Smartphone Picture Taking Tips to Use Right Away

Our smartphones are amazing inventions, handheld computers with a capability for taking quality pictures and videos to share now and with future generations.

It’s easy to snap and shoot, but do you the best ways to capture quality images? Read through these tips that will help you get the best look now and for future generations.

As a photo coach, I help my clients:

get the pictures they want,
Photo by Alwin Kroon on Unsplash
show them how to organize,
offer solutions for storing the pictures for a lifetime, plus 100 years.

Good photos start with cameras and for most of us, that means using our phones. From there, so much opens up to us like digital storage options and photo books.

Read on to get the best from your phone’s camera.

Your phone’s operating system

Tech devotees have their favorite brands. Try to pry an iPhone away from someone who’s passionate about Apple products and you won’t be able to get it loose from their fingers.

There are also Android believers.

Don’t obsess over which is best. Advice from a writer at PC Mag claims that “you really can’t go wrong with the latest Apple iPhone, Google Pixel, or Samsung Galaxy devices.”

Are iPhones better than Samsung?

Here’s an answer to the question on Quora.com from 2019. Read and see what you think.

Apple buys camera sensors from Sony, as do quite a few of the premium Android phone manufacturers. However, Apple has stuck to fairly small sensors, even for a smartphone.

Your phone is one part of the picture taking equation, but it’s not everything. Good lighting is key to getting a good shot.

Look at lighting

While iPhones can outperform Androids in low light, getting the best indoor shots with smart phones are challenging. If you take or plan to take a lot of indoor shots, then try an iPad, tablet or buy a good digital camera.

Here a few tips on lighting from the School of Photography:

Very few smartphones can produce excellent indoor shots due to their small sensors. As such, it’s best to take photos outdoors in the proper lighting conditions to get better results. Lighting determines not only brightness and darkness, but also mood, tone and the atmosphere of the photo. Therefore, try and use natural light when taking photos on a smartphone.

For nighttime or other low light situations, adjust your phone’s settings. Google calls it night sight, Samsung may refer to as bright night, Huawei says night mode and others may say nightscape.

Frame the subject

Getting your subject well positioned is another key to good photos, even if you’re not the next Ansel Adams. A popular guide is imagining your screen split into a three-by-three grid. This is the rule of thirds.

You don’t need to or want to have your subject dead center even though there are always exceptions.

The subject can be in one-third of the screen while letting the two-thirds have space.

If you can have your subject looking at an angle so that they’re not looking directly into the lens then that’s even better and gives a natural feeling. This lets the person who’s viewing the image a chance to let their eyes flow and sub-consciously can bring a sense of life to the end result.

Avoid digital zoom

Some photographers like to avoid the use of digital zoom since it reduces the resolution of the image. Optical zooms don’t affect the quality of the photo and these are becoming more common on smartphones.

Extra Equipment – a Gimbal

If you need to steady yourself with a shot then use a gimbal, a miniature stabilizer with sophisticated motion detecting abilities. This means it can know the difference between the videographer’s intentional movements and unwanted camera shake.

Prices start around $ 79.00 and go up to $279 for the DJ-Ronin SC.

Gimbal DJI OM 5 via dji.com

Your storage options

Now you can take these great photos and store them for children, grandchildren and their grandchildren to see.

I’ll be glad to show you options for converting old media into digital files while storing them for years to come.

Family research and gifts

I can help families turn their photos into prized stories by using a professional service to research genealogies and family history.

The era of print isn’t over. So digitized photos can be turned into hard copy photo albums and used as meaningful gifts for Christmas, Hannukah, birthdays, anniversaries and more.