Howard5252 Loc: New York / Florida (now)

My first photo was grossly over exposed ISO 640 f6.3 1/40th , That why there was a halo around the sun. I will keep that mistake in mind if I want a more "Artsy" shot.

These two shots were at #1: ISO 64 f9 1/40th #2: same ISO & f 1/100th

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bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

What White Light filter did you use? Other info would also be nice to know, i.e.: lens, camera?

bwa

Howard5252 Loc: New York / Florida (now)

Camera=Nikon Z9 / Lens=Nikon 600mm pf / Solar Filter= 1000 Oaks / Tripod used

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

I hope you don't mind me playing with your solar image? You have excellent image data.

I ran it through Lightroom/Aurora HDR to bring out a bit of hidden surface detail...

bwa

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Howard5252 Loc: New York / Florida (now)

I don't mind.

I don't have the modern LR. What is the image data ... is it simply details that are there but need some PP to bring out?

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

Yup, it is simply details that are there but need some tender loving care to reveal. Your sun image had great focus and exposure but needed some contrast enhancement to dig a bit deeper into the hidden detail.

bwa

jaymatt Loc: Alexandria, Indiana

I just purchased a solar filter--looking forward to using it.

Bill_de Loc: US

These shots really didn't thrill me. But, when I looked at your other work ... WOW!

Everyone should take a look.
https://www.photographer52.com/

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Howard5252 Loc: New York / Florida (now)

Thank you! The check is in the mail.

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

Pretty soon he'll be able to add a Solar imaging tab

bwa

tcthome Loc: NJ

tcthome Loc: NJ

Nice!

Reuss Griffiths Loc: Ravenna, Ohio

Howard, Here is an alternative approach to try. If you have a solar filter, you can get great images of the sun hand-held by kicking up your ISO to over 1000 and taking your images by setting the camera to manual mode then setting your shutter speed to greater than 1/ focal length of lens. So if you have a 600 mm lens, set your shutter speed to 1/800 or 1/1000 or faster, open lens aperture to close to max(depth of field doesn't matter at infinity and essentially a flat surface). If the widest aperture you can get is f5.6, set it at f8.0 and take some images hand-held. You should adjust your conditions so that you get orange to yellow images. Normal Photoshop post processing will bring out great images of sunspots. Your posted images only had two showing. When did you take these images? There has been a lot of sunspot activity lately.

Any noise from the higher ISO will only show up in the dark areas, not on the sun's surface and doesn't impact quality and sharpness of the sunspots.

I get good sharp images of sunspots all the time using this process. These are the same conditions you should be using to take images of the partial eclipses leading up to the total solar eclipse on April 8th.

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

Actually his images showed four sunspot areas and that is all that were present that day.

bwa

Howard5252 Loc: New York / Florida (now)

Alternative to what? Are you suggesting not to use a tripod?
I will be doing some testing and getting practice - this is a completely new niche for me.