The cameras on the smartphones available in 2021 are pretty extraordinary. For something that you carry around in your pocket ever day, they take better photos than some of the top-of-the-range DSLRs from just a few years ago. Sure, a smartphone camera will never give you as many options or the flexibility as a high-end digital camera. However, you can still get great images without forking out for an expensive camera.
1. Pay Attention To Lighting
The biggest advantage that a DSLR or mirrorless camera has over a smartphone is the ability to change the aperture and their bigger light sensors. This means that with a smartphone, you need to be a little bit more particular about the lighting for your photos. It’s always best to get some bright natural light for your pictures as opposed to using regular indoor lights or worse, the flash.
2. Set Your Exposure And Focus
Even if you don’t want to learn all the ins and outs of photography, and are happy to go point and press – your photos will look a lot better if you take a moment to set these two elements. On pretty much all smartphones, you can adjust the focus and the exposure by pressing and holding on point on the screen that you want in focus or to expose properly. You can also choose the area that you want to focus on and then use the slider that comes up on the screen to adjust the exposure.
Simply taking a moment to get these elements right will lift your photos from all right to great. It’s also quick and easy to do.
3. Make Use Of Burst Mode
The sensors in a smartphone camera don’t always react well to high-speed action when taking photos. If you want to snap images of your kids or animals playing or at a sporting event, make use of burst mode. You can take literally hundreds of photos as easily as you would take just one. Then, you can scroll through the burst folder and pic just the best images.
4. Don’t Use The Zoom
For the most part, the zoom on a smartphone camera is digital and not optical. This means that as soon as you start to zoom into your subject, you are losing quality in your image. You’ll find that these images are usually blurry and can be over exposed too.
On more recent smartphones, you’ll see that they have two, three and even four cameras on the back. These allow you to jump between specific focal lengths (closeup, regular, telephoto and wide) without compromising on the quality of the image. It’s important to make sure that you are using the regular zoom on a particular lens and not the digital zoom somewhere in between.
5. Unlock Full Manual
If you want more control over your images, you can unlock the camera into full manual mode through various different apps. These are mostly third-party apps unlike those you’ll find when playing at an online casino NZ, but they work exceptionally well and let you really play with your photography skills.
