If you are keen to make better use of your phone’s camera, then that is something that you can certainly do. The truth is that if you have a modern smartphone, that means that you are carrying around in your pocket one of the best cameras that has ever existed in the history of humankind. That is an incredible thing, and yet most of us aren’t really making full use of it.
If you would like to make full use of it, then read on. In this article we will discuss some of the things you can do to become a pro smartphone photographer. You’ll be amazed at the kinds of things you can achieve with your phone without having to buy another camera.
Keep That Lens Clean
First up, you need to make sure that you are giving the lens itself a little bit of tender loving care. Unlike with a normal camera, on a phone you’ll probably find that the lens is constantly getting dusty, dirty and smudged. That’s largely because of the way we handle our phones when we are not using them as cameras. So giving the lens a clean – especially before you take a photo – is definitely a good idea. You might also want to think about taking the backing off and cleaning under the glass too, as sometimes particles of dust can get under there that are really ruining your photos on the whole.
Learn About Focus & Composition
No matter what device you are using, you always need to make sure that you know about the essentials of photography, such as focus and composition. Getting your subject in focus is vital if you want to make sure that the photo works at all. Bear in mind that the subject can be something small like a flower, something huge like a mountain range, or something in between like a scene with a few people. It’s all about what you want the eye to take in when looking at the photo.
In terms of composition, you have to try and imagine how the photo will actually look on a page, and then make that happen through the viewfinder. It can take some practice, but using certain tricks such as the rule of thirds should make it a bit easier for you. On the whole, these are the things you can’t really overlook if you want to make sure that you are taking great photos on your phone.
Use Apps
There are so many apps that you can use to achieve different effects with your phone’s camera. You’ll want to shop around and try a few of these out if you are going to be able to take photos that you love and that have the effects that you are looking for. You might, for instance, be keen to know how to make a photo look vintage, and one way to do that is to use an app where you can change the colours and so on in your images. You’ll find that experimenting with these is going to be really important if you want to get more out of the phone’s ability to take great photos.
Learn All The Tools
Even just on the phone’s camera app itself, there are going to be many tools that you need to learn how to use, as these are going to make a huge difference to how you can take photos and what effects you can achieve. Modern smartphones, in truth, even have all of the settings that you would find on a traditional bridge camera. That includes a focus control, shutter speed, ISO and white balance tools, and more. Learning about these and playing around with them in a spirit of open experimentation is the most important thing you can do to improve your photography skills, so make sure that you are aiming to do that as best as you can.
To Flash Or Not To Flash
The flash is something that very much catches people out when they are learning how to use a camera of any kind, whether it is on a phone or not. In truth, people use the flash too often. You only really need to use it at night when you want to illuminate everything you are photographing – otherwise it is basically completely unnecessary. Make sure that you are not using it when you don’t need to, or else your pictures will only look washed out and strange – and that’s not the idea.
