photograph Archives - usatoday24

the definitive guide to photograph it with your smartphone without ruining the camera

July 13, 2026 by usatoday24

The experience of seeing a solar eclipse is something unique; given that, unless we decide to travel the world in search of itWe have very few opportunities in life. Therefore, it is not strange that everyone wants to photograph it. In the past, it was something that was only in the hands of a few scientists and astrophotography experts. However, with the widespread use of mobile phones, today we all carry a camera constantly in our pockets. It is the reason why many people will want photograph the solar eclipse this August 12 with their smartphones. It may seem like something simple. You take your cell phone, point it at the sky and take the photo. However, it is a much more complex process, requiring both security measures and basic knowledge about photography. And also, if possible, some gadgets that will make the process much easier. Therefore, if you are considering photographing the solar eclipse with your mobile phone, pay attention to this small guide. Maybe it’s not a good idea Before mentioning how you should photograph a solar eclipse with your mobile phone, it is important to keep in mind that most experts recommend don’t do it. Neither with the cell phone nor with a professional camera. The total eclipse on August 12 will last a couple of minutes at best. The longest eclipses in history They have not extended much beyond 7 minutesand yet they are scarce. They are usually very short.. Therefore, if we spend those few minutes behind the lens of a camera, we may not enjoy the experience. Experts often recommend enjoying the first eclipse by looking directly at it. Then, if you see more, you might consider taking photos. Now, if you are clear that images are going to be an important part of the experience for you, there is nothing wrong with taking them. As long as you do it with caution. The solar eclipse can damage your eyes and your phone! At this point, everyone (or almost everyone) We are clear about the importance of using approved glasses to look at the sun during a solar eclipse. However, we can make the mistake of thinking that if we look through a lens, our sight is protected. This is not true, in fact, if it expands our vision of the sun, it can also magnify the damage to our eyes. That’s why, it is important to use filters Suitable for the objectives and lenses of telescopes, cameras and binoculars. Now, if what we want is to photograph the solar eclipse with our mobile phone, our eyes are not in the same danger. If we look at the Sun on the mobile screen, there is no risk, since we are not looking directly through the lens and the screen does not emit a harmful glare. However, The image sensors of the mobile camera can deteriorate. This is because these cameras are prepared to take images of the sun in the background of a landscape or directly at times of weak lighting, such as sunrise or sunset. However, their sensors are not adapted to the illumination they receive when landing directly on the Sun at a time of higher illumination, especially if it is done for a long time. And of course, to take a good photo of the Sun, a good exposure is important. A quick click is not enough. Tips for photographing the solar eclipse with your mobile phone We have already seen that the first thing we must do to photograph the solar eclipse with our mobile phone is protect the camera. There are specific filterswhich are a very good option. Now, if we don’t want to spend money, we can opt for something more rudimentary, such as placing approved glasses directly in front of the lens. You can even cut one of the two lenses of glasses and glue it in front of the lens. The result will not be as good as with a specific fultro, but we will be able to get by. Most experts recommend that you just watch the eclipse, you don’t always have to take photos of everything Once the sensors are protected (and our eyes if we look through a lens), we must take into account the parameters at which it is best to take the photograph. From NASA recommend use a fixed aperture of f/8 to f/16 and try shutter speeds between 1/1000 and 1/4 second to find the optimal setting. That would be for the partial phases of the eclipse. On the other hand, during totality, the corona has a wide range of brightness, so they recommend using a fixed aperture and an exposure range that goes from approximately 1/1000 to 1 second. Of course, during totality the Sun is completely covered, so the camera filter can now be removed. It can and it should, since if we don’t do it we won’t see the solar corona well. However, the colleagues of Xataka Mobile They clarify that this is useful for cameras, but not for mobile phones. In case we are clear that we want to take the photo with our mobile phone, the best option is to do it automatically and follow some basic tips. Shoot at full resolution: Many current mobile phones have sensors of 50 and even 200 megapixels and manufacturers usually offer a shooting mode to take photos at maximum resolution. If your mobile phone has it, activate it since you will be able to have a huge image from which you can take a crop with very good quality Use optical zoom: Find out what the optical zoom of your mobile phone is and don’t go beyond that. If the maximum zoom is 3x, then shoot at 3x. This way you ensure that the quality will not worsen when using digital zoom. What are the best gadgets? We can try to see the eclipse directly and take photos at the same time. For this, it can be … Read more

Persees fall so fast to the earth that only three astronauts have managed to photograph them “from above”

August 12, 2025 by usatoday24

How do you see a fleeting star from the International Space Station? If it is already difficult to capture the persistent here, Although there are guides for itdo it from space, moving to 27,600 km/h, when the persistes pass that speed to eight times and burn in a second, demands patience. But at least three astronauts have achieved it: two Americans and one Russian, each with a very particular style. Image | Ron Garan, Nasa Ron Garan. The former NASA astronaut, flight engineer of expedition 28, took this photo on August 13, 2011, during The meteor rain of the Perseids. The International Space Station was flying over China, about 400 kilometers northwest of Beijing, when Garan managed to immortalize the flash of a persistent burning in the earth’s atmosphere. The photo was no accident. The astronaut had placed himself in the ISS dome with his fair camera during the Perseidas Activity Peak. The green and yellow glow that is perceived between the earth and the emptiness of space is the luminescence of the atmosphere: atoms and molecules that are excited with sunlight during the day and release this energy at night. As for the intense blue brightness under the solar panels of the station, it is dawn. Image | Scott Kelly, Nasa Scott Kelly. Known for spending a year in space to compare with his twin brother Mark, former American astronaut also took advantage of expedition 44 to take pictures. On August 12, 2015, Kelly achieved an image of the stelae left by the Perseids in the long exhibition photos. In the absence of Luna, the starry sky stands out almost more than our planet. From the perspective of the International Space Station, which orbits the Earth to about 400 kilometers of altitude, meteors such as Perseids go underneath, heating up to incandescence. The bright grains of dust travel about 60 kilometers per second, disintegrating about 100 kilometers on the earth’s surface. Image | Oleg Kokonnko, Roscosmos Oleg Kononenko. The Russian cosmonaut, which has traveled five times to space and is the person who has spent the most days out of the earth (1,111), He also has his photo of a Perseida. He took it on August 9, 2024 from the International Space Station. And although the city of the background is a bit climbing, the detail with which he managed to capture the fleeting star makes it an iconic image. It is believed that it is perseiled for the date. These meteors are particles expelled by the Swift-Tuttle comet throughout their orbit, which is close enough to the earth on these dates to be dragged by the gravitational field of our planet. The Pico de Activity occurs in mid -Augustbut you can see the persistes from the end of July to the beginning of August, full summer in the northern hemisphere, which makes them the most popular meteor rain to this side of the world. Image | Scott Kelly, Nasa In Xataka | Emptied Spain is an ideal place to see the Perseids: we have some ways to find the ideal place

All Netflix series have the same appearance and the same photograph. And Netflix has proposed to solve it

May 12, 2025 by usatoday24

It is a runrún in the audiovisual industry for years: all Netflix productions have the same finish. In the case of the most almighty fiction factory of the moment, it is a problem, and has won him abundant criticism. Netflix herself knows it and has got to work to solve it: a series of technical novelties that want to end what has been known for years as “Netflix aesthetics.” What is Netflix aesthetics? It is about Visual finish of the series and platform filmsthat It draws attention For generating common features in products that, on paper, would not have to have them: romantic series, horror movies and even realities And documentaries end up receiving a very common distinctive bath with very recognizable characteristics: Excess shine and color; or, on the contrary, areas of the plane very dark or unnecessarily in gloom. Saturated lighting, especially in night images. Devotion to neons, in a kind of aesthetics inherited from the eighties (of what We believe that were the eighties, at least) and that is perceived in series like ‘Stranger Things‘. In terms of editing and assembly, little innovative decisions and Manido resourceseven sometimes overexpressive. The lighting highlights details of makeup and the costumes, which underlines how often Netflix productions have a little original or unnecessarily “studied” production design. In general terms, all these decisions lead to a Netflix production being recognizable at a distance, even in series and films with large production values (‘red alert’) or that should be characterized, precisely, by its distinctive touch (‘Sandman’). But … why? This visual standardization is completely sought after, and there are several reasons for it. One is the standardization of the image due to the technical specifications that Netflix seeks. Among other things, A couple of years ago There was the obligation to use certain cameras, the minimum resolution requirements and what percentage of each production could use an unauthorized camera. These approved cameras began being just a couple, but the list has grown a lot since then. As Some observers claimthat list is currently as long as it could be in an independent production shot in digital. That is, you can no longer blame everything to the limitations that Netflix put a few years ago, because that list of recommended material to roll has grown a lot. What matters. The theoretical Haley Nahman It contributed a possible reason for this visual standardization of Netflix, when it began to detect it in productions outside the platform, such as the horror film ‘M3gan’, and which can basically be reduced to a search for “less conflict.” That is, scenarios with fewer elements, or less illuminated elements (more scarce characters, more sober decoration, more areas in gloom …). Thus costs are not only cheaper because you have to take care of less problematic aspects of a plane, but because it generates an “instruction book” to apply in every situation. The algorithm culture. Of course, the Blind faith of Netflix in the designs of the algorithm It also has a lot to do with this replacement for constants: if something works, it is tried to repeat, and that not only applies to the themes and genres, which we have seen with the appearance of clones of ‘The squid game‘ either ‘Bridgerton‘. It also affects aesthetics, and in that sense, manufacturing visual rollers that coincide with the most popular is more than a technical issue. Even the most striking finishes, such as ‘Stranger Things’, find their immediate replica (in ‘Fear Street’, for example). Below the risk. It is not necessary to influence it too much, but if Netflix has become the most popular and followed platform, it is to polish all kinds of stridency or aesthetics that leave the norm, in order to appeal to as many audience as possible. Again ‘red alert’ is the best example: a cast (The Rock, Ryan Reynolds, Gal Gadot) that seems elaborated by an AI, an aesthetic that is the common average term of all spy films, an argument that has been made with an Excel sheet of common places … Beyond the final quality, what matters is to appeal to the most, the better. An improvement. Aware that this aesthetic can have its positive side in terms of effectiveness, but not so much if the belief is spread that everything that comes from the Netfllix factory is identical (and therefore, it is not worth approaching new proposals), the platform recently announced support for HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. They are formats that allow a much broader dynamic and color range, and better preserve the creative intention and offering richer and detailed images. Specifically, the platform promises with this improvement more precise colors and greater detail in each frame, which will help mitigate one of the eternal complaints of the specyers: the darkest scenes of movies and series barely have details. It is a key movement for a future in which platforms are obliged to stand out in front of the competition. Or at least, it seems that each of its proposals has a distinctive and unique style. Header | Netflix In Xataka | ‘The Eternaluta’ is a masterpiece of science fiction, but the story of its creator gives him an absolutely unique background

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