On August 21, 2017 I experienced for the first time a total solar eclipse. It was beyond amazing and completely exceeded my expectations. I really wanted to photograph this eclipse but thought the camera and lenses I owned were not capable of capturing this mighty event. I was wrong.
At the time I owned my Canon Rebel T5 for less than a year and only had the lenses that it came with, an 18-55 mm and 78-300 mm zoom lenses. Although more expensive and capable equipment could have produced better images, I’m extremely happy with the performance of my little Canon Rebel and Canon 75-300 mm lens.
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Now, keep in mind that because I could only zoom my lens 300mm I had to crop my images quite a bit. However, I am still very satisfied with these images considering the equipment I had. This is the actual image before cropping:
First, DO NOT shoot anything with your camera before the eclipse hits totality WITHOUT a special filter. The only way this is safe is if you use a Solar Filter. I did not own one of these at the time so I only took pictures during totality. Amazon sells solar sheets here to make your own filter. This is a much more affordable option than buying a custom solar filter for your specific camera lens. I will be doing this in 2024 for the next solar eclipse!
This was my set up with my camera in Manual Mode using my 75-300mm lens:
- Shutter speed: 1/80
- Aperture: 4.0
- ISO: 100
- White Balance (WB): sun icon, not auto
If you are able to afford high-end equipment and are very serious about taking eclipse photos, I would recommend the Canon 800mm Super Telephoto Lens. So, if you want to photograph the next eclipse and you feel limited because of your equipment, don’t be! As long as you have a DSLR camera and a lens that zooms at least 300mm you can get great images (with cropping). I am happy with my images but even happier that I was able to experience a total solar eclipse!
