Camera Phone Tips For Making Good Photos

When it comes down to taking photos from your phone’s camera, it essentially comes down to 2 differing things; What can the phone’s camera do? What can you do with the phone’s camera? 

1.   What can the phone’s camera do?
Try to find out what the phone’s camera technology potential is, its limitations, and if this camera phone is capable of taking the photo that you want.  Fortunately, getting the answer to this problem is only a matter of finding out the specifications of the camera phone (and knowing their meaning naturally). Following are a couple of specs to know.   

-The Megapixels- What are the amount of megapixels the phone has? 

-The Zoom- What form of zoom features can you use (is optical available)?

-The Lights- Can the phone make use of flash or any other form of light that it is able to make?

-The Adjustables- Figure out what options (such as white balance, EV, and a night mode) that the phone has. 

Finding out about what these specs are is a big key for making acceptable photos with a phone.

2.  What can you do with the phone’s camera?
Before you can take decent pictures from your phone’s camera, it is important you know how to mix some standard skills for photographs on a typical camera with some particular techniques unique to taking photos using a camera phone.  In ideal situations, a successful mix can lead to some surprisingly high quality pictures, however, it shouldn’t shock you too much if they still don’t look as good as you thought it would.  It still remains just a camera on a phone and therefore is limited in what it can do.

-Turn up the megapixels- For most of the camera phones, 2~3 MP (megapixels) are the most that you will be seeing.  Take advantage of it!  It may take up more space on your phone’s memory, but you will be getting a greater possibility for taking photos that are worthy of taking off the phone and perhaps even printing out.  A point to make is that more megapixles don’t necessarily give you better quality photos, but whenever a phone’s camera isn’t capable of shooting at bare minimum 1MP pictures, you honestly shouldn’t think of using it for anything other than a few small spot photos which stay in the phone (due mostly to the fact that they are much too small to be printed out or displayed on a computer).

-Move as little as you can- When using a normal consumer camera, if you have a bit of movement it is not ideal but still not a big deal for beginning photographers.  When using a camera phone however, any movement is exaggerated a whole lot more and will wind up giving you some truly ugly looking shots with just a small shake.  attempt to stand as still as possible for a better chance of a worthwhile photo.  

-Be close to the subject of the photo- A phone’s camera, for the most part, can not deal with multiple subjects from multiple distances.  To take nicer quality pictures, try to get nearer to your subject so all of the camera’s focus will stay on it, which in turn will help the picture to be more focused.

-Don’t use digital zoom- Yup, don’t do it.  Using digital zoom makes a photo come out looking pixilated, actually lower a shot’s resolution, and will most likely , in my opinion, ruin the picture every time.  An optical zoom (when the phone has it) is ok to use when you need to use a zoom, but I still like getting nearer to a subject.

-Lighting makes a huge effect- To take usable photos with a standard camera, one of the most important variables to consider is the lighting.  When using a camera phone this has an even larger effect.  Having too much light or not enough light equals a bad photo.  Best would be if you are located in an area that is well lighted. When impossible, then use the phone’s adjustable lighting settings (below).
 
-Adjustable settings should be adjusted- Since you are going to be in situations when good lighting isn’t going to happen, it is a good time to know how to use a camera phone’s adjustable settings as a way to compensate for this.  The two ones you need to know the most are EV and white balance, both of which will be useful when dealing with extremely bright or lower light situations.  Also be, aware for a “night mode” setting included as well as being sure to use the any flash.