Tong Family

Well, it’s time to get ready for the coming total eclipse and the last time we did this in 2017, I had a Canon 5D Mark II and got an elcheapo solar filter and it worked OK. I had a 70-200mm lens and got some decent images, but nothing that sharp.

This time around, I have a Sony A7R3 and a 135mm F/1.8 lens that works with 82mm filters. While this is much less zoom, it is a 40MP camera and the optics are much better. But, its pretty clear a good solar lens is needed. One of the nice things about getting a bigger filter is then if you want you can get step up filters so my 77mm can step up to that filter.

In looking at what’s available, there are two things to get the first is a good ND100000 or 16 stop neutral density filter. These comes in squares or just as traditional filters. I think the traditional filter is going to be easiest use and it allows some stacking.

While there are many different kinds of filters like those by Ni-Si or Marumi, I ultimately decided just to get a Hoya ProND ND100000 filter as that’s a pretty reputable brand.

The other thing is that you probably want an Hydrogen-Alpha cutoff filter. This basically filters out all but the hydrogen which makes the images look even better. You can actually get something that fits on top of the sensor itself rather than stacking filters. I’m going to hold off on that.