Ever since smartphone starting shipping with built-in cameras the number of photos taken every year has increased to the hundreds of billions.
Smartphone (Windows Phone, iPhone, Android, BlackBerry) have some inherent strengths and weaknesses, and by emphasizing the good and downplaying the bad, you can take silence naysayers before they can get to the enter key.
By thinking about a few simple things, you can get better results every time when taking smartphone photos. Here are some things to keep in mind when firing up the photo app on your smartphone, so hopefully you'll be well on your way to producing some awesome shots from a fairly limited camera platform.
Keep Your Lens Clean
Your pocket is not a clean place, and the grime that lives within loves to glom onto your smartphone camera lens. The result are hazy, dark images that won't look good no matter how many retro filters you slap on them.
The lenses are now remarkably tough, so giving them a quick wipe with a soft cloth can't hurt (and your T-shirt will do OK in a pinch, but try not to make a habit of it). Once in a while, it's worth the effort to break out the lens cleaning solution and really get the grime off of it. It may not look dirty and you might not even notice it in your photos, but often a deep clean will make a difference.
Know Your Auto Mode
Knowing how the automatic shooting mode on your smartphone camera works can greatly help you take good photos. Take the time to learn when it uses high ISOs, when it uses long shutter speeds, and adjust how you take photos accordingly. It especially helps to know when you decide to…, techspot reported.
Crop, Avoid the zoom
Most smartphone cameras have the ability too zoom in while taking a photo. As the overwhelming majority of smartphones don't have an optical zoom module, this zoom feature digitally zooms, simply enlarging and cropping the output from the sensor before the photo is captured. To get the best photos from your camera, never use the zoom feature.
Zooming before capturing does not allow you to reframe the image after the fact: you're essentially losing data and reducing quality with no way backwards. Yes, the image will appear to show an image in the distance closer than it would otherwise, but you can very easily take the photo without zooming first, and then crop it afterwards. Taking the photo without zooming provides flexibility and the ability to change your mind later.
When you're cropping, however, you're actually just sampling pixel info that was actually recorded. Many smartphones have 8-megapixels of resolution and sometimes more. That means you can crop substantially and still have plenty of resolution left for display on the web. And the lack of gross upscaling artifacts will help mask the fact that it was taken with a phone.
Use the Whole Sensor
Something that really irks about smartphone OEMs is their choice to always default to a 16:9 image capture ratio even if the sensor itself is not 16:9. You won’t have to do anything if you have a smartphone with a 16:9 sensor like the Galaxy S5 or HTC One M8, but if you don’t, switching back to standard 4:3 can be beneficial.
Shooting in 4:3 on a 4:3 sensor not only gives you access to the full resolution of the camera, but it still allows you to crop down to 16:9 after the fact with more pixels to play with. Didn’t frame the shot perfectly the first time? Well if you were shooting in 4:3 and using the whole sensor, you might be able to get a better photo out of your shot.
Harness HDR Mode
Dynamic range – the range of light intensities a camera can capture in the one photo while preserving detail – tends to be a weak point in smartphone cameras. In scenes with both dark and bright areas, such as a shadowed forest, it’s difficult to capture detail in the shadows and highlights at the same time. This is where HDR mode, or high dynamic range mode, comes into play.
HDR mode takes two images of different exposures near-simultaneously, and then combines them to produce one image that has higher dynamic range than the sensor can normally achieve. On most smartphones, this is something you can and should enable when the scene you’re photographing has widely varying contrast. The difference in photos can be vast, especially on Samsung smartphones where the HDR mode is particularly effective.
HDR mode shouldn’t be used all the time, though. As it has to take two photos and combine them, trying to photograph a fast-moving subject in HDR mode can lead to nasty ghosting and other unwanted effects. Using HDR mode in darker conditions can also introduce blur, simply from the combination of two images with slow shutter speeds.
Override the Defaults
Smartphones can be pretty good when it comes to choosing settings, but not always. Metering can sometimes be pretty shoddy indoors and in cloudy conditions, which is where overriding some of the settings can come in handy.
If you think the white balance is off, change it. If the photo is underexposed, use the sliders found in most camera applications to boost it. If you’d prefer grain to blur, up the ISO used by the camera manually. Don’t forget about the flash either, which is sometimes necessary.
If center-weighted metering isn’t providing the right results, you might also considering switching to spot-metering, which some cameras allow you to do. Center-weighted looks at the entire image and meters according to what it sees, with a preference on the center of the frame. When shooting subjects off-center, it can be a good idea to switch to spot metering so the area around the ‘spot’ you select is exposed perfectly.
Don't Add Fake Blur - Use Good Posture (or Even a Tripod)
Depth of field will always be one of the biggest challenges for a smartphone camera. Wide angle lenses and tiny sensors make any substantial background blur difficult to achieve. But faking it almost always makes things worse.
First, blur added with an editing app is usually applied uniformly across most of the frame. That's not the way a lens works, so it looks unnatural.
Second, it's hard to be precise when selecting the object you want in focus so you can end up with harsh transitions from sharp to blurry. It's distracting and a dead give away that you’ve been messing with the image.
If you want the viewer to focus on one specific thing, make it the central object in the frame. Try to keep your backgrounds as simple as possible, even if it means asking your subjects to turn around or move a few steps back. It's worth it.
A key method for reducing blur is knowing how to hold a smartphone camera in a stable way. Holding your arms outstretched or far away from your body can make them sway more when photographing. Moving your elbows into the sides of your body can give a bit of extra stability where needed, as can physically resting the smartphone on a stable object.
If you want perfect stability, it is possible to get a tripod attachment that you can slot your smartphone into. You’ll probably look a bit silly bringing a tripod out and about to use with your phone, but you can achieve some fantastic shots with a tripod in hand.
Consider the flash
The flash on your smartphone isn't great. The problem with many smartphone flashes is that they don't actually, well, flash. They're glorified LED flashlights, thrust into a duty they're not fully prepared for. They are bright, but the color temperature can be gross and they miss one of the primary duties of a strobe: freezing the action in the frame. The actual "flash" duration is much too long, so you end up with an image that's both blurry and terribly-lit. Not to mention how close it is to the lens, which makes those horrible demon eyes almost a given.
Previously, I told you to turn off your flash. I guarantee you’ll be happier with the results in good lighting situations. Well, here are a couple instances where you should probably turn on flash. The first instance is when there is no light. Obvious right? Well, if you need a photo and there is no light you won’t see anything without it. So, turn it on! Flash will also help you see more detail in low-light situations, and is extremely useful as a practical device rather than aesthetic.
You may also want to try using flash in situations where you want a little bit more light on the subject. Let’s say your subject is standing under a tree. You might not like the spotty lighting the branches and leaves are creating. Flash can be used to soften or even remove those shadows. Fashion photographers often use flash to flatten the light on their subject’s face, or even overexpose, so the model’s clothing is the focus of the image.
Another instance you might turn on flash is when you’re in a harsh lighting situation (like on beach with a super bright sun). You could turn on the flash to help soften the shadows on your subject. The only catch is, most smartphones don’t allow you to “force” flash. In these situations the phone’s imaging software determines there is enough light for the photo and will not use the flash. This is unfortunate, but smartphones are far from professional tools.
Go Macro
Smartphone cameras don’t have the best bokeh from their wide-angle lenses, meaning it’s hard to achieve DSLR-like background blur with medium range shots (unless you have some fancy tools like the Duo Camera on the HTC One M8). How do you achieve that pleasant blur? Simply get closer to the subject of your shot, utilizing the close macro range of the focus system.
Some of the best photos I’ve achieved with a smartphone have been macro-style, using the small amount of bokeh that’s achievable to my advantage. On an f/2.4 camera system, like the LG G2 or Nokia Lumia 930, don’t expect anything incredible; but if you’re blessed with an f/2.0 system like the Sony Xperia Z2 results can be surprising.
Edit, Don't Filter
The final piece of the puzzle that often stops a photo captured with a smartphone from looking truly awesome is the post-processing stage. All the detail and necessary information has been captured, but it may not look as vibrant as you were after, or as sharp, or as beautiful.
I suggest getting a full-on image editing app like the excellent SnapSeed, Photoshop Express, or iPhoto. They'll let you make reasonable adjustments, like contrast, sharpness, and color temperature. Stuff you'd actually do with images from your big camera. It's also not crazy to dump your images into Lightroom or another piece of editing software if you don't feel the need to share them right away. OK, it’s a little crazy, but people do it.
It's with this decision that you can actually begin to choose your own style, or even extend the style you've already developed outside of your smartphone. It's a heck of a lot more effective than picking your favorite Hipstamatic filter and slapping it on every photo.
Adding The Lens Flare
Adding lens flare is another trend in mobile photography right now that's getting more overdone by the minute. But, this one can actually work for you if you do it the natural way. The tiny lenses are often more prone to wacky light effects than their full-sized counterparts, so you can really play it up if you want to. A silhouette with a bright, flaring background can actually look very stylish.
If you want to control the flare in your shot, move the sun (or whatever bright light source is causing the refraction-based mayhem) around in the frame. As you get closer to the edge, you'll often see the flare spread out and become more prominent. This is especially true with the new iPhone 5, which is also prone to image-ruining purple fringing that should be avoided if possible.
You can also cup your hand around the lens in order to make a DIY lens hood, which will cut down on the amount of flare if the light source happens to be out to the side of the frame. It may even be able to get rid of it all together.
Pick a Better Camera App
There are plenty of camera apps out there for Apple iOS and Android devices. Apps can help you selectively focus areas in your image, control exposure, color balance, and . I’ve messed around with several for the iPhone including Camera+, ProCamera, and even the free olloclip app (which is meant to be used with olloclip lens attachments). They can all help you take better pictures before before writing to memory, and therefore lessening post-production time after.
Make Prints
There's a disconnect that exists between digital and analog photography at the moment. Many photo enthusiasts barely make prints anymore, if at all. Putting photos to paper makes them tangible and take away some of the assumptions people often make when looking at photos online.
It sounds a bit crazy, I know, but I've found it to be true. Give it a try. Chances are, if the photo is good, you'll get the whole "you took this with your phone?" reaction that you're looking for.
Don't Forget The Rules Of Photography
This is by far the most important suggestion of all. The rules for taking a good picture don't change when you switch between cameras. Just because the camera can also make calls, doesn't mean you should ignore everything you know about balanced composition and expressive lighting. If you need to keep the rule of thirds or golden ratio layover on your screen at all times to help remind you, certainly turn it on.
While the tips I've outlined here will help you maximize the strengths and minimize weaknesses of a smartphone camera, it's ultimately your skill, knowledge, and eye that will make photos worth looking at.
Finally, as some bonus tips for you budding videographers out there, make sure that you set your smartphone to record at the maximum resolution possible. Many smartphones that record at 4K will default to 1080p, so changing the appropriate setting will lead to better quality videos. Another thing, try recording HDR or 60 frames per second video for better quality or smoother videos.
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