The first job of a smartphone is to act as a phone and the second is to take pictures. Check out some simple tricks to take great photos with your phone.
If you want to take nice photos with your mobile phone, don't rely on luck. Of course, out of 20 photos, one will turn out good, but that's not the point. What you have to achieve is to make 20 good out of 19!
There are a few tricks that are especially useful when taking photos with your phone. And we're not talking about becoming a professional photographer, but about simple skills like how to compose a scene, work with lighting and understand photographic depth.
Smartphones on the other hand are much more simplistic than regular cameras and that's both a good and a bad thing. It simplifies the preparation since it does not require extensive settings and this is the reason that if you want to do something more you should know little tricks to achieve your goal.
Let's look at some techniques to take nice photos with your mobile phone:
Take your time
Mobile phone camera lenses are now very close in quality to professional cameras. With such a high-quality tool in your pocket, it makes sense to take your time and not rush to snap a shot.
So take an extra second, make sure your composition is good, include interesting subjects, see if you can improve the lighting or the angle. It only takes a few seconds to drastically improve your photos.
Apply the Principle of Composition
Apply the principle of connection to your photos, which is very simple and ensures that you have an aesthetically balanced photo. The idea is that instead of centering your subject, position it on the dividing line the whole frame in three parts. This works both vertically, for portraits, and horizontally, for landscapes.
Most cell phone cameras have a grid option. Turning on the grid will help you line up your subjects or horizon lines and help you focus on the rule of thirds.
There are other connecting principles, just as basic, but let's keep it simple since we're not talking about professional photographers.
Avoid zooming
The zoom feature on smartphone cameras is digital, which means you'll have a lot of distortion and noise in your photo. And editing or clipping noise distortion reduces the quality of your photo.
The best way to zoom in on a smartphone camera is to get closer to your subject!! A great way to practice this is to find small things and take a picture from where you would normally take it, then take a few steps closer. You will see the difference in quality immediately.
You can also buy zoom lenses for smartphone cameras, which avoid digital zoom distortion and help you get a good shot from afar. But this way you will lose the simplicity of just having a mobile phone in the back pocket of your pants and carrying it with you without much attention.
Forget Flash
The light coming from your mobile flash can be very harsh, create odd spots and shadows, affect the colors of your subject and can cause unsightly reflections. If you can avoid flash we recommend turning it off.
Instead, try to take advantage of natural or ambient light. It will give you more light and result in a better overall photo.
Many newer smartphone cameras now include night mode. This allows you to take much better photos in the dark, but you have to hold your phone still for a few seconds. Using a phone tripod will help you take a great photo in low light.
Try other apps
Your phone's standard camera app is great, but it's not the only way to take photos from your phone. There are a myriad of camera apps that can capture, enhance or add a playful touch to your photos.
With many free camera apps available, you have plenty of options. Go to your operating system's store, search for camera apps and see which ones have positive reviews and lots of downloads. Just try them on.
With each different camera app, you will come across new camera settings. Experiment with them to learn how to use each app to its fullest potential. Some apps let you change ISO, aperture, shutter speed, or more. These settings will produce photos of a similar standard to a DSLR.
Use HDR
High dynamic range (HDR – High Dynamic Range) is a technology that produces images with a large distinct difference between bright and dark areas.
On the one hand, it helps you get a balanced exposure in a photo that contains a lot of highlights and shadows. On the other hand, it can be overused and create photos that look a little off.
If you don't overdo it, though, it can be very useful. For example, HDR can balance parts of an image that are completely washed out by sunlight, such as daylight outside a window from a photo taken indoors. In general, we recommend leaving HDR on Auto.
Don't overuse filters
Instagram popularized the idea of photo filters, and there are plenty of apps out there that will let you apply a certain combination of effects, but you shouldn't overdo it on all of your photos. Standard filters are often too over the top and obvious when used, which doesn't suit all types of photos.
Professional photographers usually use more subtle standard filters so they don't distort the subject but are enough to be the "signature" to the photographer's work from a set of photos.
Try editing
Learning how to make quick, small adjustments via an app to your phone photos is actually pretty easy, and fun too. Editing your photos allows you to make subtle changes and gives you much more control over the end result of your photo than filters.
Every camera app has a small editing feature. Find her and start playing with her. The applications VSCO and Snapseed is a great way to edit your photos for free.
Explore saturation, contrast, light fill, hue, grain and other tweaks to see which ones improve your photos the most.
Keep your lens clean
We take our phones everywhere, put them in our bags or pockets, and even give them to our kids, so the lenses are bound to get dirty.
Even dirt you can't see with the naked eye will affect the quality of your photos. You often use a lens cloth (glasses wearers know), to keep your lens free of dirt and oil.
You can also clean your phone screen at the same time. Cleaning the lens ensures that there is no outside dirt and grime to ruin an otherwise perfect photo.
Upgrade your phone
With each new release of its feature phone, the camera software is likely to improve as well. Not only in quality, but also in additional features. So install all your phone and app updates.
On the other hand, with each new model of a phone, the quality of the camera usually improves. We don't recommend buying a new phone just to get a better camera, but if you're thinking of upgrading your device and want to improve your smartphone photography, then you should consider it.
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