Hmm...well, over a month later, I regret that I haven't had time to enjoy the fine company of the Pugski community--and that I missed this thread. Being (at least theoretically, barring some weird event like a total eclipse or something) a half-day's drive from Casper, Wyoming, and having my brother and my 9 y.o. niece visiting from Maine, we decided to go up to see the eclipse. We got a few pairs of eclipse glasses, long before the rush shot prices over the moon. But I wanted to see if I could get some photographs.
By the time I started looking into it, a 4"x4" square of solar filter film was going for a hundred dollars or more, if you could find it at all. All the information available repeated basically what has been repeated here (funny thing, that)--that you should NEVER try to use anything but a bona fide real solar filter, lest you destroy your camera sensor and your eyes and burn a hole through your lens. As usual, I didn't believe it. After all, it's not like we never take pictures with the sun in the viewfinder anyway--how hard could it be?!
I stacked three neutral density filters and a polarizer for a total of approximately 17 stops of light reduction--which is about what a "real" solar filter does. I was concerned about two things--first, that they might not block the UV light sufficiently, although I expected they probably would, and second that all that glass would degrade the image too much. But I thought I'd give it a try anyway. I did use the electronic screen, rather than the optical viewfinder, to make sure it couldn't damage my eyes either way.
Turns out that much of the information on the Internet is wrong! I know, hard to believe. Turns out, it worked fine, with no damage to the camera or to me or any bystanders. Here's the result (yes, with a little help from Illustrator and Photoshop):
Worth the effort, I think! And it really wasn't that much effort. I just put the camera on a tripod, and every few minutes, as the moon slowly moved across the sun, I centered the sun in the screen and took a picture. Exposure is almost meaningless, since there is no visible detail on the sun at this stage, whatsoever--just need to capture the shape. The moment the totality began, I pulled the filters off and shot the images of the corona. Because I used a remote shutter release, I didn't have to do much other than push the button, so it did not detract from my own amazement at the spectacle.
It was worth the trip! It took two days to get back to Aspen, with the traffic, so it was a lot of driving for a couple minutes of darkness. But it was truly amazing. I'll never forget!
Best regards,
Bob