
Big Blue Marble is supporting TDF, French infrastructure and network operator, broadcasting Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) and radio services, as a techno...
08/09/2026
Agents work inside a single production environment, from incoming wire copy to a live studio show...
08/09/2026
Building on their strategic partnership, Ceeblue and Layercake make the unthinkable possible: scalable sub-second streaming over standard DRM, SSAI, and CDN wor...
08/09/2026
Brainstorm, a leading manufacturer of real-time graphics, augmented and virtual production, is completing the environment for fast-paced broadcast production wi...
08/09/2026
A SaaS portfolio built to work together, helping operators grow audiences, monetise smarter and run leaner, on their own terms
At IBC 2026 (stand 1.B49) Synam...
08/09/2026
Accedo, global provider of video streaming software and services, has been selected by PlayOn Sports, a national leader in high school sports technology, to exp...
08/09/2026
LiveU, the leader in live IP-video solutions, is enabling The Associated Press to take global newsgathering to the next stage with intelligent connectivity and ...
08/09/2026
Mediagenix, a global leader in smart content solutions to profitably connect the right content to the right audience, today announced the latest evolution of it...
08/09/2026
Compact, power-efficient X Platform performance brings broadcast-grade reliability and ultra-low latency to space-constrained remote production (REMI) workflows...
08/09/2026
Zixi, the leader in live video delivery and workflow orchestration, and Kiloview, a leading provider of professional IP video encoding and decoding solutions, t...
08/09/2026
Collaboration gives content owners scalable CDN capacity and broadcasters enhanced flexibility, including for C-band transition planning
Quortex today announce...
08/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/09/2026
Telos Alliance and Pluxbox Announce Dynamic Media Facility Integration Partnersh...
08/09/2026
J nger Audio Showcases Industry-First S-ADM Cloud Workflow at IBC 2026
Search
Dolby, MainConcept, Techex and J nger Audio will showcase the industry's ...
08/09/2026
Tuesday 8 September 2026
Sky Go gets a major upgrade for Sky Glass and Sky Stream customers
Today, Sky launches a new version of the Sky Go app for Sky Glass ...
08/09/2026
Documentary thriller simulating a Russian attack on UK soil will culminate in a live final episode reuniting the playersTuesday 8 September 2026
Trailer releas...
08/09/2026
Tuesday 8 September 2026
Jamie Demetriou and Amelia Dimoldenberg to host next t...
08/09/2026
Wuppertal September 8, 2026
Riedel Introduces New OnAir Headset PlatformRiedel Communications today announced the launch of its new OnAir headset platform, a...
Capturing the Total Solar Eclipse with Canon Explorer 
