Cool Links: How to photograph today’s annular solar eclipse

Annular ring eclipse photo, courtesy of National Geographic

Today, the western United States gets treated to a rare astronomical event, an annular eclipse of the sun. Depending on where you are, the show starts around 5:00 PM Pacific Time and runs to almost 8:00 PM. During the moments of annularity, the moon will be completely in front of the sun, but not covering it. The result will be a pretty spectacular “Ring of Fire”. I was fortunate to catch an annular eclipse 18 years ago when we were in Lubbock, Texas. It was spectacular.

Many of us who are in the eclipse’s path will be tempted to look at the eclipse or shoot the eclipse with our cameras or iPhones. Here are some links to great tips on how to safely view and shoot today’s eclipse.

IMPORTANT! Do NOT look straight at the eclipse! You will damage your eyes. Really.

Also, USA Today writes:

If you have a compact camera with an LCD screen (such as in iPhone. — =M=), you could, in theory, watch the eclipse on the screen, but it will still probably damage the camera’s image sensor, so we wouldn’t recommend it.

User Charlemagne in the Canon Digital Photography Forums writes:

If it is a full eclipse, I would try capturing the landscape at that moment. It’s magical. As if life suddenly comes to a stop. So wide angle for me. If it lasts long enough, might try to capture the diamond ring around the moon, but I’m not sure that is safe without extra protective filters. You don’t want to toast your sensor, or your eyes.

Here are a few links I found which are written for DSLRs and traditional cameras, but many of the techniques can easily be adapted for use with an iPhone camera.

How to photograph a solar eclipse, by Katherine Gray, Tecca, USA Today

How to photograph Sunday’s solar eclipse, The Christian Science Monitor

 

I’ll be shooting the eclipse today with an OWLE BUBO along with it’s very nice, huge, light-gathering wide angle lens to capture what’s around me.

Have fun, view safely and if you get any good, striking or eerie eclipse pics, share them in Life In LoFi’s Flickr Group!

=M=

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iPhoneographers Talk Episode 4 is out now!

Internet talk show iPhoneographers Talk, featuring Guy Yang and and Jack Hollingsworth is online and available now. Guy is the creator of The Beginner’s Lens and iPhone Camera Essentials websites. Jack Hollingsworth is an Austin, Texas-based commercial photographer who brings his passion and over 30 years of photographic experience to the art of iPhoneography.

This episode features Richard Gray, who launched the Kensington Chelsea iPhoneography course in London which has been much talked about online. He tells about his course and discusses whether an iPhoneography course is actually relevant (considering many phoneographers believe mobile photography is really easy). Also mentioned in this episode is the Daniel Berman’s MPA exhibit now showing in San Francisco.

If the video above doesn’t work for you, in your browser, copy and paste this direct link to YouTube: http://youtu.be/9pQzy3TtgxM

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Hey, San Francisco! Join me, MPA’s Dan Berman and others at the SFFAF this Friday

If you’re in or near San Francisco this weekend, be sure to stop by the San Francisco Fine Art Fair which will be open throughout the weekend.

Tomorrow, Friday May 18, I’ll be appearing as part of a panel discussion on “The Everyday Revolution Of Mobile Photography” along with The MPA’s Daniel Berman and iPhoneArt.com’s Daria Polichetti.

More info after the jump.

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New Picfx update adds plenty of new filters

When we first reviewed Picfx, it was a quirky little square format photo app with a fairly straightforward number of filter effects. It’s grown into a pretty versatile square format photo effects app with a large number of filter presets, adjustments and other new tools that make it worth a look for square format iPhoneography.

The new update has just been released and adds a number of new effects, a new icon, and a capital “P”. The app is no longer called picfx.

More after the jump. >>>

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Faved on Flickr: iPhoneography Showcase for 05.14.12

Stop & Frisk

Stop & Frisk by Shel Serkin

 

We’re back with Faved on Flickr, our regular showcase of iPhoneography. One of the good things about going a while between galleries is that there are a ton of excellent photographs to choose from. That’s also one of the bad things. To help get caught up, I’m going back a few weeks and will split this week’s Faved Showcase into two posts.

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WTF?… 100 Cameras in One *still* doesn’t support full iPhone 4S resolution?

100 Cameras in 1But, at least it’s getting closer….

100 Cameras in 1 is the texture app with an interesting interface, some funky Zen sounds and very obscure and frustrating filter names. It was one of the first photo apps to make iPhoneography a game and also one of the first to directly save to Instagram. Unfortunately, it’s one of the last major photo apps to support the iPhone 4S.

The new 3.1.4 update has just been released. After just seven months, 100 Cameras in One comes close to supporting full, square format resolution of the iPhone 4S. The new version now supports “higher resolution choices” on an iPhone 4S — that’s 4 MP images or 2048×2048 pixels. This is an improvement over the 1200×1200 px resolution of the previous version, but still less than the 2448×2448 pixels that nearly every other non-Instagram replacement offers.

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Clearing out some Snapseed promo codes.

Snap it. Tweak it. Love it. Share it. Snapseed is one of the most powerful photo editors available for iOS. It’s got a full set of editing tools including “pins” for the very cool selective adjustments to help localize your edits and tweaks. Pretty cool! As a universal app, it’s designed to work great on iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. It supports up to 6.25 MP on an iPhone 3GS and up to 16 MP images for iPad 2 and iPhone 4 and 4S.

Today, I’ve got some Snapseed promo codes to give away. The app normally sells for $4.99. Click past the jump to grab one. Quickly — they’ll probably go fast.

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Perfectly Clear updated. Now works with iPhone 4S

Athentech Perfectly Clear for iPhoneWhen I found out that the Awesomizer tool of the excellent Camera Awesome was built by Athentech, I was worried that spelled the end of life for one of my favorite photo apps, Perfectly Clear. The long lapse between update didn’t help much to dispel my fears.

The new 2.4 versions of Perfectly Clear for both iPhone and iPad have finally hit the App Store today. They are both loaded with a lot of goodness, including a sale price reduction and a lot of bug-fixes. Regardless of the iPhone or iPad you use, regardless of any other photo fixer you may have, Perfectly Clear is an app that should be in your iPhoneographer’s toolbox and should be a first step in any image processing.

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Apple releases iOS 5.1.1 update for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch

The iOS 5.1.1 update was quietly released by Apple today. It’s mainly a bug-fix release, but there is one new fix that is of interest to iPhoneographers. The new update “Improves reliability of using HDR option for photos taken using the Lock Screen shortcut”.

More on this update after the jump. >>>

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We’ve got some PolarCam – Instant Retro Camera promo codes. Who wants one?

A while back, I reviewed PolarCam, another retro, instant-style fauxlaroid camera app. While I wasn’t overly excited about the app at first, it does shoot in full resolution and has very nice color and texture. You can also shoot retro instant video with the app.

Read my entire review of PolarCam here.

I’ve got some promo codes for PolarCam to give away. To find out how to win one today, click past the jump. >>>

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