Compact digital cameras such as Canon’s PowerShot point-and-shoot type cameras all have great image quality and are very cost efficient, but many can’t safely photograph a solar eclipse or don’t have a zoom range long enough to produce a large enough sun disk.

An exception is the PowerShot SX70 HS which can fill the frame with the sun on your LCD monitor. It has a massive 65x zoom magnification which is the equivalent of 21mm-1365mm! The front of the lens has a bayonet mount feature to accept the FA-DC67A filter adapter ring. This ring allows the mounting of a 67mm filter. The image quality of the PowerShot will generate a nice documentary image that will work well for uploading to social channels.

The EOS R series of mirrorless camera will probably be the camera of choice for photographers looking for the highest image quality and most equipment flexibility. They fall into two sensor categories: the smaller APS-C sized sensor and the full-frame sensor.

Choosing a full-frame sensor camera like the EOS R5 or EOS R8 can produce high resolution images with low noise. APS-C frame cameras such as the EOS R50 or EOS R100 will benefit from the smaller APS-C sized sensor due to the 1.6x crop factor. The smaller sensor produces a cropped image compared to the uncropped full-frame sensor. Your sun disk will be significantly larger with the APS-C sensor than with the full frame sensor.

Many EOS R series cameras introduced in recent years have an Interval Timer feature, which makes it easy to plan and capture multiple still images at user-defined intervals. In some cases, there's a separate Time Lapse Video feature, which can assemble frames into a finished video file, entirely in-camera. You can compress the entire 2 1/2 - 3-hour eclipse into less than a minute.