[TIPS] Start Taking Better Smartphone Pictures

Category: Photography

The ubiquitous smartphone seems to have replaced dedicated cameras among all but professionals and photography hobbyists. Here are some tips for taking great photos with your iPhone or Android smartphone. (Actually most of them apply to old-school digital cameras as well.) Read on...

Tips For Smartphone Photographers

It's time to update the old saying "a picture is worth a thousand words." That exchange rate seems to apply tenfold when it comes to social media. Photo-centric apps such as Instagram, Tiktok and Pinterest are soaring. Experts estimate we now upload 2 billion photos per day to the Internet. Pictures, and the attendant buzz they generate online, are the currency of social media. Whether you're uploading a photo of your lunch, or emailing a cute pic of your kids, you'll benefit from these smartphone photography tips.

My first tip is a simple but important one. Keep the lens clean. Phones spend a lot of time in pockets and purses gathering dust and lint. Fingerprints easily cover camera lenses when phones are pulled out hastily. A dirty lens will result in cloudy photos. Use a microfiber cloth to gently clean the lens. A cotton swab moistened with water can remove stubborn specks.

Next, use the “rule of thirds,” a basic photography tip. The rule is based on the theory that images look more interesting when their subject straddles imaginary lines that divide the field of view into thirds, horizontally and vertically. These Google Image search results instantly convey the idea. The points at which the imaginary lines intersect are also important in photo composition because viewers’ eyes are naturally drawn to those points.

Smartphone photography tips

Lighting is the most important aspect of photography. The direction, color, and intensity of lighting can have dramatic effects on a photo. Most smartphone photos are taken under conditions that give the photographer little control over lighting. But you can move around to get the light at your back and on your subject. Try different angles to see how light and shadows affect the composition.

These next two tips were given to me by a professional photographer. He advised me to avoid using a smartphone’s flash. Due to the size constraints of phones, a built-in flash is always too close to the lens, resulting in overwhelming glare, washed-out patches of skin, and the infamous “red-eye” effect. Use natural light whenever possible. If necessary, consider a detached LED lamp with adjustable intensity.

And never use digital zoom. Optical zoom works by physically moving the lens closer to the subject. Digital zoom is a software trick that enlarges pixels, which makes the image look larger but blurrier. The best way to make objects look bigger is to get closer to them, unless the object is an alligator, or the edge of a cliff.

Experimenting With Camera Settings

Every modern smartphone packs a pretty powerful digital camera these days. But the camera app that comes with your Android or iPhone does not provide all the features that photographers need. If you want to take the best photos during your next vacation, nature walk, concert, etc., and spruce them up later, check out some of these useful photography apps in my related article [SNAP] Awesome Apps for Photographers

See also: Try a Free Online Photography Class for links to some of the best websites offering free online classes to help you become a better photographer.

Understand Camera Modes. Using your phone's Camera app, you’ll notice that various modes are available. Most people just leave their camera in “auto” mode, letting it select the best setting for each shot as best it can. But choosing the right mode can yield a much more interesting photo. Some you can try include Selfie mode, HDR mode, Panorama mode, Night mode, Time-lapse mode, Bokeh/Portrait mode, and Sports mode.

Try browsing through your camera’s settings and experimenting with its various modes. Some phones will show a small arrow on the left side of the camera screen, which will reveal a variety of settings and options. Others have a gear icon to access settings. You can always delete shots you don’t like. Try different filters to add subtle or slapstick effects.

If you have trouble keeping the phone steady when clicking the button to snap a photo, turn on voice controls. This will allow you to get your subject in focus, and take a picture by saying "shoot."

Phone Camera Technology (5 Features...
Phone Camera Technology (5 Features) And What You Didn’t Know About Them

HDR, or High Dynamic Range, is an important mode. It is a form of image processing that balances lights and darks in images, and helps them look more like the way the human eye would see the photo’s object. HDR actually takes three photos very rapidly - light, medium, and dark - then mashes them together to yield an image that includes all the highs and lows of a scene. As you might imagine, HDR works best with still scenes like landscapes, while moving objects will appear blurry.

If available, panorama mode lets you pan across a wide scene and capture it one wide-angle photo. In most cases, you'll want to hold your phone horizontally when taking pictures or videos. Panorama mode is the exception. Holding the phone vertically will increase your depth and result in a better image. It's important to keep the phone level while sweeping across the scene. If your phone doesn't have panorama mode, check the Google Play store for an app to add that functionality.

Some high-end phones provide advanced simulations of professional photography features, such as aperture priority, shutter priority, and full manual, as well as ISO (sensitivity) and white balance. Most casual shutterbugs will find these settings overkill, but they can come in handy at times if you take the trouble to learn them.

If your camera has a RAW image option, you can save images in uncompressed (raw) format instead of JPG. RAW gives you better editing options and yields sharper photos.

Backup photos automatically. Oceans of tears have been shed over lost memories when phones and their SD cards are lost or damaged. Your iPhone will back up your photos in iCloud. Google Photos provides unlimited free cloud storage for photos and videos as long as they’re no bigger than 16 Mpixels (photos) or 1080p HD (videos). Larger files are either compressed or counted against your Google account’s cloud storage limit. You don’t need a Google account to use Google Photos. By simply activating the Backup & Sync function on an Android or iOS-based smartphone or tablet, Google Photos automatically saves all photos and videos stored on all the devices a user owns, as well as any taken in the future.

Do you have some tips on taking great pictures with a smartphone? Your thoughts on this topic are welcome. Post your comment or question below...

 
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This article was posted by on 20 Oct 2022


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Most recent comments on "[TIPS] Start Taking Better Smartphone Pictures"

Posted by:

Rien
20 Oct 2022

For low light photography: use the night mode (if your phone has one) and (like Bob said) turn the flash off.
And:

In my experience it is very hard to take a decent photo with an old phone. the sensor quality and algorithms have improved a lot. So consider buying a new one


Posted by:

Walter
20 Oct 2022

### Google Photos provides unlimited free cloud storage for photos and videos as long as they’re no bigger than 16 Mpixels (photos) or 1080p HD (videos). ###
Is this true?? Google Photo storage _used_ to be unlimited for normal/lower-res pics, but I thought that they changed the rules (last year?), and now all photos counted towards your storage allocation.
But, I could be wrong...


Posted by:

Hill
21 Oct 2022

Alas, Walter, you are correct.


Posted by:

Stoney_in_FL
21 Oct 2022

Walter & Hill - You may want to check out Amazon's Photo Storage for Prime Members. Prime members get unlimited, full-resolution photo storage and 5 GB video storage. And if you need more storage, they have plans starting at 100 GB and go all the way up to 30 TB.


Posted by:

Matt
21 Oct 2022

Google Photos is no longer unlimited, but I pay $20 per year for 100GB. We'll see how long that lasts before I need more.

Also, using the 3 second timer is a great way to hit the button and then have a moment to be able to hold the camera steady for when it actually takes. On my phone (iPhone 13 Pro Max) using this also does a 10 image burst so I can select the best one to keep.


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