9 Rules to Capture Better Images with your Smartphone

I am no savvy in photography yet but how glad I am to have friends as my coaches. At first, I find it hard to take photos properly like you and often times sighed on my works. As I listened to those who are already expert on this stuff, I learned so many things. To remember their coaches on me, I wrote this as a reminder. Hope this helps you too. Here are some tips on how to capture better images with your smartphone. These are what they always tell me.

 “Don’t Zoom.”

The best zoom can only be done by optical lens, not digital. The best way to do it with smartphones is to crop the image.

Taking photos from afar is sometimes challenging especially when you want only that most interesting area of the landscape or nature. The quickest resort is to zoom in to get that angle we want, thinking we’ll get a good image. Unfortunately, the opposite is the end result when the photo appears to be distorted. What your camera zoom actually does is just expanding the pixels that made up the image. It is called Digital Zoom. It results in a blurry or pixelated image instead. It is just similar to enlarging a small-sized picture.

"Don’t filter too much. You’re ruining it.” 

Filtering too much is another way to distort the image. Photos become grainy and dull when so much filter styles are applied. Just make enough adjustments in the contrast, brightness, sharpness and color temperature. Make sure the image remain a good quality, no image noise.

 “Use the Depth of Field feature, not Blur effect.”

Bokeh effects look awesome and it will look more natural if you use the Depth of Field setting on your smartphone. If you can manually adjust the camera focus on your smartphone, then better use it as you take the picture than adding a fake blur after. Fake blurs look unnatural and mess the image, except for certain editing cases.

“Learn when to use the flash.”

Don’t use flash at all if it ruins the image. The LED flash in smartphones sometimes creates poor photo quality. This is the reason you get motion blur, red eyes, yellow skin and image noise. The other way is to find another light source to avoid an overexposed image. Unless if you take a picture just for sweet memories’ sake, a flashed photo is better than a dark screen.

 “Wipe the lens.”

One time, I was complaining to my friend about my smartphone photo being grainy and blurred. When he checked, “Try wiping the lens!”

“Oops,” I wiped the lens and took a photo again. Indeed, it became clearer. So, before you complain, check the lens if it’s clean.

 “Draw your camera closer to the subject.” 

It is to capture the details of the image. Get that beautiful texture and patterns. Usually, this is best done with an optical camera. Since smartphones are digital, you can only make a close-up look at the details through drawing your camera nearer to the subject. Once you get the small details, sharpen it using your favorite photo editor.

 “Learn the basic photography rules.” 

Have you heard about the rule of thirds? Balance? Symmetry? Point of view? Lines? Patterns? And so much more. Learn about them. The same rules should be applied in mobile photography. When composing your photos, it is best to use these rules to have a fascinating capture.

“Be creative.” 

Make your photo interesting. Think of something that can make it unique or maybe funny.

"Practice.”

It’s an old saying but still very effective until now. It’s a very well known secret for success and expertise. Make sense?

If you think there’s something more to know about taking great photos, please do share it with me. I will be glad to learn more.