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Photography is an amazing and sometimes daunting art. A stunning photo leaves you in awe and wishing you could learn to take pictures like that too. However, it’s also easy to make up excuses, such as, “I don’t have a good enough camera.” This statement is not valid. Nowadays, you can create amazing photos with practically any camera.

If you think you will miss out on great photo opportunities because you only have a phone camera, think again. With these 7 tips on phone photography, you will start seeing improvement in your photography skills immediately. Try implementing these tips whenever you have the opportunity. Practice and experimentation are the next steps to take your phone photography to the next level.

Clean Your Lens

This tip may seem obvious, but it is easy to overlook. We touch our phones all the time. Plus they sit in our pockets, purses and they collect dirt, dust, grease, fingerprints, and the like. A dirty lens means smudged photos. Unless you want a blurry-looking picture, a clean lens will help you achieve sharp images. Use a soft, clean cloth to wipe the lens gently. If dust or sand lands on the glass, blow it off first to avoid scratching the lens. Cleaning your lens is an easy step that takes less than a minute. With that out of the way, you can focus on more critical steps like focusing.

Focusing

Focusing is a big one in photography. A picture that comes back blurry or unfocused is aggravating. Phones try to focus shots for you, but they are not perfect. They may not focus on the same object that you want emphasizing. Thankfully, you can do something about this. Smartphones are capable of changing the focus to where we want it to be. All you have to do is tap on the spot on which you want to be focused. In most photos, you will want to focus on the main subject of your picture. To focus on an object, tap on your phone’s screen. For an iPhone, a yellow box appears around the spot you touched. You will see a difference as your camera adjusts its focus to the point you desire. Take the picture by pressing the shutter button.

Grid Lines

You may have heard of the “Rule of Thirds” if you’ve taken an art or photography class. This rule is universal in the composition of a picture in which you divide your photo into thirds—horizontally and vertically—creating nine equal sections. Essential parts of your image should overlap with at least one of the intersecting lines. According to the principle, this configuration appeals more to the human eye. Primarily, avoid always putting your main subject directly in the centre.

You can set your smartphone to display this “Rule of Thirds” grid on your camera to help you practice. For iPhones, go to “Settings,” find “Camera,” and turn “Grid” on. Use the grid as a guideline for composing your photos. While a wholly centred picture tends to be boring, focusing points of interest along the intersecting lines are pleasing and draw people’s attention.

Exposure

Sometimes pictures turn out way too dark or way too bright. This is called underexposure and overexposure. Even when you tap to focus the camera on your subject, the overall brightness may not adjust to your liking. This is why the focus ability in your camera has a brightness function too.

Start by tapping on your camera’s screen so that the yellow box appears. You will see a small “sun” symbol next to it along a vertical line. Swipe the sun symbol up to increase the brightness. Swipe down to reduce the brightness.

How much exposure do you need? In general, you want to adjust the brightness until your subject is detailed and colourful. Experiment with various lighting. You may find that achieving good exposure is challenging in some settings where you have a big contrast between light areas and dark areas. This is where High Dynamic Range (HDR) comes in handy.

HDR

Using the “brightness” function may not work when taking pictures of settings with both bright and dark areas. When you brighten the shaded area, the bright section becomes overexposed, and vice versa. For example, a landscape scene may have an extremely bright sky, while the ground is dark and in shadow.

Your smartphone’s HDR setting allows you to take the photos in these scenarios and produce a more evenly-lit photo. You may need to go to your camera settings to turn HDR on. You may also find the HDR symbol inside your camera app.

How does HDR work?

By turning HDR on, your camera takes several shots of your subject with different levels of exposure. It then combines these to create a photo with both the dark and bright areas properly exposed without sacrificing clarity and detail. In traditional photography with a DSLR or mirrorless camera, this is called photo stacking.

Burst Mode

Have you ever tried to take a photo of a moving object? What looks so impressive in person doesn’t always come out that way in photos. Actions shots taken with your phone’s normal camera setting usually turn out blurry and out of focus.

These shots are precisely what Burst Mode is made for. For iPhones, simply press the shutter button down and hold it. Newer models will have you swipe across your shutter button to the left. The camera will keep taking pictures until you release your finger. With all the images you take, you should have at least a couple of good photos.

Afterwards, filter through your burst images and delete unwanted ones in your Photos app, so you don’t clog your phone with tons of pictures. With Burst Mode, you won’t miss the perfect shot.

Lighting

Lighting is essential to photography. In general, always keep your light sources in front or to the side of your subject. Faces become shadowed and unclear when backlit. For example, placing your subject directly in front of a window during the daytime will cause them to be darker compared to the light coming from outside. Instead, have your subject face the window and take the picture from the side.

Remember, you want your light sources to illuminate your subject for clarity and detail. Even for landscape photography, you will find it much easier not to directly shoot into the light source when using your phone.

Phones are here to stay and over the next decade will slowly begin to replace many more conventional DSLR cameras. As the quality of them improves more and more people will choose smartphones. Because after all, the best camera is one that you always have with you.

The best camera is the one that you have with you… A phrase that has probably never been truer than in this era. Smartphones have changed the rules of photography and whether photographers like it or not, they are here to stay. Long gone are the days when to be a photographer you had to have expensive equipment and had to have studied it at university. These days anyone can capture great photos. Whilst smartphones are still some way behind DSLR and mirrorless cameras in terms of quality needed for large print sizes, smartphones have improved vastly over the last decade. It wouldn’t be completely ridiculous to suggest that in the years to come, they will replace traditional cameras completely. So rather than try to battle against it, you should embrace your smartphone as simply another tool for photography. In some ways, it might actually be your best camera. Here are 5 reasons why.

You always have it

Simply put, most people these days wouldn’t even leave a room without their phone let alone their house. So the fact that you always have a camera with you opens up endless possibilities that you won’t get with traditional camera equipment. Even the most dedicated photographer will leave their camera at home at times, but a phone is always with them. This means that when those unique photo opportunities arise when you don’t have your camera, your phone can come to the rescue.

Lightweight to carry

Even if you are happy to just carry basic camera equipment, it will no doubt weigh more and be much bulkier than a smartphone. The great thing with smartphones is that not only do they weigh a lot less than a camera, but you also don’t need backpacks to store them or their lenses in. So walking around a city all day, for example, will become easier with just a phone rather than a heavy backpack. It also means that you are not having to either store it in places that bags are not allowed in, but also it won’t get in the way in busy places like markets.

Less intrusive

Somehow thrusting a DSLR or mirrorless camera in someone’s face seems to feel far more intrusive than taking their picture with a smartphone. It’s the fact that a smartphone is subtle and people are used to seeing them and using them. So naturally, people often feel less intimidated by them. The other big benefit of smartphones is that they draw far less attention. Pull out a DSLR and you might be approached by a security guard informing you that “professional photography is not allowed”. But you would rarely find the same issue with smartphones.

Do more with your photos

If photography is your hobby, sometimes you might actually wonder why you might be taking photos in the first place? For example, I recently came across an amateur photographer who told me that he has thousands of photos that he has taken with his DSLR but no idea what to actually do with them. So they all just sit on his hard drive never seeing the light of day. Whereas the photos that he takes with his smartphone, he shares on his social media channels or even gets prints of them. The accessibility of smartphones means that it is much easier to take a photo and do something with it. Sharing on social media can be instant rather than having to transfer the photo from your memory card to your phone. Getting prints can be done through an app with the touch of a button. Editing can be done whilst commuting to work. All of this adds up to mean that you will often find you do more with your smartphone photos than ones taken with a DSLR camera.

Easy and quick

Even though you are able to change camera settings using your phone, most people often just take the photo not worrying about the settings. This can make the whole photography process quick, easy and much less daunting especially if you are a beginner or newbie, without having to worry about settings. With a smartphone, you can just focus on ensuring that you find an interesting subject and work on your composition. This will help you if and when you decide that you want to upgrade to DSLR cameras as the creative element of photography is the same.

Beware of the limitations

Smartphone photography is a great way for anyone to pursue their interest without the need for expensive equipment. It will also allow you to improve your creative skills as a photographer which can then be applied to when you use DSLR or mirrorless cameras. But for all of the benefits of smartphone photography, there are some limitations that you should be aware of. The biggest downside of smartphone photography is simply the quality of the photo. For example, if you try to print a photo taken with a smartphone at large sizes you may find that it gets pixelated and so is not suitable for print. But the vast majority of photos these days are used online so there shouldn’t be any problems with that. It’s also worth remembering that different smartphones do have different quality cameras it’s worth doing your research.

Who would have thought that one-day digital photography would replace traditional film cameras? Now smartphones are slowly replacing the digital cameras. Point and shoot cameras are already on the decline and as the technology of smartphones improves, it is feasible that eventually, even the professional photographers will be using smartphones. So even if you are using a DSLR or mirrorless camera a smartphone can be a great addition to your photography.

NOTE: All photos in this article have been taken using a smartphone.

Quick Beginner Tips For Better Phone Photography