A full-aperture filter made for the lens or telescope you are using, fitted according to its maker instructions, plus a tracking mount or a very short exposure. The filter is the part to research first and buy earliest, because stock disappears before an eclipse.
Eclipse photography is mostly preparation, and the preparation is mostly about one component.
The filter comes first
It has to be made for the instrument you are pointing at the Sun, sized on the outside diameter of the lens or tube rather than on the aperture of the optics, and fitted the way its maker specifies. Stock of these disappears in the weeks before an eclipse, so it is the earliest purchase.
Focal length decides the picture
A long focal length fills the frame with the disc and demands tracking, because the Sun drifts quickly at that scale. A short one shows the eclipse in a landscape and is far more forgiving.
Rehearse on an ordinary day
The Sun is available most weeks. Fitting the filter, finding focus and framing the disc are all much easier to learn on a Tuesday than during the few minutes of an eclipse.
What the maker decides
Everything about how the filter is fitted, inspected and stored comes from the manufacturer, and those instructions are supplied with it.
If this page and the manufacturer’s own documentation disagree, follow the documentation. Every aperture, focal length, payload rating, field, eye relief, transmission figure and thread size on this page comes from the maker’s own published figures, with the unit as printed and the source named. None of it is measured here, and no figure is converted into another convention, because a converted number is a different number. And the limit this page does not cross: no filter, no pair of eclipse glasses and no mounting described here makes an observation safe. The page reports what a maker specifies for its own product — the standard the listing cites, the construction, the fitting, the inspection asked for before use — and what applies to your own equipment is decided by those instructions and by the condition of the filter in your hands.
The questions that keep arriving
Can I use eclipse glasses film over a lens?
Those products are made for the unaided eye and their makers state they are not for use with optical instruments. Filters made for lenses and telescopes are a separate category with their own specifications and instructions.
Do I need a tracking mount?
It makes the day far easier, because the Sun drifts out of a long-focal-length frame quickly. It is not essential for wider shots, where reframing between exposures is manageable.
Last reviewed 17 September 2026