Remember when back in the day when preparing for a day trip meant packing your music player, phone, games console, and your digital camera? Well, these days, our phones do it all in one handy device that does more than we could have imagined it to do since the last decade.
If you want to learn how to take stunning and artistic pictures using your smartphone camera, keep reading these tips below to see how you can take amazing shots without having to invest in an expensive camera.
- Take multiple pictures in one go
Smartphone photography means that you can take as many photos as you like with no need to print them in order to see what your pictures look like. This makes it a lot easier to improve your shot. Some smart phone cameras come with burst shots which are good as they capture multiple shots as your subject moves. You can then select your favourite and discard the rest.
- Avoid using digital zoom
On the most part digital zoom will almost always produced poor results as the quality of the image will decrease. If you want to take better pictures then you should avoid it. You can use optical zoom as this will not affect the quality of the photo and are becoming more common on standard smartphone cameras.
- Use editing tools
My smart phones come with an easy to access photo editing tool. But if you want a more advanced editing tool then Adobe photoshop and the like are available on most app stores. A simple crop and touchup can totally transform the look of a picture from something amateur to professional looking. That doesn’t mean to say that you should over edit photos to make them look natural or oversaturated, though. Photo editing should only be used to enhance the natural beauty of the photographs you have taken.
- Remember the rule of thirds
An image is split into nine equal blocks that form a 3 x 3 grid. This is the role of thirds. You should aim to get the best and most interesting parts of your image near the corners of each of the segments where your gridlines mate. Applying the role of thirds will give you a more natural feeling, allowing the eye to float around the feature with ease. However, if you want to apply symmetry to your frame you will give yourself a clean, smooth finish.
- Play around with lighting
Lighting is a key component of taking beautiful pictures. Most phones will have settings that will allow for decent shots to be taken in natural daylight. But if you want to take photos in the dark, using a technique called backlight, you can position the main source of light for the photograph from behind the subject, creating an incredibly dramatic effect- even on your smartphone!
Our smartphones are getting smarter with every new technological development. This is great news for fledgling photographers who are starting to find their passion but don’t have the funds to buy a professional camera.
