Digital Cameras
Selecting a digital camera for eclipse photography
Digital cameras are the standard these days. Although film can produce a finer image of a total solar eclipse, digital cameras have become suitable. The primary differences between a picture of an eclipse taken with film versus a digital camera are the depth of the color, faster light gathering, the frequency of picture taking, and internal reflections/chip overloads.
The key feature to consider when purchasing a digital camera for eclipse photography is the depth of shading the electronic camera supports. The depth of shading is how many levels of a particular color can be stored. Cameras support millions of colors but may not always support the same shade depth. It is this feature that often produces a more vibrant picture in one camera over another. Color depth is often expressed in bits. Each bit provides an order of magnitude more data. An eight bit depth supports 256 color levels compared to one with 12 bits of depth supporting 4096 color shades. The number of theoretical color shades is two raised to the number of bits. Ideally you want as many as possible. Commercial cameras with 14 bits of depth are now becoming more common. These work quite well for total solar eclipse photography.
Compact digital cameras can produce eclipse images but the size of the image will be small when compared to digital cameras that can be attached to larger lenses and telescopes. It is recommended to use the optical zoom feature of a camera only. Digital zoom and other image enhancements are best accomplished at the computer after the event. Compact digital cameras are best for taking pictures of people before and after the eclipse - you can always trade those pictures for eclipse pictures from others.
The faster light gathering and frequency of picture taking when using a digital camera versus a film camera requires some minor adjustments in thinking. To take advantage of the faster picture taking you can set the camera in a burst type mode and turn off all the review features. Where as a film camera has to be advanced (manually or mechanically) a digital camera only needs to move the data from the chip to memory. Some cameras do this faster than others. Professional level cameras achieve this by providing buffers for maximum through put of a few pictures, then a delay, then another burst opportunity. A hidden advantage of digital is that the movement of the image is electrical and does not involve any mechanical items. Thus there is no vibration caused by that action. Another advantage of digital over film is the number of images you can obtain. Film is typically sold in 24 or 36 frame rolls. With a digital camera you can take hundreds of pictures before a new memory card is needed.
Internal reflections of cameras and optics are a problem with all image recording devices, film included. But digital cameras have additional sources of internal reflections that may cause a problem during the very high contrast diamond ring.
