Tom is a student who love photography and planning to buy DSLR camera. He asked Yetta who received great applaud for her photography work to suggest the camera to start with. Tom stunned when he learned that Yetta is mostly doing photography through her iPhone and never bough any DSLR camera! As he already own a good smart phone, He end up spending money on DSLR and decided to spend time to learn how to take a good photos on mobile phone.
Are you also having difficulty snapping good photos on your mobile phone? Despite appearances the cameras on most mobile phones nowadays are actually quite good – and it doesn’t take much to snap good (or even great) photos using them.
All that you need to start snapping better photos on your mobile phone is the right approach – and there are a few easy tips and tricks that should get you on the right track.
Make Sure There is Plenty of Light
The one main downside of taking photos with mobile phones is the fact that the camera sensor is smaller than most digital cameras and DSLRs. Because of that you need to make sure there is plenty of light if you want your photos to look good.
For best results you should try to use soft light that is diffused and doesn’t cast any hard shadows. That may sound difficult, but you can actually DIY a softbox for indoor use quite easily (and on a low budget).
If you’re snapping photos outdoors you should try to take advantage of the golden hour when the light is truly picture perfect.
Keep the Phone (and Camera) Still
Image stabilizers is now available in almost all latest smartphone but still to ensure your photos turn out good you should keep your phone complete still while they are being captured. Any movement (no matter how small) could make your photos blurry – which is not what you want.
For beginners it is always best to get into the habit of holding the phone horizontally with one hand on either side. Keep your phone close to your body, so that you can use your sides to support your arms.
Using a tripod or camera stand of some other type can help too – and will make it much easier to keep your mobile phone completely still. On top of that you may want to use a remote camera shutter so that your phone doesn’t move slightly when you tap the screen to take a shot.
Clean the Lens – Regularly
Unlike normal cameras that are often kept in their case, mobile phone cameras enjoy no such protection and are generally exposed to tons of dust and dirt. It should come as no surprise that the lens often ends up dirty or smudged – which will definitely affect the quality of your photos.
As you can imagine this is easy to fix however, and all you need to do is get into the habit of cleaning your lens regularly. Simply wiping it off periodically should suffice, ideally with a microfiber cloth.
Tap to Set the Focus
Another good habit that you should cultivate is making it a point to tap and set the focus before you shoot.
By tapping the subject on your screen you will ‘lock’ the camera focus – and ensure that it doesn’t focus on something else. That will ensure that the subject looks sharp and has good definition.
The only exception to this rule is when you are snapping a photo of a moving object – in which case you can’t lock the focus on a specific area and risk them moving out of it.
Capture Bursts of Moving Subjects
As was noted previously you can’t really lock the focus on a moving subject – which makes it difficult to capture a perfectly in-focus image. The way to get around that is to use the burst mode in your camera so that your phone takes several photos in quick succession – allowing you to pick the best one.
In most mobile phones all you need to do to activate the burst mode is hold down the shutter button in the camera app. If you want you can open up the settings to adjust the number of shots that are snapped in each ‘burst’ too.
Get Closer to the Subject to Zoom
Do you want to zoom in on a subject to get a close-up and reveal more detail? That’s great – but you should try to always do that by actually moving closer to the subject rather than using the zoom on your camera.
On most mobile phones the zoom feature is a digital zoom that will artificially enlarge the area in question. However if you move physically closer you’ll be able to capture the same photo – in much better quality and with significantly more detail.
The exception to this rule is if you have a phone with a telephoto lens, in which case you can ignore it.
Use the Rule of Thirds
Learning more about photography composition can seem daunting – but the rule of thirds will provide you with an easy way to start.
To apply it you should first enable the grid on your mobile phone camera and use it to align the subject and other elements. By positioning important elements using the gridlines and intersection points of the grid, you can balance your photo better.
Always remember that you don’t always have to apply the rule of thirds (like all other composition ‘rules’). Instead you should look at it as a useful way to guide your composition, but should feel free to break it as frequently as you want.
Try Out the HDR Mode on Your Phone
Most mobile phones nowadays have a HDR mode – and you should definitely try it out. It works best on photos that have areas that are both bright and dark, and will capture several images at different exposure levels then blend them together.
Overall the HDR mode should help you produce photos that are more evenly exposed and will reveal a lot more detail in the process. By experimenting with it you’ll get a better sense of when it is best to use it.
Adjust the Exposure Manually
While mobile phone cameras are great at automatically determining the right exposure levels – sometimes making manual adjustments can help. Most camera apps will provide you with a way to do that, though the exact method varies from app to app.
Initially you will want to experiment with different exposure settings in different lighting to see how it affects your photos. The more practice you get, the better you’ll be able to gauge the right exposure to use.
Being able to adjust the exposure manually can be extremely useful especially if you are capturing photos in extremely bright or low-light conditions.
Conclusion
Aside from knowing how to snap better photos using your mobile phone – you should also get a good PC or Mac photo editor and learn how to use it.
One of the options that you could try some photo editor tool or you can also use various photo editing apps available on play store. It is a user-friendly and intuitive editor that you can use to quickly enhance the quality of your photos, apply stylish filters, crop the frame, remove unwanted elements, and make other key alterations.
Overall between everything described above you should be able to snap better photos that look really impressive. The only other thing that you need is to get some experience under your belt and practice taking photos.
As you get more experience under your belt you’ll start to find it much easier to snap impressive photos using your mobile phone – and can start to experiment with different techniques too.
