Thanks to smartphones, almost everyone holds the power of a high-tech digital camera in their pocket.
Smartphones boast a seemingly endless number of camera features, with camera technology upgrading to new heights with every release.
Whether you simply want to take nicer pet portraits of your furry friend, or you want to use your smartphone camera professionally to take your career to the next level, we have some advice to help you capture high-quality, high-resolution content every time you whip out your phone.
Make sure your lens is clean
Your smartphone spends a lot of time in your hands, your pockets or in the bottom of your bag. This makes it very easy for marks or dust to collect on your camera lens.
It’s commonly overlooked, but the first thing you should do before taking a photo is ensure that your phone’s lens is clean.
The lens allows light to pass through and hit your camera’s sensor. If your lens is dirty or smudged, less light will pass through your camera, making your photos appear hazy or blurry.
The best way to keep your lens clean is with a microfibre cloth – like ones used to clean a pair of glasses. A microfibre cloth is soft enough to remove dust and fingerprints from your lens without damaging the lens’ surface.
Get to know your camera settings
There are many game-changing settings that you might not have discovered on your camera. Here are three of them:
Focus – your smartphone is generally ‘smart’ enough to autofocus on the part of your image it perceives should be the subject. However, you might have other ideas. There might be something in your frame that you want to focus on that is too small for the autofocus to pick up. Use the manual focus to pick the area of the image that you want viewers to be drawn to.
Shutter speed – you can adjust your shutter speed to fit the lighting of your environment. A slower shutter speed gathers more light in your image. So use faster shutter speeds in brighter environments, and slower shutter speeds when you’re in a dark setting and need more light.
ISO – Another way to experiment with light in your photos is with the ISO sensitivity. ISO will adjust the sensitivity of your image sensor to the light in your frame. A low ISO is perfect for the sunny outdoors and to add extra focus to the details in your photo. A high ISO is ideal for indoor or dark settings where light may be imperfect.
Take multiple shots
Take advantage of the limitless potential of smartphone photography. In the era of the film camera, you had a limited number of shots you could take until you had to changeover to a new roll. With your smartphone, you can take as many shots as you want (and upload your photos to cloud backup storage), giving you more chances to practise and capture the perfect frame.
Say you take five photos rather than one – you’re giving yourself five times the opportunity to capture the right moment by adjusting your technique.
As you take each photo, look at the results you’re getting and see if your shot might benefit from a different angle or lighting.
Most common smartphone photos are taken from directly straight forward from the photographer’s point of view. If you want to take images that stand out, play around with how you can frame the depth or height of your subject. Don’t be shy about moving your position – by crouching, moving left or right of your subject, or playing with your distance from them.
Many smartphones also have a ‘burst’ feature which allows you to take multiple pictures in quick succession while only pressing the shutter button once. This will capture several photos at once and allow you to select the best shots from the range. Plus, this feature can track the movement of your photo’s subject(s), staying focused on the centrepiece amidst the action.
Use editing tools
Another great benefit of smartphone cameras is the ease with which you can edit your photos. Playing with the editing tools to adjust lighting, framing or colour, can help you correct a not-so-perfect photo. Something as simple as playing with brightness or shadows; cropping or straightening your photo; can make a world of difference. Some smartphones even have the capability to remove whole objects or people from your photo at the click of a button!
Practise
Like any skill, the best thing you can do to get better at smartphone photography is to practise! Look for opportunities in your everyday – the view from your commute or from your window, a nice portrait of your pet or a candid moment of a loved one. Every day is full of photogenic moments!
The more you take photos and experiment with how you capture them, the more you will continue to maximise the potential of the camera that lives in your pocket.
Once you’ve got these basics down, you can take your skills to another level with our photography short courses. Whether you want to keep learning about smartphone photography, or dust off the digital camera you have in the cupboard, our experts will lift your photo-taking game.