Cameraphones have come a long way in the past few years, but they don’t always take the best quality photos on the first try. Depending on your cameraphone and the lighting conditions, the results often turn out to be dull or blurry photos that are barely worth looking at later on.
You can do better though!
With the following tips taken from Lifehacker, you will be able to take most cameraphone shots from forgetful to awesome with just a few tweaks. The article is a bit lengthy, so I will be breaking it into three parts, beginning with Part One:
Don’t Forget Basic Photography Rules.
1. Use Your Light
It is important with all cameras to make sure that your subject is facing the light source and you are not, but it’s even more important with cameraphones – as the phone’s biggest weakness is its inability to take good pictures in low light. This means that you generally will want to get as much light as you possibly can on your subject. This may require a little more thought and more moving around than with a point-and-shoot camera, but you and your pictures will be thankful in the end.
2. Clean Your Lens
While most people are good about keeping their fingers off of a traditional camera lens, it’s not as easily done with your cameraphone that you are in close contact with most of the day. A dirty lens will counteract any of the other tips given in this article, so give your lens a wipe down before you start snapping photos.
3. Avoid Digital Zoom
Digital Zoom is a useless feature, especially on a cameraphone. If you need to get closer to a subject, you are much better off stepping closer to them. If you can’t, you can always crop the photo later on, which is essentially all that digital zoom really does anyway. Remember: You can always crop down, but you can’t crop up.
4. Pay Attention to Your Flash
LED flashes have been hyped on recent smartphone cameras, but they’re not always all they’re cracked up to be. If you do not have enough light to work with, flash can ensure that you get a picture, but a lot of phones tend to use it more than necessary. Sometimes the white LED light can be really harsh and cause some unsightly overexposure. Even in lower light situations, you may find that turning off the flash will give you a better result. Try snapping a photo with a flash and one without if you are in doubt. The photo can always be tweaked in post-processing (editing), so it cannot hurt to give yourself some options.
If you find that a flash is needed, you can soften it by placing a thin white sticker over it, like a small piece of tissue or white label. You’ll still have some light from the flash, but the sticker will take away some of the harsh exposure that tends to make people look ghostly.
Now that you’ve got some basic rules under your belt, try them out and see if you can improve the photo production from your cameraphone. The next step will be tweaking your camera’s app settings, so stay tuned for Part 2!
[ From: Lifehacker.com ]
4 COMMENTS
Leave A CommentOH – Thank you for this article, Jeanette. I cannot wait for part 2 about this particular topic.
Me two i thank you ;0)
Thanks! This is useful even for a digi camera – not exactly the same problems but still basic tips worth thinking about.
[...] last week’s post outlining some basic rules of photography, these additional tips taken from Lifehacker discuss how [...]