LEISURE - PHOTOGRAPHY - 30.04.2012

Taking better photos using your smartphone

Snapshots

Spontaneous snapshots are often used for showing your social network what you’re currently doing. Smartphone apps such as Instagram or Path (for iPhone and Android) are even exclusively geared to taking snapshots, applying effects etc., and then sharing them via Facebook, Twitter etc. However, taking a successful photo using a smartphone is not as easy as it seems. There are even entire sites showing beautiful examples of “iPhoneography” or “(An)droidography”. Here are some tips.

Use both hands

When taking a picture, hold your device firmly with both hands. Note. On some smartphones (such as the iPhone), the picture isn’t actually taken until you release the button, not when you press it. So you should frame your photo while pressing the button and only release it when the composition is perfect. Keep the device stable until you clearly hear or see on the screen that the picture has been taken, as this always takes a little while.

Don’t exaggerate your zooms

Unlike your digital camera, your smartphone isn’t equipped with an optical zoom (so there’s no moving lens), only a digital one. This means that when you zoom in, your photo is blown up digitally, causing a serious loss in sharpness. So digital zooming inevitably harms image quality. Fortunately, most modern smartphones offer a resolution of 5 megapixels or more, so for smaller photos to be posted on your social network site, this doesn’t cause any visible problems. However, to obtain a better quality, it’s better to move a few steps closer to your subject instead of zooming in.

Ensure the correct exposure

Smartphone lenses are less light-sensitive than “real” cameras, so you should make sure you have enough light if you are to take a successful picture. Using the integrated flash is not the best solution as this typically overexposes photos, especially in close-ups. If your device supports this feature (and if you’re prepared to devote some extra time to your photos), opt for an HDR (High Dynamic Range) photo. This means that a series of photos will be taken at different exposures, one immediately after the other. All these photos are subsequently joined into one single photo on which every element is, in theory, exposed correctly.

Tutorial sites

There’s obviously a lot more to be said about good smartphone photography, especially if you start using dedicated photo-editing apps. It certainly pays to complement your device’s integrated camera app with another (fee-based) camera app such as Camera+ for iOS or Camera360 for Android. For more information, check out the iPhoneography.com blog (http://www.iphoneography.com). This presents daily reviews of new free and paid for iPhone photo apps, manuals and books. Android doesn’t have a similar dedicated site as yet.

Finally, examples of good smartphone photos can be found on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/groups/takenwithiphone/ and http://www.flickr.com/groups/android_photographer/).