8"x8" Solar Filter Sheet for Telescopes, Binoculars and Cameras

I've been using these filters for more than 10 years, they are great value for money and do a nice job. You have to store and treat them carefully, keeping the surface clean and free of fingerprints, dust, smears, and defects, but if they are damaged the cost is so low you can replace the filter many times for the cost of a similar glass filter. They work very well for infrared photography with an infrared-converted camera, the Sun is more clear at IR wavelengths since the 'seeing' or atmosphere is much better at long wavelengths. Here's an image I took with a Canon M200 converted to full-spectrum, with a 900mm lens and R72 infrared filter with the Thousand Oaks film.

Went to watch the eclipse in it's totality. Forgot that I needed a special lens for that. Didn't have time to get any lens sent to me, but discovered that I could do a DIY lens with a sheet lens. I had to have it mailed to a town I would be traveling through on my way to Indiana. This sheet was the only option I had and it worked perfectly! I'm so thankful for this little sheet! And it was so much cheaper than a lens (that I probably would never use again). Highly recommended.

I 3D printed a frame for this and it works good. It would have been nice to be a little bigger. Like a 1/4 inch to help fit in the frame. But it will do.

I was able to make several different-sized filters for my telescopes and cameras out of one sheet. I bought it to prepare to go and view the April 2024 total eclipse. The filters made it possible to get some really great photos of the eclipse. The filters are also great for regular solar viewing through the telescope, especially this year when we are approaching or at solar activity maximum and there are a lot of sunspots.

We used this to put on a telescope to video and take pictures of the solar eclipse and it worked great.

I purchased this so that I could mount it in the 3D printed cells I made for both my cameras. This was for the 2024 eclipse. It worked great and I got some fairly decent shots with it. (My focus was just a bit off, though).

I wanted a solar filter for my telescope for the recent eclipse. I discovered that it would cost at least $200. I bought this film and with some cardboard I made my own filter. Took about a half hour. It worked great. We went to Ohio for the eclipse to observe totality. There were great views of plasma loops. Everybody in the family got to see them. A wonderful experience.

After looking at the prices of filters designed for photographing the sun (yikes!) I decided to make my own. There are several helpful suggestions in the reviews, so here's mine. First, I ordered two inexpensive Amazon Basics UV filters.AmazonBasics UV Protection Lens Filter - 58 mm These fit my Canon Ef 70-300 4.5-5.6 lens. (I only use high quality B W filters on my lenses, but that's not needed here.)I then cut the Solar Filter Sheet while it was still between the cardboard protectors. This will not be precise. Using white gloves (as a photographer you have some, right?) I carefully trimmed the cut-out filter sheet until it just fit inside one filter. I then screwed in the other filter. The result: the filter sheet is protected between two optical glass filters. It can be removed quickly when the eclipse goes into totality, then quickly screwed back in when totality ends. I've posted pictures of the process, plus a resulting picture of the sun which I've cropped to enlarge, but with no other post processing. (EF IS 70-300mm, @300mm, on Canon 6D, 1/60 second, f.11, ISO 100)Let me know if you have any questions. I hope the pictures explain most of it. Be sure to order the correct filter size for your lens.UPDATE: Someone asked if this could be used on an iPhone, so I did my best to show what would happen using an iPhone 7. I have my phone in a case so it was easy to slip a small piece of filter material between the case and the lens, adding a bit of tape for security. What was not easy was getting the exposure correct, since the basic camera allows very limited control. (Remember, when you cover the lens, you cover the exposure meter.) I could only get overexposed blobs. However, there's a $2.99 app called Camera+ that gives you much more control over exposure. I set the Camera+ app to manual mode, cut the exposure to -6EV, as low as it would go, and I still couldn't get the exposure quite right. The last two pictures I've posted show what the sun looks like through the solar filter uncropped, then a 100% crop from Photoshop. The results are not terrific. (If you have the iPhone 7+ you can optically zoom in a bit more, but not much.)My suggestion: Don't count on an iPhone to record an event that will only occur once in several lifetimes. There has not been a total solar eclipse where I live since 1806 and there will not be another here for several more centuries. Even if you can get your exposure somehow satisfactory, you'll still only get a very small spot in the sky with the brightness of the sun probably overwhelming the edge of the moon. Bottom line: When all your friends are showing you crummy phone pictures of the eclipse, you'll want to whip out your iPhone and show them a picture you took with a real camera (sent to your iPhone, of course).