smartphone photography tips and tricks

Make your panoramas fun by asking your model to move to different parts of the scene as you take the sequence.

Take a panorama from the window of a moving vehicle.

Use binoculars as a zoom lens.

Put a small drop of water on the lens for a macro effect.

Just because youre using your smartphone doesnt mean you shouldnt strive for good lighting. A car foil screen can be used as a reflector. This is especially handy for portraits.

Reduce camera shake by building yourself a miniature tripod with a few pieces of cardboard. Then use the volume control on your headphones as a shutter release.

Place your smartphone in a clear glass to simulate underwater housing.

Even on a DSLR camera, the flash function is generally best saved for emergencies. If you can feasibly use natural light to illuminate your picture, you always should, because your want your pictures to look natural, dont you? While there is a time and a place for it, the LED flash on smartphone cameras tends to be located very close to the lens, which has a nasty glaring effect. If natural light isnt quite enough, then increase the exposure value (EV) and ISO on your camera. Bear in mind that increasing ISO will also increase the graininess or noise in your pictures.

An even more overused and photo-destroying feature on smartphone cameras is the notorious digital zoom. Unless your camera has an optical zoom where the camera lens can actually protract out of your device (like the not-great Samsung Galaxy K Zoom), then all digital zooming does is enlarge and crop the picture. Cant I just do that after Ive taken a photo anyway? I hear you ask. Well, yes you can - thats the point! All digital zoom does is narrow the editing options for your picture. Take fully zoomed-out photos, then crop them manually if you want them to be closer up.

We all have some photos that come out incredibly well and others that are pretty awful. Whenever you take either a great or terrible photo, check the Details of the photo to see what ISO, exposure time and aperture it had. This way, youll slowly learn which settings on your smartphone work best with which light conditions. This is particularly useful to do for Auto photos, so you can get a feel for what settings your camera resorts to by default, and adjust them accordingly.