All the images were taken through an old second hand Olympus OM1.
A 300mm lens was used for all the images of the eclipse. 300mm is not too big
but still gives a reasonable sized lunar/solar image on a standard print.
My wife also took a set of photographs using an old Zenith camera with a 135mm
lens.
A BAADER AstroSolarTM Safety Film filter was used for the partial phases. This cut down
the light by a factor of 100,000. The diamond ring and total phases were without
any filter.
The lens and camera were mounted on a tripod and aligned to the sun by
casting a shadow onto my hand. It is impossible to see anything (other than the sun)
through the viewfinder once the filter is in place.
The film used was bog standard Kodak 100 ASA colour film. You do not need any
special film for solar eclipses!
Exposures were all 1/125 second at f/16 for all the partial phase in conjunction with
the solar filter. The filter gives a purple hue which was digitally corrected later.
The next step is to get the film processed and this is where even with perfect
negatives the pitfalls can occur. Most prints are done by machine, this has two
problems with eclipse and astronomical photographs.
However your local photo printer can over ride this and
centre your images by hand and also print your photographs darker.
In fact two different sets of prints were made from the same negatives. A lighter set showed the corona
better but a darker set emphasised the features in the prominences and
the sunspots on the solar disk during the partial phase.
For more information see the technical details page for the 1999 solar eclipse.