Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - As the Total Solar Eclipse draws near on April 8, many of you are getting your cameras ready for the big day. However, cell phone experts say, just like your eyes, your camera lens needs protection.
"[The sun] can also cause damage to your phone and your camera," said AT&T's Kevin Hanna in an interview with WBEN.
Hanna says your smartphone cameras also need a filter in order to take photos without sustaining permanent damage to the lense and the phone.
"Those are readily available online, and I'm sure available in retail stores as well. They would attach to the phone using Velcro or a similar sticky substance," Hanna noted.
According to Hanna, the filter for your phone works similarly to the eclipse-viewing glasses many people will be using come April 8 for their eyes.
"A solar filter for your smartphone would be encased in cardboard around it and similar filament, which will block much of the light, especially the damaging part," Hanna explained.
If you don't have a filter for your phone, Hanna simply advises you to not use it.
"It doesn't take that much time to damage your phone," he said.
With the duration of the eclipse itself, being about two-and-a-half hours and the totality being about four minutes, that's too much time to have an unprotected and unfiltered device.
"If the light is continually focused through the camera lens, it could even damage, distort or even melt the optics or the plastics, as part of the camera lens. And again, it doesn't take too long to do that damage," Hanna warned.