Looking for Solar Filters

[jonathan.lipkin]

Hi Everyone -

I have been photographing directly into the sun recently. I had two Formatt-Hitech 18 stop ND/solar filters. I just dropped and cracked one and am looking to replace. It looks like Formatt-Hitech no longer manufacturers them, and I can't seem to find anyone who still makes solar filters. I tried looking on eBay to see if I could find one used, but no luck.

Any thoughts on a source?

[langier]

A layer or two of aluminized mylar is what I used during the last solar eclipse a few years back. I can't remember if I used one or two layers on my 500mm but it worked fine and I didn't cook my sensor nor fry my retina.

Image quality seemed fine but I wasn't looking for absolute image quality and I was shooting 12 mp at the time.

It's a product I found out about years ago and have used decades as it is cheap and it works.

However, use your due diligence as what was once considered safe may no longer meet today's standards nor common practice.

[leuallen]

No help on the solar filters but I have been photographing into the sun quite a lot for sunrise pictures. Have had no problems so far. I use a 3 stop ND and bracket, enough not to exceed the cameras highest shutter speed. Getting Cascable app for Ipad so I could set custom exposure brackets and get darkest exposure into the 5-6 underexposed region. I have done manual exposure bracket sets with much underexposure for the sun and a little over and the results have been good. But this was done manually and cumbersome and frought with execution errors. Cascable automates this so exposures will be much faster and consistent.

[jonathan.lipkin]

Thanks, and thanks Allen.
I am making one hour long exposures and was warned by both my digital tech and by the camera manufacturer not to photograph directly into the sun without a solar filter or risk damaging the sensor. Shorter exposures may not risk damage, but letting the sun hit the sensor for longer periods of time is risky.

And for an update, I emailed Formatt-Hitech and they will manufacture a filter for me

No help on the solar filters but I have been photographing into the sun quite a lot for sunrise pictures. Have had no problems so far. I use a 3 stop ND and bracket, enough not to exceed the cameras highest shutter speed. Getting Cascable app for Ipad so I could set custom exposure brackets and get darkest exposure into the 5-6 underexposed region. I have done manual exposure bracket sets with much underexposure for the sun and a little over and the results have been good. But this was done manually and cumbersome and frought with execution errors. Cascable automates this so exposures will be much faster and consistent.

[Joe Towner]

There's a bunch of options:
https://thousandoaksoptical.com/products/solar-filters/
https://www.leefilters.com/index.php/camera-directory/camera-dir-list/category/solar-eclipse-filter
https://agenaastro.com/solar-astronomy/white-light-solar-filters/camera-solar-filters.html

Here's a good resource - https://eclipse.aas.org/resources/solar-filters

An hour long exposure - wow. Between a tracking mount & all the work that goes in to it, gotta be impressive. Make sure to post an image

[EricV]

A little off topic, but what is the purpose of a long exposure?  Do you want a blurred track of the sun as it moves across the sky?

[AndyF]

This is an older thread and you've found a solar filter, but one can be made using metallized mylar clamped between two filter flanges as shown in the attached photo.  There are good metallized mylars on astronomy sites that are neutral instead of having a bluish cast.

The filter rings shown below are rings used to hold a large Cokin style filter box.  Use very large rings and locate the bolts close to the edge so they are far enough from the lens barrel otherwise it won't be able to screw onto the front of the lens.

Andy