With the amazing cameras built into smartphones these days, you don’t need fancy equipment to take eye-catching photos. Even your trusty iPhone or Android device can capture great images with a bit of technique. Follow these tips to quickly become a pro at phone photography:
Get Familiar with Settings
Open your camera app and poke around the various modes and settings options. Most phones let you manually control focus, exposure, shutter speed, ISO, white balance, etc. Understanding what these mean will allow more control over your shots. Play around before your next shoot.
Consider Lighting Conditions
Pay attention to the direction, color, and hardness or softness of light. For close-up portraits, diffuse natural light often looks best by facing the subject out a window. For product shots, a soft box lamp on the side can eliminate harsh shadows. Backlighting can create striking silhouettes. Move around and observe how the lighting changes.
Comprehend Composition
Use gridlines in your camera app to frame shots with compositional techniques like the rule of thirds. Lead the eye where you want it. Get super low or super high angles for more dramatic perspectives on otherwise mundane scenes. Shoot details, patterns, textures, shapes to make mundane subjects artistic.
Steady Your Smartphone
Blurred photos from shaky hands are no good. Prop your phone on something solid, squeeze it between books on a shelf, or invest in cheap tripods and phone rigs to stabilize your shots. For motion blur, consider panning techniques. Release the shutter right when the subject is in focus.
Consider Accessories
Add on lenses like fisheye, wide angle, macro, or telephoto open up your options for cool effects. Extra lighting with small LED panels can illuminate dark scenes. Easy-connect mics improve audio quality in videos. Tripods and handle mounts create smooth moving shots.
Touch Up Photos
Use editing software built into your smartphone’s operating system to fine-tune images after the fact. Correct brightness, contrast, saturation and use presets for quick professional polish. Most phones even allow layering text or stickers onto photos for extra pop.
Practice, Practice, Practice!
Playing around with composition ideas, watching online tutorials about technique, and taking lots and lots of photos with your phone are the best ways to hone your artistic eye and technical skills. Be patient, persistent, and have fun seeing what cool shots you can capture with just the camera already in your pocket!
