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- You can take solar eclipse photos with your phone, but take care of your eyes.
- You’ll need to control the light with a filter and use manual exposure settings on your phone.
- Think about other types of pictures you can take during the event, too.
If you want to snap some awesome photos of the rare total eclipse on Monday, this is the best way to do it.
On Monday, April 8, 2024, the Moon’s shadow will completely block the Sun, and this total solar eclipse will cross North America from Mexico in the southwest to Canada in the northeast. If you’re on its narrow path, you have to check it out, and you’ll probably want to capture some solar eclipse photos while you’re at it. The good news is, you already have everything you need to get great pictures—just be careful that you don’t frazzle your eyes while you’re doing it.
“The most crucial thing when capturing eclipse photos is to prioritize your safety and protect your eyes and camera equipment. Never look directly at the sun without proper eye protection, and use solar filters or eclipse glasses over your camera lens to prevent damage,” professional travel photographer Kevin Mercier told Lifewire via email.
Once Upon a Time, There Was Light in My Life
Photography is all about light, and composition, and both of these can be tricky when you’re taking eclipse photos.
Light-wise, your phone’s automatic exposure control will get confused by all that dark sky, and probably attempt to make it lighter. This, in turn, will also brighten the halo of the Sun’s light around the Moon, until it becomes a blur of burned-out nothing.
The first priority, then, is to control the light. To do this, you can reduce the light with special filters, sunglasses, or anything that cuts out light.
“Don’t have eclipse goggles or welding glass? Use sunglasses, or even tinted car windows,” write the developers of smartphone camera app Halide in a Mastodon thread giving eclipse photo tips.
This step is essential. Without protection, you’re essentially pointing your camera directly at the sun, which will definitely overwhelm it, and may even cause damage (with film cameras, for example, the focused light can burn a hole in a cloth shutter).
With the light levels reduced, you now want to take manual control over the exposure. You can often do this by swiping down on the screen in your phone’s camera app, but it may jump back up, automatically, at the crucial moment. It’s better to use a third-party camera app that can give you manual control, like Halide, which I use and love.
But Now There’s Only Love in the Dark
The next challenge is composition. You could go for a classic ring-of-light eclipse photo, but on your phone, that’s going to end up as a tiny circle in the middle of the frame. You can zoom in, but unless your phone has an actual, ultra-long telephoto lens, all you’re doing is cropping away the outside of the frame and magnifying what’s left, which results in a noisy, pixellated mess.
So, if you have a mirrorless or DSLR camera with a long lens, this is the time to bust it out. If not, consider an accessory lens for your phone, like those from Moment.
“My favorite tip for capturing eclipse photos with a smartphone is to use a telephoto lens attachment or optical zoom feature if available. This allows you to get closer to the eclipse and capture more detail in your photos,” says Mercier.
Using a long lens will also magnify any shakiness in your hands, so you’ll need to take care of that too. Modern phone cameras do a pretty good job of mitigating camera shake, with image-stabilization software, but they’re not really built to cope with long telephoto lenses. You’re going to have to get physical.
“Use a mini-tripod or prop your phone on a beanbag or railing to prevent shakiness. You can also try voice commands or a Bluetooth remote shutter release to eliminate hand jitters,” travel destination expert Anne Sutherland told Lifewire via email.
Whatever solution you choose, make sure to practice first, so you don’t miss the moment come Monday.
And don’t forget the other photo opportunities afforded by a total eclipse. If you’ve never experienced one, here’s what to expect. The sky, and the world, will start to darken, but faster than a sunset, and without the long shadows and golden light. Birds will stop singing, and it will be as spooky as all get out.
You might consider capturing this aspect with video or snapping some photos in the weird light.
And finally, don’t forget the experience. A total eclipse is beyond weird, and there are going to be a zillion great photos available online immediately afterward. You might want to just switch off, and try to comprehend the incredible journey that has led the Sun, Moon, and Earth to line up perfectly, with you right there in the middle.
