Photography question....

[skatha]

This May 20, there will be an annular eclipse occurring across the SW US. The eclipse will end in sunset here in TX. The estimation is that 94% of the solar disc will be covered by the moon-so the net effect to observers will be a donut hole sun or "black hole" sun. I think it will be a cool photography target. My question is, how much, if any, filtering will we have to do to photograph this with a digital SLR?

For the May 1994 annual eclipse, I purchased a C5 from Celestron. I will have it when we drive to Lubbock for the May 2012 eclipse. I also purchased a Hydrogen alpha filtered dedicated solar telescope for this event to catch a stray prominence during the event. If anyone is or planning to be in the area, PM me if you are interested in this event watching...

[Jack Michaud]

I have no experience with this exactly, but I am into photography. You may want a polarizer, and if you plan to include some landscape in the foreground, you may also want a graduated neutral density filter. That will darken the top half of the frame. You should ask this on dgrin.com. Helpful people there.

[OhD]

Polarizers darken the sky when the camera axis is approximately square to the direction to the sun, because the light reflected 90 degrees by air is the most highly polarized. The effect is proportional to the angle - most effective at 90 degrees and negligible at about 45 degrees. I don't think one would have any effect shooting an eclipse. It also has little effect under overcast since the light source is diffuse.