How To Turn Your Mobile Phone Into A Better Digital Camera

Whether by accident or aim, only having a smartphone camera on your travels doesn’t mean your pictures have to be terrible. You can turn most post-2008 mobile phones into respectable photographing devices, by treating them more like a camera, than a cell. Using some basic photography principles, enhancing apps, and selective hardware, your phone may put your point-and-shoot on permanent vacation.

Fundamentals Are Camera-Proof

A DSLR doesn’t make you a better photographer any more than buying a nice basketball gives you a better free-throw percentage. Whatever your craft, there are underlying principals to improve your skills regardless of the tools involved. For example: using the rule of thirds, not shooting directly into light sources, or practicing foul shots.

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Photographer Stephen Hamilton has more advice in the video below and says the problem most phone photographers have is using lighting effectively.

Blurring is often a common side effect of an unsteady hand on longer exposures in low light. Devices like the iPhone 4+, and others with straight edges, can be propped up to avoid camera-shake effects. A small tripod like the Case Star Octopus Style (height about 22 centimeters or 8.5 inches) gives you more versatility and doubles as a point-and-shoot tripod as well.

• Make Blur Work For You – Slow Shutter ($.99; iOS only) and Camera FV-5 Lite ($3.95; Android only) give you control over your smartphone’s shutter speed so you can create intentional motion effects and capture low-light images using a tripod.

Also, when holding your phone to take a picture, use two hands with your elbows close in to your body for stability. Alternatively, try shooting with one hand while using the other to hold your elbow for a steady shot.

Amplify With These Apps

When there aren’t enough photons around to illuminate the people and things you want to photograph, Night Camera (free; Android only) and Night Cap ($.99; iOS only) can automatically brighten and reduce noise in dark shots.

• Engage Manual Settings – Although it’s almost intuitive to use automatic modes on your mobile phone, Camera+ ($1.99; iOS) and aforementioned Camera FV-5 Lite enable a number of manual options like ISO control, white balance, and self timers.
• Shoot In High-Dynamic Range (HDR) – Many of my pictures on foXnoMad are HDR (using a Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS10) however you can achieve a similar effect using ProHDR and ProHDR Camera ($1.99; iOS and Android).
• Panorama – Check to see if your phone is already capable of panoramic shots, if not, Photaf (free; Android) and 360 Panorama ($.99; iOS) can take care of that for you.

To add moods to your snapshots without much effort, Instagram (free; Android, iOS) and Camera Awesome (free; iOS) have loads of filters you can apply to go retro, psychedelic, high-contrast and more.

Put Your Phone On Photographic Steroids

For less than $10 you can equip your Android or iPhone with a simple kit of fish-eye, micro, and wide angle lenses that attach directly to your phone. Remember to change your focus to take decent travel photos and clean any lens – built-in or otherwise – with a micro-fiber cloth and cleaning solution on a regular basis.