Jetshing's Blog

Technical basics

Set the phone / camera to the highest resolution possible. Photos taken at a higher resolution will end up being larger in file size, but remember that large photos can always be scaled down whereas smaller photos will lose quality if they are enlarged.

Make sure the lens is clean – smudges can cause blur and flare. Use a soft cloth to remove any dirt or blemishes from the lens before shooting and if your camera phone has a lens cover, make sure this is firmly closed when not using your device.

Select a quiet shutter noise or on some devices you can kill the sound completely by shooting when the phone is on silent profile.

If you’re shooting at night get yourself a tripod (Nokia make a neat little camera holder). Lower light levels mean that night shots are likely to blur if the camera device isn’t on a stable surface.

If you don’t have a tripod you can always find somewhere to rest the camera and shoot using the self timer, this will eliminate most camera shake problems

Always try and avoid the higher ISO settings, they tend to give very grainy results. The ISO setting alters the camera lens’ sensitivity to light – take a look in your camera phone’s menu to adjust ISO settings.

Most camera phones have a shutter ‘lag’ problem, (they take the picture up to half a second after you have pressed the shutter) so get to know your camera and, if necessary, make sure you keep the device as still as possible for a couple of seconds after taking the picture.

Shooting tips

Take the picture first then worry about whether you should have taken it or not afterwards. It’s much better to find yourself with too many photos than regret the ones you never took. Modern camera phones have much more internal storage, and with a range of devices on the market with removable flash memory formats, you can afford to get snap happy without the worry of running out of space.

Look ahead and position yourself strategically. I often watch the subject then let them come to me. Also, be prepared to spend some time when hunting images, it often takes me up to 30 minutes to get ‘my eye in’ and all of a sudden great pictures seem to be everywhere.

Avoid using digital zoom by getting close. Digital zoom artificially increases the image proximity to the camera, but a loss of quality is usually inevitable. Most camera phones are too small to incorporate optical zoom (where the lens physically moves) although there are a few on the market. Wherever possible, avoid zoom at all costs – use your legs instead to get yourself up close to the subject. Be brave!

People are usually fine with having a snap taken of them with such a small device -it’s the best thing about shooting with a compact. In my experience, people are much more relaxed in this situation than if you were to point a DSLR with a big lens at them. I have taken thousands of images of people with a mobile phone and have never been seriously challenged (although laughed at many times).

Composition. Think of your subject as the ‘main element’ in the photograph, then add two more elements, e.g. another person (foreground or background) and try and include activities around your subject that might give more depth and meaning to your final image. As a rule of thumb, keep triangles in mind when shooting photographs – think of the three points of the triangle as the compositional elements of your final shot, and where possible position the base points of the triangle to the lower part of the finished image.

Use the angles – mobile phones and compact cameras let you get very close to your subject and due to their size can be used to shoot from a number of unusual angles. Set the timer, throw the camera on the floor (not too hard) then leap around to see what you get – in other words experiment.

Play around with different levels when taking photographs. If you want to emphasise the scale of your subject, take the shot from low down on the ground. Conversely, try shooting from above – it’s amazing the effects you can produce from simply thinking a bit more about where the camera is positioned.

Overlapping – try shooting a number of overlapping images to create brilliant panoramas. Most software applications have some sort of stitching software which will allow you to seamlessly merge the photos together to create one large image. Alternatively, search around online – there are quite a few web-based applications out there which will achieve the same effect.
–By Henry Reichhold