Great photography is all about the basics: make sure your lighting is great, use the Rule of Thirds to compose your shot, and get close to your subject to keep it from looking too small and insignificant. If you do those, you’ll get a great shot. You can then use apps to create cool effects, like taking panoramic photos, adding a tilt shift effect or creating image collages.
But if you just want to kick it up a notch and take awesome smartphone photos, do the basics, and then try a few of these tips.
1. Play with exposures to enhance your photo’s mood
Generally, your phone will automatically adjust exposure settings based on how much light it senses. But you can change it around by tapping other areas. If you tap a dark space or a light space, the exposure will adjust accordingly for that lighting.
This can result in some wildly different looking photos. To see for yourself, set up a shot and take three photos: one regular one, one that has been adjusted after you tapped a dark area, and one after you’ve tapped a light area. Decide which one captures the mood best, and share that one with friends and family.
2. Shapes and patterns can make your photo more interesting
We all love a good pattern, and you can make the most of that by trying to spot and play with patterns, lines and shapes. For example, the lines of a zebra crossing can make an interesting background for a colourful subject. An archway can make an instant frame for your photo. The sun behind a cut out in a wall can create an interesting beam of light.
Just always keep an eye out for interesting shapes, lines and patterns, then be prepared to get in a weird position to capture the shot.
3. Shake up the HDR mode to get a double exposure effect
The HDR mode on your phone is a great way to take good photos, but it can be used for some pretty cool effects as well. HDR means ‘high dynamic range’, and it essentially takes several photos really quickly. It then takes the darkest darks of the set of photos, the lightest lights and the brightest colours to form a composite image that has a larger range of colour and contrast.
But if you shake your camera a little while you take the photo, you can get a cool double exposure effect . You can also get a similar effect by using the HDR mode on action photos.
4. Make just about anything a filter
The great thing about the cameras on phones is that they are easy to play around with. You can hold a piece of clear plastic over the lens to create a cool colour filter. You can hold a piece of mesh or lace up to the lens to get an awesome pattern. Everything on your phone is so light, flat and easy to hold that you have a lot more scope to easily turn something into a filter. It just has to be big enough to hold over your lens, which is probably about the circumference of the pen on your desk.
5. Use several digital filters to make colours pop
Once you’ve got the shot that you love, try running it through a couple of filters. It can really make the image pop. If you convert your image to black and white, then pump up the contrast, then add another filter. You may be amazed with the results. Just make sure to save the filtered image as a different file, so you’ll always have the original – in case you aren’t amazed by the results!
With these five tips, you should be able to take some truly awesome smartphone photos. What is your favourite smartphone photo tip?
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