In the first of a two-part feature on phone photography, Mark Pickavance looks at taking better pictures and choosing the right phone
I remember when cameras first appeared on phones, and while most people were impressed that it was even possible, the results weren’t great. Early sensors had low resolution and very poor low light capability, and they were usually borrowed from cheap compact cameras that produced equally abysmal results.
But as new phone generations appeared they got better, driven mostly by social media, and the compulsion of capturing important moments to share with others. Soon phones had better sensors, then built-in flashes and eventually decent optics and image stabilisation.
These days, the quality of the camera is a major selling point, as the modern smartphone has all but destroyed the market for compact cameras. In this feature I’m going to talk about how to get the most from the camera in your phone, some of the amazing things you can do with it and also what to look out for in a phone if you’re keen on taking pictures.
I’ll be up front and say that as I’m not an Apple customer my examples have a distinct Android bias, though much of the advice I’d contest as being generally transferrable. And the Android apps I’ll talk about next week also have their iOS equivalents.
But first, here are a few tips about taking better pictures in general with your phone, because based on many of the ones I’ve seen shared some people really need help.
The Basics
My first piece of advice is a simple notion: stop thinking of the phone as a phone. It’s a camera when taking pictures, even if it can do so much else. I’ve seen people do things with phones that they’d never do with a camera, like record video in portrait mode.
It’s like there’s a disconnection in there heads between the act of recording and presentation, and as a result they’ve entirely forgotten what happens to their stills and video once they’ve captured them.
Here are 15 more easy-to-implement tips that will help you take better photos, mostly by just taking a moment to think about what you’re doing.
1. Disable flash. The flash only extends out from the phone about 10ft at best, so if your subject is further away (i.e. a football stadium) then turn it off. At best it won’t do any good and at worst you’ll illuminate some close object (like a person’s head) in front of you and the phone will focus on that instead.
You only have to watch any night time concert or sporting event to realise thousands of people don’t understand the limitations of their camera flash.
2. Position yourself, not your subject. This is true of any photo taking, but it’s much easier to move around with a phone than a massive DSLR or 35mm cine camera. Therefore make your mobility a factor in the photo by getting into the best position before shooting. Move in and out to adjust framing, and use a selfie stick if you want to shoot looking down.
3. Think about light. How many holiday snaps have you seen with a bright sky and silhouetted figures? Too many. Faces should be lit from the front and side, not the rear! Get on the appropriate side of the subject to get the best light, and the more light you have the better the picture will be.
4. Check focus. Take a picture and then zoom into it to make sure focus is good. People who fire away while never checking focus usually end up with fuzzy sets of images. It only takes a second to see if they’re sharp, so take the time!
5. Clean the lens before shooting. It might seem an obvious thing to do, but lots of people seem to think that the lens (or rather lens cover) cleans itself. Before you take a photo make sure that it is pristine, as anything on it will degrade the image and might also mess up the focus.
6. Don’t use photo effects. Some phones allow you to configure effects so they’re applied directly to the images as you take them. This is stupid, don’t do it. After you’ve taken a picture you can make a copy and mess that up, but removing the colour from an image at source, for example, isn’t a smart thing to do. And it also massively limits what you can do with the images later.
7. Make sure all images are secured. Not sure why people mess this up still but they do. All modern smartphones have the capability to secure images to the cloud, so that should the phone be lost the photos aren’t. Make sure this is on and that it is working or hand the device back and accept you’re not smart enough to own one.
8. Use the timer. One big issue with smartphones today is that very few of them have a shutter button on them. Instead you usually have to poke the screen, introducing movement at the very time you don’t want any. Use a short timer. Then once you’ve started the countdown you can concentrate on the framing and focus instead of firing the shot.
9. Use burst mode if possible. Some phones have burst mode, where the camera takes a series of pictures and you get to choose which it keeps. When shooting people or action this is an excellent choice, because you can find that one image where everyone has their eyes open or the perfect pose.
10. Learn to use your software. The high-end phones in particular have their own phone apps that often have special features not in the standard default tools. These often provide some very useful features that you can only exploit if you understand how to use them. Learn to switch from still to video quickly, so that when you need to it is second nature.
11. Explore different apps. While the default photography apps are generally good, it doesn’t make them perfect for every situation. Try out some alternatives, and see if they work in a way that better suits you.
12. Never use zoom. With a few exceptions, most camera zooms are digital. That means they’re taking the image and digitally expanding it, not actually zooming in to reveal more detail. Avoid the temptation, unless you like blocky images.
13. Think about where you fingers are. Placing your fingers over the lens, focus laser or flash will end up impacting on the picture, so take a moment just to make sure you’re not obscuring anything important.
14. Don’t default to HDR. While it can offer great results, don’t put HDR on and leave it on. HDR works well for static shots, but it’s bad at movement, high contrast and already colourful environments.
15. Use gridlines. Wonky landscapes are easy to create, so activate the gridlines and avoid making them in the first place. You can fix them later, but not having to do that job is easier.
There are lots of other tips about taking photos in general, but I’m not here to present photography 101. The camera phone is a tool to make pictures, among other things, and with some care and forethought you can capture some great ones.
But beyond the phone and an app, what else should the phone photographer thing about buying?
Attack of the Tripods
If you want to make the most of your phone photographically, some means of holding it steady will be a necessity at some point. Sometimes you can get away with propping it up against a rock or tree, but it costs very little to solve this problem, and the hardware is small and easy to carry.
Though you can get one-piece solutions, the best systems are in two parts: a bracket to hold the phone and a mini tripod. The brackets themselves can be very cheap, but I’d avoid the very inexpensive ones due to the build quality. I bought one of these and while it worked, the spring that clamped onto the phone was too tight for my liking.
What you need to consider when you use these things is that there are two sides of the phone that both need to be considered. The lens side needs to have an unobstructed view, and the screen side needs to be available so you can see to frame and control the software.
Depending on your exact phone model, the position of the lens might be very different. The latest Apple and Huawei phones have it placed on a corner, not in the centre of the phone. The positioning of the buttons is also critical, because you don’t want the bracket to push those buttons inadvertently. All these should be factors when choosing a bracket and also mounting the phone on to it.
Once that side the equation is resolved, then you need to think about the tripod itself and what you might want out of that. Most brackets use the de facto ¼” thread that standard photo tripods use, and so you can use any light duty tripod with one of those mounting on them. There are also mini-pods that are meant for table-top photography, and my weapon of choice, the Gorrillapod.
This useful support is made by JOBY and features three articulated legs that can be bent to provide a stable platform on almost any surface. I’ve used it on rocky outcrops, metal railings and posts all with success. It’s also rather small and easy to pocket and comes with a quick release system and can be found online for about £15. My bracket is also made by JOBY, the GripTight Mount and cost about £8, so the outlay on a high quality tripod and mount won’t cost you the earth.
Or you could avoid all this, prop your phone up against a rock and hope it doesn’t fall down and break!
Add-on Lenses
Some people take their phone photography to entirely new levels, and to help them various companies have made extra lenses that you can attach to alter the optical performance of the phone. This seems to make sense, until you actually try it and realise that it comes with some big drawbacks about what is practical.
What’s important to realise is that when you switch the lens on a DSLR you’re removing all the optics and replacing them with entirely new glass. Where with these devices you’re adding more glass to what is already there. By definition that reduces the amount of light hitting the sensor, introduces more distortion and might mess up the focusing sensor to boot. That said these things are mostly cheap, perform an occasionally useful task and in general can’t damage the phone.
I bought an inexpensive set of three lenses from K&F Concept that are held on to the phone with a sprung clip and can be used to provide wide angle, fisheye and macro capability, and you can use them in combination for some stranger results.
Most the truly bonkers options are available on the iPhone, where cost and craziness know no bounds. If you want a telescope or 50X zoom then you can get them for a phone, just don’t expect them to be as good as a dedicated tool for those jobs.
Choosing The Right Phone
It seems an odd idea, choosing a phone for photography. But not all phones are made equally, and some are certainly better suited to the capture of images than others. When looking for a new phone with photography in mind have these four thoughts in your head.
• Megapixels aren’t important, is the sensor size that’s more critical.
• Optics with a rating of f/2.0 or better is ideal.
• Some phones have good rear but poor forward facing cameras.
• The most expensive phones don’t always have the best cameras.
The other thing to consider is what type of photography you intend to do, because if you never do indoor photos, then a good flash isn’t helpful, and equally image stabilisation is necessary if you snap sporting action. It’s also worth saying that there is little point in buying a phone that takes great pictures but you hate in all other respects.
Here are six phones that have some photography potential if you are happy to go with the infrastructure that they’re tied.
iPhone 7 And 7 Plus
Apple’s previous phone models were both excellent for taking photos and videos, and the latest release is no exception. The rear camera is 12MP, has a six element lens and an f1/8 aperture, making it strong in low light conditions. It can also record video in 4K, slow-motion 120fps in 1080p res and 240fps in 720p.
On the iPhone 7 Plus model the lens offers a wide angle and telephoto mode with both digital and optical image stabilisation. The front facing camera is just 7MP on both phones, but has all manner of face recognising tweaks for selfies.
The iPhone 6S that this camera replaced was less impressive from a camera perspective, with Apple prioritising photography in their new line-up. Of the two the 7 Plus is the one to go for if you want the best results, due to the enhanced dual lens camera.
The downsides to these devices are the high cost, the Apple infrastructure and less than standard connectivity to the PC.
Huawei P9
Where this phone is just a single 32GB model in the UK, it’s actually a whole series of phones elsewhere that offer greater memory and even dual SIM options. What’s great about this design is that it offers dual lens technology as standard, a 12MP sensor, Leica optics, F/2.2 aperture, phase detection autofocus and a dual-LED (dual tone) flash.
The sophistication of the camera technology is matched by the custom camera app, which includes a full manual mode and lots of special options, like star photography and light-painting.
But the best aspect of the P9 is that is has an option to save the images in RAW DNG format, allowing you to get the most out them once they’re transferred to the PC.
A great phone, amazing camera and about 60% of the cost of an iPhone 7 Plus.
Nexus 5X And 6P
The 5X is made by LG and the 6P by Huawei, and they’re both excellent phones with great cameras and are highly affordable. They both come with a 12.3MP Sony Exmor IMX377 sensor, f/2.0 aperture, laser assisted autofocus and large 1.55-micron pixels that are perfect for low light photography.
In terms of the camera mechanics the 6P doesn’t offer anything better than the 5X, although it has more processing power to handle the images and video that the sensor captures. 4K video and 120fps slow-motion complete the repertoire.
If these phones have a weakness it’s the lack of optical image stabilisation, but on the plus side the 5X 16GB is just £299 and a few months back it was even cheaper. Having owned a 5X for some time now I can attest that you can take fantastic stills and videos with these, even without image stabilisation.
These phones will soon be replaced by the new ‘Pixel’ models that will replace the Nexus branding. So expect the prices to come down to ship the last stock of them when the new designs are released.
Samsung Galaxy S7
The camera on the Galaxy phones has always been good, and the new S7 is no exception. Depending which version you end up with it uses either Samsung’s own ISOCELL S5K2L1 or Sony Exmor R IMX260 12MP sensor and a lens with a stunning f/1.7 aperture. Each allows it to capture 4K video or slow motion footage at 720p 240fps, along with some excellent quality stills. The only catch to that high speed slow-motion mode is that a software bug in the initial release caused stuttering on the recorded files. A firmware fix has supposedly addressed this problem back in July.
The quality of the images this phone can capture have been mentioned by many reviewers, especially with respect to how well it works in dark conditions without resorting to the flash.
Once the pictures are taken they can be easily reviewed with the incredible 1440p Super AMOLED display that both the S7 and its S7 Edge brother have.
The 32GB Galaxy S7 is £569 and the S7 Edge is £639, making them cheaper than the iPhone but relatively little else.
LG G5
The previous LG G4 had a great camera, and the G5 continues that theme. The rear sensor is a 16MP, the lens F/1.8 aperture with optical image stabilisation, much like the G4 it replaces. However, it also has a secondary 8MP sensor with its own 135-degree wide angle lens, and you can flip between the two while framing.
But where LG really pushed out the boat for photographers was in respect of the way the battery is removable in this design. When you detach the battery it leaves a slot that can be used by a number of useful accessories, one of which is made just for photography, the CAM Plus camera grip. This has extra battery capacity and buttons for firing the shutter and also operating the zoom. While this seems great, a few people have complained that the best thing about this accessory is the extra battery life, as the buttons have a degree of lag in their connection to the phone and camera.
For those still interested the accessory is £79.99, and the phone is about £400 unlocked.
Lumia 1020
What is a Lumia phone doing here, you might reasonably wonder? Well, you can still get these, even if the brand and the technology is effectively dead, and as photography goes Nokia put some really interesting hardware in the 1050 that might be useful.
Inside the Lumia 1020 is the PureView Pro camera that combines a 1/1.5” large, high resolution 41MP image sensor with high performance Carl Zeiss optics. That’s probably the biggest sensor that’s yet been in a phone, and the results with it can be quite remarkable. Images taken with it are 7712 × 5360 pixels, although because that’s a 4:3 ratio, it also offers a 7728 × 4354 mode for more conventional 16:9 ratio images. The Carl Zeiss optics offer with f/2.2 focal ratio, have optical image stabilisation and are constructed from six individual lens elements.
Sadly, even if the stills are great it can only do 1080p video, probably because Nokia or Microsoft decided it would only have a dual-core CPU.
The problem with the Lumia 1020 is that it is stuck on Windows Phone 8.1, an operating system that is effectively abandonware. Having promised to upgrade this and other Lumia devices to Windows 10, Microsoft has now decided that the Lumia 1020 won’t be included along with the Lumia 920. Therefore I can’t really recommend anyone buys a Lumia 1020 to use as a phone, though as a camera with WiFi it could be very useful, and they can be bought on Ebay for about £100-£150.
Other Considerations
While it might seem obvious, there are places where it is appropriate to take photos with your phone and those that just aren’t. For lots of good reasons many people aren’t happy about having their photo taken or that of their children in particular, and you need to be sensitive to that. For that reason I’d be cautious about shooting images or video in a swimming pool or of people you don’t know on the beach.
These problems can escalate to potentially dangerous levels when travelling in remote locations, where the cultural differences of what’s acceptable can be radically different from here in the UK. In those situations it is good if you’ve a got a local guide on hand who can tell you if you’ve about to offend someone terribly by taking a selfie at a shrine of enormous religious significance, for example.
Taking photos is nice, but it’s not the whole reason we go places, and detaching yourself behind a camera or a phone could make you miss out on the actual experience that you’re trying to capture. Some self-control is essential, as we’ve all seen videos that people have taken with their phones were we can’t believe they did that instead of helping the injured person they’re recording or alerting others to the impending danger. If you’re offending people, invading their privacy or just generally acting without consideration for others then someone will eventually take your phone off you, and probably test its resistance to impact severely. And in that situation, you’ve only got yourself to blame.
Reality Check
If you really love taking photos and want the very highest quality then the answer is simple: buy a DSLR. Or if you’d like something less bulky, then there are some excellent bridge cameras available these days. This isn’t to undermine the whole notion of phone photography, but it needs to be put in perspective when you consider what other options are available. For the price of a Samsung Galaxy S7 or iPhone 7 you can buy a pretty incredible camera that will do a hundred things that no phone could do.
Having such a large sensor and more light collection, along with interchangeable lenses and the ability to use a much more powerful flash make the dedicated DSLR unassailable in terms of the quality of images it can capture. However, and this is quite a sobering thought, I own dedicated compact cameras and even a bridge design that have been outpaced by the technology available in a phone. That would suggest that eventually the line between even a DSLR and a phone camera will blur, even if the DSLR has a significant lead right now.
What the phone has in its corner is that it’s an item most of us carry with us, where only complete photographic addicts wander around with a DSLR over their shoulders. Availability increases the possibility of use, and the better we know our phone, the better those results will be.
It’s also worth saying that setting up a phone to do special photography is much more easy than configuring a DSLR to do the same thing, and therefore I’m more inclined to do it. With the power of software extensibility, it is also possible that the same hardware can get better at taking pictures or capture images that weren’t previously possible.
Anyone who has owned a DSLR rapidly learns that the makers don’t like issuing firmware fixes, never mind actual software upgrades. They see these as impediments to selling you a more expensive design or a newer model, where they’re actually guaranteeing that people eventually stop buying them altogether.
The rise of good quality sensors in phones has already done for the compact camera market, next will be the bridge and eventually the DSLR will come under pressure too. As they’ve be seen as too inflexible and excessively expensive for the modestly better quality images they allow you to take.
Next week, I’ll show you some of the amazing types of photography you can do with a phone, and offer some advice for those wishing to take stills and videos to the next level. See you then!