Our phones have become some of the most important cameras in our lives. If you need actual proof of that, just have a look at some market statistics regarding sales of compact cameras in the past three years.
With that said, most of the cameras that equip the latest phones are pretty impressive in terms of image quality. Obviously mobile photography has some major drawbacks and while image quality is fairly good, phones still have a long way to go before they can compete with cameras. However, with a little creativity you can take your mobile photography to the next level. Here are 5 valuable tips just for that.
(Success Tip:The easiest way to learn photography when you have little time to spare)
5. Turn it into an underwater camera
This is one of those tricks that will leave you wondering how you didn't think of it before. The easiest way to turn your phone into an underwater camera is to put it in a drinking glass. That's all there's to it. Put your phone in a clean glass upside down and submerge it as much as you can without letting water inside. You can take awesome pictures and footage in shallow streams and lake shores.
4. Use a reflector
Your phone can be an awesome camera for taking portraits of your friends, but you still need good light to take great photos. You might not be able to attach studio lighting to your phone just yet, but you can shape natural light by using a reflector. Most are very cheap and because they are useful with any camera, every photographer should own one.
3. No arm selfies
Selfie sticks are hugely popular right now, but you can take selfies without using your arm in a different way. Connect your headphones, turn on the camera app and press + on the volume control to take a picture. Mount the phone on a DIY cardboard tripod or anything else that will hold it still and you've got yourself the ultimate selfie camera.
2. Shoot drive-by panoramas
You can get very creative as a passenger in a car. Switch your camera to panoramic mode, point the phone to the side and start shooting while the car is moving. The results can be pretty cool, especially if you drive around cool urban areas.
1. Upgrade the optics
One of the most annoying things about mobile photography is the lack of lens choices. You've only got one stock lens to work with, and it's usually too wide for portraits, yet to narrow for large groups or landscapes. Well, that problem is about to become history. There are additional lenses you can get online, but most of them are poorly designed and reduce image quality. A new project is about to make iPhone photography a lot more interesting.
A company called Bridge Optix have developed a really cool design for a protective case and a lens system for the iPhone 6/6 +. Turning the lens on your iPhone into a portrait, wide angle or fish eye lens is now very easy, and thanks to the lens mount built into the protective case, putting a lens on and taking it off makes this the easiest mobile lens system I've seen so far.
The team needs a little help to make this awesome case and lens combo available for professionals, as well as anyone looking to boost their mobile photography.
Check out all the details about the project on Bridge Optix's Kickstarter Page.
Check out all the details about the project on Bridge Optix's Kickstarter Page.
If you haven’t already seen the video from COOPH on 7 smartphone photography tips and tricks, here’s one I highly suggest you take a watch: