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6 Steps To Great Cell Phone Camera Shots

A mini guide to better camera phone pictures

It's increasingly easy to take fantastic cell phone camera shots that can rival the quality of those produced on digital compacts. The best camera phone pictures are more than fit for printing and displaying on your wall.

The great thing about digital photography is that it is so convenient and camera phones are an extension of this. They reduce the amount of stuff you have to carry around with you and increase the number of situations that you can take pictures in!

Camera phones make it much easier to be opportunistic. Think of all those amazing cell phone camera pictures of major news events that were snapped by witnesses and shared with the world's media in a matter of seconds!

But taking cell phone camera shots presents its own challenges too. So here are my 6 top tips for making the most of your phone's built in camera:

There are some truly brilliant camera phones about these days!

Tips for Great Cell Phone Camera Shots!

1. Getting closer is better than zooming in

If at all possible, always choose to move physically closer to your subject rather than zooming in on it to get the shot you want.

Why's that? Well, even in the best camera phone, the technology for zooming is likely to be something rather feeble known as 'digital zoom'. All this does is crop the picture as you 'zoom' in, re-displaying it as the full image in the viewfinder, causing a big reduction in quality.

It is much better to get closer and take a full sized image. If you feel like re-composing the shot and cropping it later, you can simply do this in Photoshop!

2. Shoot in good light

Taking good pictures on a cell phone relies more on good lighting than normal digital photography. The lack of manual controls (the best camera phones do actually feature manual controls for lots of things - see my list below) makes it very difficult to get the most from limited available light.

So, on the whole, it's best to avoid taking cell phone camera shots in dim light, which will cause blurry pictures. It's easier to get good results shooting outdoors.

Equally, avoid pointing your camera in the direction of a bright light source if you don't want the subject in the foreground to be silhouetted.

Although it can sometimes lead to rather flat images, keeping the light source behind you is not a bad idea for cell phone camera pictures.

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3. Have steady hands

The absence of control over exposure settings both demands good light and steady hands! Sometimes, when there is slightly less light than you would like, 'camera shake' can become a problem.

In other words, the camera needs longer to collect enough light to form a well exposed picture, which gives enough time for the slight movement of your hands to create blur in the photo.

Often cell phone camera shots only have a tiny bit of blur, but that's enough to ruin them when viewed at a larger size. You can guard against this problem simply by making an effort to hold the camera really steadily; leaning against something helps a lot.

Another top tip: even with the best camera phone, you'll often find there's a momentary delay between the time when you press the button and the photo is actually taken. This is called shutter lag and a simple remedy is to hold the camera still for a second after you take the picture!

4. Take advantage of the size

My favourite thing about taking cell phone camera shots is the freedom to experiment that such a small camera provides. You can play with all sorts of angles and perspectives whilst holding the phone in one hand! Reach up high above a crowd, hold it out of a car window or experiment with scale by shooting from low down.

Camera phones also make it possible to capture images in situations where you would normally be without a camera; perhaps on a night out, looking out of the bus window, walking to work, or anything! Just whip out your phone and take advantage of a photo opportunity that otherwise would have been wasted.

Quotable Quote:

Only a fraction of the camera's possibilities interests me - the marvellous mixture of emotion and geometry, together in a single instant.

- Henri Cartier-Bresson

5. Set the image quality to maximum

Lots of cell phone cameras allow you to adjust the resolution of photos. Phone cameras obviously don't offer brilliant resolution at any setting, so it's well worth ensuring you have selected the highest quality possible.

Whilst this does mean that you will be able to store fewer pictures on your phone and pictures will take longer to send as part of a message, they will be much better for viewing.

If there's a chance you may want to print out your cell phone camera shots at a decent size then the resolution is especially important. Similarly, a high resolution makes it easier to make adjustments in Photoshop without losing quality.

6. Improve your pictures in Photoshop or other software

Post-processing software like Photoshop is a great resource forimproving the tone, sharpness and all-round quality of cell phone camera pictures.

Phone cameras allow you to get pictures in just about any situation, but the quality is not so great. So it's well worth making a few simple adjustments to enhance the quality and impact of your cell phone camera shots in Photoshop. This will help lift them to a standard that is more suitable for successful printing and displaying.

So which are the best camera phones?

Camera phones are so popular that it's pretty much expected of most cell phones to be able to produce decent snaps these days.

But there's a big range in quality - sometimes it's hot on the heels of compact cameras and sometimes you might as well just get a sketch pad out!

So which is the best camera phone!?

Well I think these 3 models offer excellent detail and ease of use, as well as sufficient manual controls to make taking good cell phone camera shots in challenging situautions a lot easier!

I hope this quick guide to taking great quality cell phone camera shots was useful!

If you have any opinions on what the best camera phone for keen snappers might be, please get in touch here!

Free downloadable book, Getting Started With Photoshop, for all subscribers.