These days, you’d be hard-pressed to find a woman anywhere without her smartphone. Many also use their phones as cameras to capture snapshots of their daily lives. Especially now during the Advent season, the cell phone camera is ideal for quickly capturing the festive atmosphere at the Christmas market, while wrapping gifts, and baking cookies. To make these photos look their best, all you need to do is follow a few simple tips:
- As a general rule, you should avoid using the flash whenever possible, since it usually results in overexposure and “zombie faces.” Instead, try to hold your phone as steady as possible when taking photos to avoid noise. The best way to do this is to rest your elbow on a table or another stable surface. For vacations, there are small phone tripods you can take with you. Otherwise, some devices also offer the option to turn on image stabilization.
- Many cell phones also have an HDR feature, which usually needs to be turned on separately. It ensures the best possible exposure by having the camera automatically take several photos with different exposure settings: in one photo, the bright areas are perfectly exposed; in the next, the dark areas are. Thanks to the HDR feature, both images are layered on top of each other, resulting in a perfectly exposed photo.
- If you want to photograph the horizon, many cell phone cameras allow you to display guide lines. That way, the line between the sky and the ground will never be crooked again.
- While many cell phone cameras offer digital zoom, they do not offer optical zoom. With digital zoom, the photo is taken first and then zoomed in. However, this process reduces image quality. If only digital zoom is available, it’s better to avoid using it altogether and instead move the camera a little closer to the subject. You should also use the phone’s main camera instead of the front-facing camera whenever possible; the main camera usually has a higher resolution.
- Otherwise, when it comes to cell phone photography, the rule of thumb is: the more, the better. So go ahead and take a few extra photos so you can pick out the best ones in the end and delete the rest.
The most important thing comes last: Once you’ve taken your photos, you should actually use them so they don’t just “gather dust” on your phone or in the cloud. Ideally, you should take the time at least once every six months to back up your photos, delete the ones that didn’t turn out well, and pick out the best ones. You can then have these photos printed online through sites like Whitewall; afterward, you can use them to make collages or hang them in a nice frame on your living room wall. If you’d like, you can even have your favorite photos printed on canvas or adhesive film. If you enjoy crafting, you can create scrapbooks—photo albums embellished with quotes or mementos. These will remind you of wonderful experiences for years to come.
