5 Tips to Perfect Smartphone Photos

Every once in a while, I use my smart­phone to take images. Yes, you read that cor­rect­ly. Now I am a DSLR purist and would nev­er show up to a pho­to­shoot with only my phone. Still, I will admit that I occa­sion­al­ly only take my phone on vaca­tions, and you know what, you can take some pret­ty amaz­ing pho­tos with a smart­phone cam­era.  Keep read­ing and check out my 5 tips to per­fect smart­phone photos!

This week, my son’s school had a Scav­enger Pho­to Hunt. To get my fam­i­ly to have any­thing to do with this bit of fun, I agreed to let them use their smart­phones to take the pho­tos. We had a list of words that we searched for. Words like; tex­ture and old. We each had to cre­ate the very best smart­phone pho­to that we could and push our­selves both cre­ative­ly and tech­ni­cal­ly. I want­ed them to think out­side of the box and to real­ize that cre­at­ing a fan­tas­tic smart­phone pho­to­graph isn’t just about snap­ping the pic­ture. You real­ly should learn to use your smart­phone cam­era correctly. 

Here Are 5 Tips to Perfect Smartphone Photos

1. Slow Down! 

Remem­ber, when you use your smart­phone cam­era, it’s just like using any oth­er cam­era. What­ev­er you see on that screen will be in your pho­to. So, slow down and think about your image.

2. Avoid using the zoom feature for your smartphone photo!

Use your feet and get as close to your sub­ject as you can. Zoom­ing in on your smart­phone, only enlarges and crops your image. The qual­i­ty of the image can be dis­tort­ed from using your zoom.

3. Use the basic composition rules of photography, even when you are using your smartphone camera! 

Remem­ber the rule of thirds, fram­ing, and fill­ing the frame to help make your pho­tos look more professional. 

4. Have your HDR feature on Auto. 

Let­ting your smart­phone cam­era choose when to use HDR will help you have more guar­an­tee that you have more detail in your images. 

5. And lastly, use the tap to focus feature of your smartphone camera. 

This fea­ture helps you deter­mine what is in focus and deter­mine the bright­ness of that subject!

Did you know that you can change your aper­ture on your phone? Or that you real­ly should­n’t use your flash when tak­ing a smart­phone pho­to. There are many oth­er ways to make your smart­phone pho­tographs look amazing! 

So, my chal­lenge to you is to work on tak­ing the best pos­si­ble smart­phone pho­tos you can take by imple­ment­ing these tips to per­fect smart­phone photos!!