No, shooting the eclipse will not break your iPhone

We’ve reached peak eclipse. It’s coming in just a few hours and is all anyone is talking about (online and IRL).

But there’s one thing we’ve been hearing a lot of — which is that taking a photograph of the eclipse with your iPhone could fry the camera. Well, it’s not true.

We checked with Apple and confirmed that it will not damage the iPhone’s camera to shoot pictures of the eclipse.

But even though it won’t break your phone, you probably won’t get a great picture unless you try these tips.

Use your eclipse glasses as a camera lens to avoid your photo just being a bright ball of sunlight. And if you’re using the glasses to protect your eyes, make sure it’s a legit pair that will actually protect you. Or, you can just hold regular sunglasses up to your lens to act as an ND (neutral density) filter, which basically brings the brightness down to where it’s in the range of the camera’s ability to capture.

You can also adjust the exposure on your iPhone. While there are a few apps in the top charts right now that can do this, your standard iPhone camera app actually lets you adjust the exposure manually. You just need to tap and hold on the screen when your camera is open, and drag up and down to adjust the exposure. Check out the screenshot below to see what it looks like:

Of course, other things like zooming in and using a tripod will help, but you’re better off just taking a quick photo with the exposure turned down, then putting on the glasses and experiencing it with your own eyes — and leave the photography to the professionals.

If you want to watch a live stream of the eclipse check out our post on that here, or if you just want to see what time it’s going to be happening in your area you can check that out here.