Smartphone Photography: 10 Tips for Good Results

Photography Tips  •  Smartphone Photography

Smartphones have become an essential part of our daily lives. And with camera quality  in smartphones getting better with every iteration, most of us have very capable cameras in our pockets. While taking photos with a smartphone is a simple point-and-shoot job, a little attention to detail can help you take amazing photos. Members of team moment share simple photography hacks to help you take better images with your smartphone:

1. Clean Your Lens

Sounds pretty basic right? But when it comes to smartphone cameras, we tend to ignore cleanliness a lot. The smartphone regularly comes in contact with dust and lint. When we handle it, the lens can come in contact with our sweat and grease. To cut it short,  the lens can get very dirty causing the image to look faded and hazy.Use a good quality brush or a micro-fiber cloth to clean the lens when taking a photo.

2. Lock Your Exposure

When using your smartphone camera in auto-mode, the camera makes all the exposure decisions. As you move the camera around, it continually changes the exposure to try and get an evenly lit image. If you feel the need to lock your exposure when moving the camera around, simply press and hold-down on the screen in your iPhone. This will let you set your exposure by moving the slider up or down and keep it locked. In case of an Android phone, have a look at your camera settings for a similar option as the option can vary with manufacturers.

3. Underexpose Images

Smartphones in general have a tendency to over-expose images. To prevent any potential loss of data due to clipping, it is a good idea to slightly underexpose your images. You can later recover the shadow details while editing.

4. Shoot RAW

Modern smartphones have the ability to shoot in RAW format. RAW images store more data and give you greater flexibility when editing. See if your smartphone supports this feature. You may need to use a third party app to enable this feature. However, keep in mind that RAW files need to be processed a  bit. Otherwise, they appear very flat which is unflattering.

5. Change Your Angle

Shooting from eye-level is too mainstream. With the flexibility and convenience that smartphones have to offer,  try out different angles to get images from a unique perspective.

6. Tele-Pano

Using an add-on tele lens for your smartphone camera, shoot a micro-panorama. This helps you to get a wider shot with a nice compression and depth which the wide native lens lacks. You can later crop the image in any aspect ratio you like.

7. Use Grids

Be sure to enable the grids in your smartphone camera. They work as guides to help you get properly aligned images.

8. Water Bottle Tripod

You can’t carry a tripod for your smartphone everywhere you go, right? In case you need support for your smartphone while photographing or taking videos, use a coffee cup or a water bottle instead. You can simply lean the smartphone against the cup or bottle while the camera takes photos or records a vide0s.

9. Don’t Shoot at the Sun

Ever noticed some weird bright dots or streaks in your images when shooting directly into the sun? Well, they are called flares and they can be distracting at times. If you notice flares in your images, slightly changing the angle you are shooting at can help you get rid of it. Not so difficult right?

Which one is your favorite tip from the bunch?