Kickstarter is always a fun place to find new and interesting ideas for every day life. Today’s latest Kickstarter focuses on the horrible flash that usually ships with smartphone cameras, and to be quite honest with any camera in general most of the time. The biggest problem with flash is that it’s usually overly bright, super harsh and directional. This leaves the scene looking completely wrong, messing up the colors and creating a horrible lighting condition that will give you a clear picture but not one that ends up looking any good at all.
Photographers that use an SLR commonly get what’s called a bounce flash which usually comes on a tall stilt with a swivel flash up top. This allows the proper amount of light to enter the scene as the flash is usually pointed away from the subject directly, creating light that naturally bounces off objects rather than directly back at the camera. This is the general idea behind Flasher, a new Kickstarter project that’s designed specifically for smartphone use. Flasher is a small dongle that plugs into your headset jack for safe keeping and works via a toggle switch on the back. Flasher is equipped with 21 LED lights and can swivel 360 degrees as well as tilt 75 degrees for maximum lighting of the scene.
Flasher comes with two intensity modes so that you never have to worry about tricking the light into working for your scene, just turn it on high or low and go. These LEDs are diffused so even direct light doesn’t cause the harsh effects most flash units do, especially on a smartphone. There’s also no app needed for the unit to work, just turn it on or off and take pictures like normal. There’s a built in 350mAh battery that’s rated for 60-90 minutes of straight usage, and is rechargable via a standard microUSB cable. Since there’s no need to get power from your phone Flasher can be used as a standalone flashlight that will be significantly brighter than the one on your phone. Flasher starts at $15 for the Kickstarter, which is 40% off the listed retail price for the unit, and is expected to start shipping by late Spring or early Summer. Check out the Kickstarter link below for more info and to back the project if you’re interested!