Know the basic factors that affect your mobile photography and the steps you can adapt to improve these.
This unedited image was shot in natural low lighting condition during sunset at Kovalam sea beach(partly owned by Fisherman’s Cove, Taj) in Chennai.
Take better pictures without any expensive smartphone or costly anti-shake equipment with these 9 simple tricks.
- Steadiness is the key to a sharp picture. Hold your smartphone with one hand and try to rest it on another. This way, your smartphone rests on a two-layered support and the chances of shakes and blurred images are reduced.
- Notice the lighting. Light plays an important role in any kind of photography. If you are clicking directly under the Sun or at an area that is too bright, there are chances your photos may turn out whitish or washed-out.
- Try adjusting the exposure to set abrupt amount of lighting by dragging the slider or if your smartphone supports pro mode, try adjusting the ISO to lesser values to gain perfect visibility on your subject. Sometimes, tapping on the subject at your screen sets it into focus cutting out the unnecessary lighting from the frame; one example of this is the way to take silhouette images.
- Subject placement in the frame. Always, try placing your subjects on the right side of your frame which makes your image look more filling and complete. Placing your subjects on the left leaves your image look kind-of blank. A viewer may only see the main subject on the left and there’s nothing as such noticeable content left for him/her to admire while seeing towards the right-side through the end of the frame. Here are few examples:
Placing your subject at the center depends on the kind of subject being clicked:
Hence, place your images wisely in the frame so as not to produce an empty looking image in the end.
- Make use of gridlines in your smartphone. This helps in understanding the composition of your photos, allowing you to align the subject in an off-center manner. In simpler words, take straight images by placing your subject appropriately in the frame without having to rotate and crop later while editing.
- Trying out different innovative angles are always good however also ensure you don’t end up losing out on the beauty of your subject! Try to search for that perfect angle in your frame which brightens up the focus on your subject rather making it look dull.
- During artificial lighting conditions or low light, all the above tips hold good. Low-light photography is tricky and hence always ensure to secure a good amount of light on your subject to avoid unnecessary noise and grains.
- Here is when a good quality lens shows differences but still with steady hands and careful observation of lighting, you can produce great looking images.
- Understand the usage of a flash. Flash can sometimes wipe off important colors from your subject while trying to reduce noise to produce a brighter image. Use flash only in extremely dark environments,
- The below images were taken in evening time without flash:
- Avoid zooming in while shooting in low light.
- Focus on your subject by tapping if needed, and ensure to zero out any shake caused by your body. This will correctly let your lens to capture all the minute lights coming out of your subject’s body thereby producing a sharp image with minimal noise.
- Lastly, never over-edit your images. I personally use Snapseed by Google, to edit my mobile photographs for a clean and professional looking output that can be used in my blogs and social media.
Let us know if these steps helped you better your mobile photography game 🙂
Awesome, thank you for this 😊
I’m glad you liked it😊👍