Next Monday, August 21, 2017, is a solar eclipse that will be visible across the United States, including my home state of Florida. I may not get to see the total eclipse here but it should still be spectacular viewing nonetheless.
I got the solar viewing glasses from my neighborhood Walmart and did some experimenting on which camera I will use to take pictures of the sun. I have a Samsung Galaxy On5 smartphone and a Canon PowerShot A530 camera but wasn’t sure which one would take better pictures.
To take these pictures, I positioned one of the protective lenses of the viewing glasses over the camera lens before aiming it at the sun. I took this first picture using the smartphone. I switched the camera to Pro mode, where I was able to control the exposure settings and also used the zoom function for an enlarged view.
Although I tried to adjust the exposure settings to let in as little light as possible, the glare of the sun ended up distorting the final picture. I don’t think this will work.
Next I used the Canon camera. I set the ISO mode to 80, the shutter speed at 1/80 and zoomed in as close as I could get.
A much clearer view. There’s still time for me to experiment with the other shutter speeds to see which one gets the clearest view of the sun, but I now know for sure I’ll be using the Canon for the eclipse. I will post the best pictures here.
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