How to Photograph the 2026 Total Solar Eclipse
- Albert Dros
- Aug 1
- 8 min read
Updated: Aug 6
I have seen one total solar eclipse. Chile, 2019. I thought people were exaggerating about how good it is. They were not. When the light went out it's truly magical. It's a weird feeling. The temperature drops like 10 degrees instantly and it was so silent. No one said anything. This was during an 'eclipse tour' with my friend Elia Locardi.
People often tell me that photos of totality look unreal, or they assume they are composites. They are not. This is genuinely what it looks like when you are standing there looking up. The camera is not exaggerating anything. It's really crazy to see.
On 12 August 2026 it happens again, and this time it is close to home. The moon's shadow crosses eastern Greenland, western Iceland and then northern Spain, right before sunset. It is the first total solar eclipse in mainland Europe since 1999.
The best part for us photographers is not the length. Two minutes is short. It is how low the sun stands. In Spain it sits between two and ten degrees above the horizon. That means you can get a mountain, a building or a person in the same frame as the corona which is truly unique.
I will be shooting this one from Menorca, together with my friends from PhotoPills. The sun will be about 1.5 degrees above the sea there and it sets nine minutes later. That is the most risky spot on the whole path, and also the most beautiful one if it works. All or nothing :D
Everything in this article is written for this one eclipse. Look up the exact times for your own spot at eclipse.albertdros.com, and then come back here for the how.
Where
The path is only about 290 kilometres wide. Just outside it you get a partial eclipse, and that is something completely different.
The shadow starts in Siberia, crosses the Arctic and comes down the east coast of Greenland. Then it crosses western Iceland, the Atlantic and lands on the north coast of Spain. It ends over the Balearics, where the sun sets while the moon is still in front of it.
For photography, you have three realistic options. Greenland gives you the longest totality on land, 2 minutes 17, with the sun at a comfortable 25 degrees and icebergs in the frame. It is expensive, boat based, and about half the time it is cloudy. But Greenland is truly magical in August. I actually just came back from Greenland but I wanted to photograph the eclipse from a lower angle.
Iceland gives you 2 minutes 03 and a dream landscape, but cloud cover in August runs 70 to 80 percent. You have to be mobile and chase the gaps on the day. Iceland is quite risky, but a trip to Iceland is never a bad thing :) . Just don't put the focus 100% on the eclipse.
Spain gives you 1 minute 48 in the north, the best weather odds of the whole path, and that low sun. This is where I would go for the best chances.
Spain is not equal everywhere either. The north coast has the highest sun and the longest totality, but also the most cloud. The Ebro valley around Zaragoza is the driest spot on the whole track, with about 80 percent sunshine in August. So you pick: the best sky, or the best composition. Being able to drive a few hundred kilometres that morning is worth more than any choice you make now.
How low is low
Most people underestimate this. Hold up your fist at arm's length and it covers about ten degrees of sky.
So a hill, a row of trees or one apartment block can take the whole thing away from you. Scout your spot, stand higher than the land in front of you, and check the horizon towards 280 to 287 degrees, which is west northwest.
The Balearics are the extreme end of this. On Menorca totality starts at 20:30 and lasts 1 minute 12, with the sun at about 1.5 degrees. Nine minutes later it sets. You need a completely open sea horizon and a bit of luck with the haze, but you also get something almost nobody has: A total eclipse right at the horizon, and you can frame it with a subject :)
In the Netherlands and Belgium it is a partial eclipse. About 90 percent of the sun gets covered around 20:11, with the sun 8 degrees up.
Information
Totality lasts 2 minutes and 18 seconds at most, and that is out at sea west of Iceland. On land you get less. Northern Spain gives you about 1 minute 45. Valencia gives you under a minute.
But the whole eclipse takes almost three hours. The moon needs about an hour to move in front of the sun, then you get those two minutes, then another hour to move off again. In Spain the sun sets before it is finished.
These are the phases, in order.
First contact. The moon moves in front of the sun. The light does not change yet. Use this time for test shots and focus.
Deep partial. The light gets strange over the next hour. Shadows become very sharp. If there are trees around you, every gap between the leaves projects a small crescent sun on the ground. You can even shoot that, it is an interesting picture that most people forget.
The last minute. It gets colder, birds go quiet, and the western sky goes dark like a storm is coming.
Baily's beads and the diamond ring. The last sunlight through the valleys on the edge of the moon. This lasts seconds. Your filter comes off here.
Totality. The corona, pink prominences on the rim, stars in the evening sky, and a sunset all around you in every direction.
Third contact. A second diamond ring on the other side. It comes back instantly, so filter back on and stop looking.
Fourth contact. The moon leaves. In Spain the sun is already gone by then.
Good to know: this eclipse comes with a second one. On 2 August 2027 another total eclipse crosses southern Spain, Gibraltar and North Africa, with over six minutes of totality near Luxor. So if 2026 is cloudy, you get another chance a year later :)
How to photograph it
Important: Outside totality you need a certified solar filter in front of your lens. A telephoto lens pointed at the sun will kill your sensor in seconds and your eye faster than that. Never look through an optical viewfinder, use live view. Wear ISO 12312-2 eclipse glasses. The filter for your lens is called 'an eclipse filter'. More on that soon. You can also test eclipse glasses/filter on a normal day, just point towards the sun with your filter/glasses on and you just see an orange/yellow circle.
Filter on, filter off, filter on
Before and after totality: filter on. A real solar filter is about 16 to 17 stops. Screw on glass filters are easy, Baader AstroSolar film is cheap and very good. Make sure it cannot blow off, and make sure you can take it off in one second without moving the camera.
The second the diamond ring is gone: filter off. This is not optional. The corona is about as bright as a full moon, so with the filter on you record nothing. This is the most common way people ruin their one eclipse. With the sun fully covered you can also look with your own eyes. It becomes very dark so you don't need any filtrs or glasses.
The second the light comes back: filter on again.
Which focal length
The sun is only half a degree wide. That is small.
My advice: use two cameras, one long and one wide. You cannot do both with one body in 108 seconds. If you see the 'behind the scenes' shot at the beginning of this article: that's simply another camera that I run a timelapse on while I was shooting with my main camera with the longer lens.
400 to 800mm gives you the classic close up of the corona. This is where the detail is.
100-400 mm is my favourite for this eclipse. The sun still reads as a disc, and you keep a ridge, a building or a person in the frame.
14 to 35mm gives you the whole scene, the colours all around the horizon and the people watching. Put it on a second tripod with an intervalometer.
On a crop sensor multiply by 1.5, so 400mm acts like 600mm.
Settings
Everything manual. Manual exposure, manual focus, white balance around 5500K, (or just AWB) RAW, stabilisation off on a tripod, no auto ISO. The corona has a huge dynamic range, so bracket wide. Think five to nine stops. Keep in mind: these are for the detailed shots when you don't have a subject or person in your frame.
In Spain you shoot through a lot of atmosphere, so the sun will be dimmer, warmer and softer than the numbers suggest. Do not fight that, it makes the picture.
Focus
Autofocus on the sun is unreliable and on a black moon it is worse. Use live view, zoom in 10x on the edge of the sun, focus by hand until it is sharp, then tape the focus ring down. Or just use autofocus on something far in the background and lock it.
Practice at home
Weeks before, on any sunny day, set it all up in your garden. Filter on, find the sun, focus, shoot your bracket, take the filter off, shoot again, put it back on. Do it until you do not have to think. On the day itself everything goes so fast and you might have an adrenaline rush. It's good to know everything like a machine.
Things to check the night before: batteries charged and spares in the bag, cards empty, intervalometer or remote release, a tripod that can point steeply and does not creep, solar filters that fit both lenses and a place to put them when they come off, eclipse glasses for everybody you brought, and the times for your exact spot written down. That will help you to go through the eclipse smoothly.
The tool at eclipse.albertdros.com gives you first contact, totality, the height above the horizon and the direction to look for the precise spot you will be standing on. Feel free to print that page and tape it to your tripod.
Don't miss it!
A total eclipse is not a bigger version of a partial one. It is something else. At 99 percent you have a strange, dim afternoon. At 100 percent the sky opens up, stars come out, there is a black hole where the sun should be with white fire around it, and the horizon glows orange in every direction. 100% eclipse is very different from a partial one.
Bonus tips
Every eclipse gives us thousands of perfect corona close ups, and they all look the same. What makes the photo yours is what else is in the frame.
Put a person in it. A person of 1.8m looks exactly as big as the sun when they stand about 195 metres away from you. At 100 metres they are twice the size of the sun, at 400 metres half. Send someone up a ridge and walk backwards with your telephoto until it looks right. Use your phone to direct them, because at that distance shouting does not work.
Stand further back, not closer. Most people walk towards their foreground. Do the opposite. From far away with a long lens the sun becomes big compared to everything on the ground. A church tower at 50 metres and 24mm is a big tower with a dot above it. The same tower from 2 kilometres at 600mm is a small tower inside a huge sun.
Plan it like a moon shot. In Spain the sun sits at an azimuth of about 280 to 287 degrees. That is precise enough to plan an alignment months ahead. I use PhotoPills for this, exactly like any sun or moon alignment. Go and scout the evening before at the same time, because the sun is in almost the same place 24 hours earlier.
Combine it with something. An eclipse over a wind farm, a cathedral, a lone tree, or a boat if you are on the Balearics. Because the sun is low you have options that do not exist at a normal midday eclipse.
Have a cloud plan. Last year on this same August date, thunderstorms covered most of Spain. Rent a car, book something you can leave early, and be ready to drive three hours that morning. The people who see totality are usually the ones who were willing to move if the weather doesn't cooperate!
Times, sun height, direction to look and what fits in your frame for your own location: eclipse.albertdros.com
That's all! Thanks for reading! If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me at info@albertdros.com
Albert
