elliott937 Loc: St. Louis

I'm prepared to spend most of the day, August 21, on the campus of a private school, way out in the fields. It'll be the perfect place, and solid in the Totality Zone. Why am I telling you this?

I thought I should do some practice right here in my own side yard. With my Canon on a great tripod, and with the 77mm Thousand Oaks eclipse filter in front of the 800mm worth of lens. I found the sun, a small orange ball, on my first try this morning. I even photographed it. So I felt I should practice some more. I went out a second time, around 1:15PM, that will be our time slot for totality a week from Monday. Under a bright sun, I tried for almost an hour and I absolutely could not find the sun. I so wanted to look up the "line of the lens", which, of course, I cannot do.

So I just continued to try to find the sun. Remember the Thousand Oaks filter drops the light just about 100,000 times, leaving me almost nothing left.

Sorry, I know I probably sound like I'm complaining. I'll be practicing tomorrow and the next day, until I can acquire a "trick" in finding something when looking at a very Very black field. Soooo, my friends, has anyone acquired any tricks on finding the sun through the eclipse filter at the end of your camera lens? Oh, in case you were wondering how strong should you lens be, my 800mm of lens acquired a very small image, that is, when I lucked out on the first attempt and actually found the sun.

Any hints, anyone has, send them our way. And thanks in advance.

SharpShooter Loc: NorCal

Sorry, no tricks.
Why don't you point it at a small distant object without the filter on it and then fix, say a paperclip bent into a L on both front and rear of lens so as to be in line with the sight. With dark sunglasses shouldn't be too hard to point at the sun.
Kinda like a red dot scope. Good luck!
SS

elliott937 Loc: St. Louis

You've got a good idea there. If I were to narrow down the left-right path, that would help reduce the task, I hope.

Thanks I'll try that.

Am I the only one, already with eclipse filter, and practicing?

cabunit Loc: SE Connecticut

I'm guessing you would have thought of this, but I'll chip in anyway. If your 800 is a zoom, zoom out as far as you can to make the field bigger, then zoom in on the sun. That's what I did with my 150-600. If, as it sounds, you have a prime, you're right, you can't stare down the lens barrel (or use the optical viewfinder), but I was able to line mine up with a few glances. I also found focusing a little tricky, zooming in on live view. As you say, the main thing is practice. Have fun!

elliott937 Loc: St. Louis

My 800 is not a prime, so we share the great idea of search wide, then zoom in once the sun is found. And I'll continue with that plan tomorrow. But wait, you found focusing a little tricky? Didn't you set your focus on infinity?

cabunit Loc: SE Connecticut

Eventually, yes, but infinity is not a hard stop on this particular lens. Perhaps because differing temperatures can affect the focusing ever so slightly, the focusing ring lets you go past infinity and then go back to where it's precise. I zoomed in on the edge of the sun as far as I could in live view and worked the focus back and forth to get a fine edge. Sounds easy, but at that magnification, there's lots of pixelation and seeming noise, not to mention that any vibration of your setup keeps things jumping. It can be done, though--you'll get there!

BassmanBruce Loc: Middle of the Mitten

I am in the same boat and have been practicing, I think I am ready. Like you and cabunit I did the start wide and zoom in for easyy success. I was successful using live view on the edge like cabunit and my lens also goes "to infinity and beyond" and I don't trust just setting it at the infinity mark. But I want to add that to my surprise af (auto focus) worked quite well.
I won't count on it and will be ready to mf, but it was good to see.

Edit: I know most know what af means, but I've been chewed on for acronyms before, so added clarity.

elliott937 Loc: St. Louis

Seriously? You found success with auto focus? (I'm fine with af and mf)

But tell me about "live view". I'm using a Canon 5DII. Are you using one of those cameras where the rear LCD folds out?

BassmanBruce Loc: Middle of the Mitten

Yes, and I was as surprised as you are. I shoot Sony A-77 so I don't know how this will relate to your camera, but it's fairly easy in I justi picked a focus spot on the edge of the sun and 80%ish of the time it locked in. I didn't expect this.
For live view, I just moved the zoom box to the edge of the sun and worked to find the cleanest edge, a little tricky but workable.

Edit: yes the A-77 has an articulated lcd which was very handy.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Software!
https://havecamerawilltravel.com/photographer/apps-for-tracking-the-sun/
http://suncalc.net/#/40.714,-75.5859,2/2017.08.13/06:19
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sun-surveyor-lite-sun-sunrise-sunset-tool/id552754407?mt=8
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.andymstone.sunpositiondemo&hl=en

genesampson

Interesting question. The solar filter i use allows sufficient light to find the sun. Might try this. Get a cheap pair of solar glasses (B&H/Amazon). Use these with the camera filter off of the lens. Locate the image through your viewfinder, then attach the solar lens. Maybe???

turp77 Loc: Connecticut, Plainfield

A fairly easy way to find the sun without looking at the Sun is looking at the shadow of your camera. What you say. Look at the shadow of your camera on the ground and align it until you get the smallest shadow and you should be right on the sun.

hpucker99 Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

No, with a big lens and solar filter on, the sun is hard to find. I will be using my telescope and I had to align the finder scope a few times so I could find the sun. The paper clip sounds like a good idea,

hpucker99 Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

dck22

This might be a workable idea for DSLR. DO NOT try it with mirrorless! Your eyes will be safe, but your sensor may well be irreparably damaged.