Technologies

Don’t Miss Out on the Perfect Solar Eclipse Photo: Tips on Taking Pictures Today

Take these steps to minimize potential damage to your camera or phone lens, and get a great photo.

Today’s solar eclipse is the talk of the town. During its trip across North America, the total eclipse will hit parts of Mexico, a long diagonal stripe across the US and a stretch of eastern Canada. It’ll be quite the event, especially since the next total solar eclipse to hit North America won’t happen until August 2044.

Nearly half of the US population lives within a 200-mile drive of the event, giving many people a chance to catch a glimpse or a photo.

Remember, you must wear solar eclipse glasses if you’re looking up during the eclipse. While the sun will be completely hidden behind the moon for a few minutes, the rest of the eclipse will be just as harmful to human vision as it would be if you stared at the sun on any other day. So you’ll want to make sure that your solar glasses will protect your eyes while you watch.

You’ll want to protect your camera and its lenses, too, if you’re among the throngs who’ll be aiming a smartphone or DSLR at the sun in hopes of capturing that perfect image to share on social media of the last total solar eclipse in the US for the next 20 years.

Here are a few things to know before pointing your sensitive and expensive devices at the giant fireball in the sky.

Taking photos of the solar eclipse with a smartphone

A great many solar eclipse photos are likely to come from smartphones, given that just about everyone has one and that many are packed with very capable cameras.

First things first, you’ll want to pick up a solar filter. You don’t need anything fancy. You can buy little solar lenses that you can physically hold in front of your phone camera lens for a little over $10. In a pinch, you could use one of the lenses from a pair of paper solar eclipse glasses to achieve the same effect.

In general, your phone’s auto mode should take care of most of the heavy lifting. Phone makers have spent tons of time tuning the cameras to the appropriate settings to take the best possible picture. If you want to take matters into your own hands, you can always switch to manual mode — but do spend a bit of time before the eclipse familiarizing yourself with those settings.

A few other helpful tips:

Turn off your flash. Once totality hits, you’ll be taking pictures essentially at night and your flash isn’t going to help. Plus, it can annoy people around you.
Only use zoom if your phone is equipped with an optical zoom lens like the Galaxy S24 Ultra or the iPhone 15. Check your phone model to see if yours comes equipped with it. Using digital zoom will reduce resolution and make the image look blocky and unappealing.
Most modern smartphones feature a burst shot mode. The crown jewel of eclipse photography, the diamond ring, is only visible for a split-second and a burst shot mode will give you better odds of capturing it than if you try to time it yourself.
Practice. Taking good pictures of the sun is no easy task and you don’t want to spend the entire time fiddling with your smartphone camera settings.
Google also recommends bringing a portable battery bank. Camera use is a huge battery drain, and you may need some extra juice.

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Taking photos of the solar eclipse with a DSLR

Many of the rules for smartphone photography also apply if you plan on taking a DSLR or mirrorless camera to the event. The steps to get there are slightly different. Smartphones can use virtually any solar filter, but cameras require something that’ll fit on the end of your camera’s lens barrel since it’s very difficult to hold a filter while taking a picture with a regular camera.

You may think you need a UV filter for solar photography. In reality, you’ll want an ND (neutral density) filter. ND filters reduce the amount of light coming into the lens the same way solar eclipse glasses reduce the amount of light coming into your eyes. K&F Concepts has a good one designed specifically for celestial photography.

The next factor is size. Filters come in various sizes and the size you need depends on what lens you own. Check the barrel of your lens. You’ll want to find the ø symbol with a number next to it. That number is the millimeter size you need.

If your lens doesn’t have that measurement on it, you can find the measurements on the box the lens came in or on the manufacturer’s website. If you get an incorrectly sized filter, it won’t fit on your camera properly, so make sure you look before you leap since ND filters can get quite expensive.

Once you obtain a solar filter, the same general tips apply to a regular camera. Practice photographing the sun over the weekend before the eclipse so you can dial in your preferred settings. Use burst mode to capture the diamond ring, bring spare batteries, and make sure your equipment is in order before the event.

Camera owners may also want to consider bringing multiple lenses to get different types of pictures, and you should definitely bring a tripod if you’re planning on long exposure shots, or just for stability in general. (A remote shutter release helps as well.) If you’re comfortable with it, shooting in raw image format can also produce some amazing results after some editing.

Can I take photos of the solar eclipse without a filter?

Human eyes can be damaged in seconds when staring at the sun — and the same is true for eyes looking through an unprotected camera lens at the eclipse. Camera lenses themselves are a bit more resilient. They might be able to handle the occasional sun photograph, but the longer and more frequently the camera is pointed at the sun, the more likely it is that damage will occur.

This can happen in a variety of ways, including damage to the lens, camera internals and mounting hardware. Camera lenses are essentially fancy and expensive magnifying glasses, and anyone who used a standard magnifying glass to concentrate sunbeams as a kid already knows how dangerous it can be for things on the other side of the sunbeam.

You may be able to get away with the occasional snap of the sun with an unprotected camera without damage as long as it’s quick and it’s not a long-exposure shot (and you’re not looking directly at it yourself). However, given how expensive cameras, camera lenses and smartphones are, better to err on the side of caution and use a solar filter.

In addition to safety, the solar filter can also help you take more effective pictures of the sun. Cameras — especially smartphone cameras — often have a rough time with super bright lights like the sun. A solar filter will reduce the brightness so you’ll be able to get much cleaner pictures of the eclipse.

During the brief moment of totality, you might consider removing your solar filter. Everything will be so dark that it’ll be unnecessary, and it’ll help if you want a good shot of the corona. Just make sure to put it back on if you want photos as the eclipse wanes.

Don’t forget to actually watch the eclipse

This is the last total solar eclipse to run through North America until 2044. It’s a once-in-a-generation event, unless you plan on traveling to Russia in 2026 or Egypt in 2027. Remember to put the camera down at some point and enjoy the moment. A celestial event like this doesn’t happen every day.

While it is a singular event for us here on Earth, astronauts on the ISS will have three total opportunities to watch it.

If you live in the path of the solar eclipse, you’re also encouraged to leave pets indoors with lights on and shutters closed as the transition to nighttime in the middle of the day can cause stress to animals. And systems that run on solar power may experience significant impacts on solar generation, so that’s another thing to keep in mind.

Technologies

3 Switch Games That Would Benefit the Most From Switch 2 Upgrades

Nintendo’s best franchises pushed the Switch to its limits. Here are games that could use better graphics and frame rates on the Switch 2.

There are a lot of questions about what the Nintendo Switch 2’s game lineup is going to look like upon the console’s launch, and there aren’t many answers just yet. Odds are good that we’ll see several massive first-party titles coming out very quickly followed by a staggered game release schedule after that. This will probably include popular AAA games from publishers like Microsoft that are already confirmed to be coming to the Switch 2.

However, we do know is that the Switch 2 is going to be backward compatible with the original Switch’s game cartridges, letting you keep your library intact. Nintendo’s official webpage explained the new virtual game card sharing system for the Switch also confirmed that «Switch 2 editions» of existing games are in development.

We don’t know how many Switch 2 edition games are in development, how many of them are first-party developer games nor which games are receiving the upgraded versions. But we do know that there are many older games that pushed the original Switch’s hardware to the limit.

These are some of the first-party games that could benefit the most from versions fully utilizing the Switch 2’s more powerful hardware.

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet

Game Freak has struggled to make mainline Pokemon games work on the Switch. Sword and Shield’s toxic «Dexit» controversy largely overshadowed the fact that the game had some of the most mediocre graphics on the console, and Pokemon and NPC models frequently suffered from sudden pop-ins as players explored the game’s Wild Area.

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet caught even more flak for its performance issues. The pop-in issue returned, but this time around faraway models you could see frequently skipped frames in their animation cycles.

While the game was larger and more ambitious with a grander open world, the game’s performance suffered as a result. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet have both had a hard time reaching 30 frames per second (FPS) outside of most towns, and certain areas like Kitakami and Tagtree Thicket absolutely tank the frame rate.

The Switch 2’s presumably stronger hardware would likely support Game Freak’s more ambitious open world designs, and grant the developer a chance to give Pokemon the 3D graphical fidelity the franchise deserves.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

There’s no doubt that Tears of the Kingdom is beautiful game, thanks in large part to its strong art direction and cel-shaded models that make the world feel vibrant and alive. Despite that, the game doesn’t do much to improve on Breath of the Wild’s visual fidelity, and it suffers from blurry, low-texture terrain that muddies up the experience.

ButTears of the Kingdom’s true sin lies with its performance. While thegame fairly consistently reaches its 30 FPS cap, there aresections of the game that drop the performance to 15 to 20 FPS, whichmakes Tears of the Kingdom feel choppy and outdated. Areas like TheGreat Sky Island and the Depths, rainy days and even the core Ultrahand abilityall push the Switch to its limit and the game is drastically slowerwhen you’re in these areas or just trying to glue two items together.

Tears of the Kingdom is an iconic Switch game in one of Nintendo’s flagship franchises. It’s a perfect candidate for a Switch 2 upgrade with beefed up graphics and performance optimization to help it consistently hit 60 FPS on the stronger console.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land

Plucked out of Dream Land and plopped down into an eerily real world, the titular pink power puff stands in stark contrast from his environment in this 3D Kirby game. Kirby and the Forgotten Landcreates a world that in many ways visually clashes with the protagonistand his enemies, which makes it more interesting to explore. The new Forgotten Land is an analog to the real world, and it’s modeled very differently from the usual cartoony landscapes and character designs that players have come to expect from the franchise.

The issue with this new, realistic world is that the game is graphically inconsistent. Stages like Everbay Coast’s Scale the Cement Summit stand out as winners benefiting from the new artstyle, combining fantastic water lighting events with impressive graphics for the level’s waterlogged buildings. However, other areas like the Natural Plains and Winter Horns end up looking disappointing in comparison, with grass and snow textures that don’t hold up to the rest of the game.

The environment is incredibly important to the story of Kirby and the Forgotten Land, so it makes sense that an upgraded version of this game would buff out some of the weaker textures and deliver even more strongly on developer HAL Laboratory’s intended vision.

Technologies

What’s the Deal With Schedule I, the Drug-Dealing Game at the Top of Steam Charts?

This surprisingly deep game is far more than just spliffs and giggles.

Picture this: You’ve just rolled into a dusty desert town and you’re living at your uncle’s ranch. After he’s busted by the cops for selling, shall we say, illicit substances, you’re forced to flee. You hit the road in your RV, heading to a town called Hyland Point to lay low and start over, but the local cartel has other plans. After your RV is blown up in a hit, you end up stuck in a sleazy motel room, broke and on the run. Welcome to Schedule I. It might become your new favorite video game.

According to SteamDB, the game pulled in 116,408 concurrent players within 24 hours of its release on March 24. The next day? 142,000. By March 30, it hit a peak of 414,166. That puts Schedule I in the top five most-played games on Steam, right up there with the usual heavyweights like Dota 2. It even hit number one on the global top-sellers list. Not bad for a debut title.

What is Schedule I about?

Schedule I is a new indie game about building a drug empire from the ground up, and it’s exploded in popularity since hitting Steam’s Early Access on March 24. It throws players into the seedy underbelly of the drug trade as seen through a wacky cartoon lens. It’s easy to write it off as just another zany «meme» game, but play it for a bit and you’ll see Schedule I offers something truly special beneath the grime of the illegal drug trade.

You start small, dealing out of that dingy motel room in Hyland Point. Over time, you scale up-more drugs, more customers, more heat. You can grow cannabis, cook meth and manage your entire operation from production to street sales. You’ll need to hide your stash, watch out for cops and eventually build a full-blown empire.

But it’s not just about making a drop behind a building or meeting your client after a series of shady texts. You can mix your wares, too. What do you get when you mix a can of «Cuke» and marijuana? Well, it might get your customers into trouble, but it’ll carry a cool name or one that you decide to give it. And some crazy traits that can get people hooked and coming back.

The cartoony visuals go a long way toward making the game feel seedy and shady and more like a lark. Characters look like they came out of an adult animated series — big eyes, weird proportions, goofy expressions. That aesthetic softens the edge of what’s otherwise a pretty dark theme. Still, there’s plenty of details: setting up lighting rigs for plant growth, tweaking formulas in makeshift drug labs and even laundering your profits.

Schedule I really shines in co-op mode. Up to four players can jump in together, each handling a part of the business — maybe one’s cooking while another sells and a third keeps lookout. It’s chaotic, messy and hilarious, especially when a deal goes south or the cops show up midbatch. You never quite know what’s going to happen next, and that’s part of the charm.

What makes Schedule I stand out?

Schedule I has lots of little absurd touches, too. You can knock out a rival dealer and stuff them in a recycling bin for pocket change, or get chased five blocks for carrying an extra gram. These interactions give the world personality and make it fun to explore, not just optimize. From Peggy, who wants to score something to take the edge off, to Peter, who’s hankering for something «toxic,» you’ll grow to love serving your weird customer base and risking arrest by not returning home ahead of police curfew.

Streamers have latched on quickly to Schedule I. The co-op chaos and unpredictable street encounters make it perfect for Twitch and YouTube, and once the first few big creators went live, word spread fast. Steam reviews from customers hit 99% «Overwhelmingly Positive» on launch day.

The developer, TVGS (short for Tyler’s Video Game Studio), is a solo dev based in Sydney. This is its first major release, but despite all the long hours and late nights, the developers have been active with players, promising monthly updates and tweaks based on community feedback. The game roadmap even includes new drug types, expanded systems and more tools for empire-building.

For a game with no publisher, no real marketing push, and a questionable premise for some gamers, Schedule I has pulled off one of the most impressive indie launches in years. It’s fun, it’s different, and if the updates keep rolling (get it?), it’s probably just getting started.

Technologies

Visible’s New $45 Plan Brings 4K Streaming, More Global Pass Days

The Verizon-owned service adds a new mid-tier plan that might save you money too.

Visible is making its prepaid wireless service more attractive by adding a new higher-tier plan and reducing the price of its previous top offering. The $45 Visible Plus Pro plan adds 4K video streaming, a bank of up to 24 Global Pass days for international travel and includes smartwatch service for the same price as the prior Visible Plus plan, which is now $35 per month with a few tweaks of its own.

The Pro plan offers unlimited data on the Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband network — the same access (on compatible devices) that the Visible Plus plan uses. The base $25 Visible plan is still limited to Verizon’s 5G and 4G LTE networks, but as with all plans, there are no caps on the amount of data you use.

To set the Pro plan apart, Visible has added faster 15Mbps mobile hotspot speeds for sharing the data connection with nearby devices, compared with 10Mbps speeds for the Visible Plus plan. Since people are viewing more content on phones, the video quality on the new plan is now up to 4K UHD versus 1080p on Visible Plus and just 480p quality on the Visible plan.

The Visible Plus plan used to include a smartwatch service, but that benefit did not transition into the new $35 plan. Since adding that service will cost $10 a month, anyone using Visible Plus with a smartwatch may as well switch to the $45 Pro plan and pay the same cost. The $10 charge applies when using the base Visible plan with a smartwatch.

Visible Plus still has unlimited talk and text to Mexico and Canada, plus data while roaming in those countries. The Pro plan adds up to 500 minutes per month of calls to more than 85 countries and unlimited calls to Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Guam and Saipan.

For traveling, the Pro plan includes two days of Global Pass access per month for using your phone in regions like Europe. The Plus plan includes one Global Pass day per month. Up to 12 unused days can be banked at a time. If you pay the annual rate of $450 instead of monthly, you get 24 free Global Pass days per year.

If you’ve been on the Visible Plus plan, it’s working well, and you aren’t using the plan with a smartwatch, you’ll see a price cut and a boost in services. The cost has been knocked down to $35 per month, with many of the same features that were previously offered for $10 more. Premium data, which was capped at 50GB per month, is now unlimited. Video streaming quality is now increased to to 1080p HD resolution, up from 720p HD.