Silly question of the day

[D.O.G.]

I would like to know if I can take my 5" quad to view the eclipse. Will that hurt my eyes, or with the FPV camera and goggles together will I be safe? I should be able to see the eclipse here in Florida, 60% viewing with our eyes and be hind the glasses, but I want to goof off with the quad and do some time-lapse recording if it doesn't make me go blind.

 

[Geena]

It definitely won`t hurt your eyes, because you`re not looking directly at it. It`s kinda like watching a welding video. As for the camera.... It should not affect that either. If you`re concerned about it, you can put an ND (Neutral Density filter) over the lens. An ND filter might be a good idea anyway, since you`ll be recording directly at the sun. You`ll get a better quality video.

 

[D.O.G.]

Thank you, Geena, for that information . I have to check what filter I have on it now .

 

[RandyDSok]

Actually camera sensors will also get damaged by the intensity of the sunlight. I got a ND100000 ( 16.5 ) filter for my DSL camera just for that reason. Even if the sensor wasn't damaged, it would still be over exposed and you wouldn't be able to see anything except during the full eclipse itself ... which at that point, you don't use any filter. Before the full eclipse itself ... when it is first starting and the Moon is just starting to cover the Sun, you will need ( besides the filter ) a fast shutter speed and as more of the Sun gets covered, the longer the exposure will take. Then once it is full eclipse, you remove the filter and take more shots... the go in reverse once the full eclipse is finished. The full eclipse will last about 4 minutes 20 seconds give or take depending on where you are located.

As I was getting ready for the eclipse the last time I took pics in 2017 ... I practiced getting pics of the full Sun in the days before. This gave me the initial settings that I started with. Do a google search on eclipse photography, there are a lot of great informative posts about it that go into better detail than I can.

To find out if your camera is capable of decent pics of the full eclipse... try some test shots of the Milky Way using long shutter speeds. Make sure a bright star is in the shot to you can see if there is vibrations or not. A Milky Way shot will take a much longer shutter speed than an eclipse ... but it is still a good test to see if you can get a good stable shot or not.

Do get some solar glasses for you to look through... you'll be glad you did and if money is an issue... just get the paper type. That is what I used when I was taking my last eclipse pics. This year I bought a set of clip on's instead. Speaking of which, I'm unlikely to try and catch the eclipse this year unless it isn't cloudy like they are forecasting for my area and then I'll only get a 90+ % view.

 

[RandyDSok]

Just an addition ...

I would be concerned most about vibration when using a multicopter for taking pictures. With my camera on a stable tripod, I still had minor issues caused by light winds with some vibrations showing in my pics. With how the video's sometimes showing "jiggle", I'd assume getting a longer exposure still picture the vibration would certainly cause issues.

Another issue... I looked through some of my shots and I varied my speed from 1/250th of a second up to 1/400th of a second ... but my ISO ratings ( sensitivity ) went from ISO 250 up to 6400 for those speeds. I was constantly, throughout the eclipse, adjusting all of the settings manually to try and get my best shots. Another thing I did was "bracketing" ... using speeds/sensitivities above and below what I thought the best setting was just in case so I could choose from the better ones.

So being able to adjust speed and sensitivity then add into that the possible vibrational concerns make using your quad an unknown and maybe even questionable.

 

[RandyDSok]

I think I took around 35 shots all together and these were my favorites out of those... in a collage...

 

[D.O.G.]

I think I took around 35 shots all together and these were my favorites out of those... in a collage...

View attachment 25052

Thank you for sharing information and pictures Randy.

 

[RandyDSok]

Here is a weather app screenshot I use ( MyRadar ) that has the path of totality for the eclipse on it ... along with standard weather info like the SPC Convective Storm probability overlaid on it... along with fronts, winds, clouds ( sat image ) and radar. Because of the SPC forecast, I'm staying home, I'm not going to chance chasing a cloudless area to take pics this time around. I originally was planning to go in the Austin TX to Dallas area had I tried to take pics and that is the worst for the chance of storms ( hence cloud cover ) according to the forecast. Even being outside of the thunderstorm forecast area doesn't mean you won't have clouds... but being in it certainly increases the chances.

There is a huge difference between a 99% covered sun during an eclipse and a 100% covered sun. My area will have something around 93% and that is what I'll have to be happy with this round.

 

[RandyDSok]

Mistakes were made ...

With the chance of cloud cover present and me deciding to not travel to where I could see a total eclipse ... I didn't plan ( or practice ) getting any pics of the eclipse even though a 93% eclipse isn't a bad photo subject either. So as a last minute decision, I did decide to try and take some quick photo's anyway since I had gotten a new solar filter for my camera. On the previous eclipse, I had made my own filter out of some solar filter film and a glass daylight filter typically used more for protection than filtering and it worked fine but was a pain since the film liked to fall off once it dried out.

Anyway, as I mentioned I hadn't practiced or even looked at what settings I'd used in the previous eclipse... so almost every picture I took was over exposed and I was only able to recover a single pic. In that pic, the Sun was white instead of it's yellow thru orange-ish color typically seen on a properly set photo. My equivalent good pics were shot at f/29 using ISO 200 at a slowish 1/10th of a second ... I manually focused as I should but set my camera to one of it's auto settings and it selected f/5.6 using ISO 400 at 1/60th of a second instead.

I'll hopefully remember this for any future pics of the Sun and hopefully get some good sunspot pics at least with my filter.

 

[RandyDSok]

Speaking of sunspots ... they can be fun and interesting to take pics of also... here is one taken back in 2017. The full shot and a cropped in one that even shows the convection ( think boiling surface ) that can be seen on the Sun's surface along with the sunspots as well...