Smartphone Photography
1. Get The Right Light
Natural lighting will almost always produce a better shot with realistic color than a photo taken with a camera flash, especially for portrait shots. If it’s cloudy or you’re taking a shot inside, look for strong artificial lights or ways to reflect what little natural light there is. Things like a large piece of white poster board or a sunshade for your car dashboard can help illuminate your subject.
2. Never 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.
3. 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.
4. Get Close and Fill The Viewfinder
Sometimes when you try to capture the big, all-encompassing picture you miss out on a really great photo. When you’re too far away from your subject, you get a tiny, unrecognizable figure and far too much background. Instead, make sure you get close and fill the viewfinder. Avoid zoom, which can reduce the image quality.
5.Use Good Tripod
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 I have seen and achieved myself some fantastic shots with a tripod in hand.
6.Use The Whole Sensor
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.
7.Edit
It’s easy to fix this: chuck the photo in an editing program on your computer, like Light room, or even use an app on the device itself and begin playing around. After moving a few sliders and ticking a few boxes, the results might astound you and your friends.
8.Download a Better Camera App
It’s true that the iPhone built in camera app has been improved over
time, and is great for your average user, but us photographers who require a little more control over the settings should turn to the App Store.
9.Clean your lens
I know it sounds obvious, but your mobile spends its day with whatever is in your pocket or handbag. You will never take great pictures with pocket lint or greasy thumbprints on the lens. This is a really easy issue to fix, but if you ignore it, it will handicap you before you even start. Also, try not to keep your phone in your pocket or bag with things that might scratch the lens like coins, keys and the like.
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