DIY Network

Taking Digital Photos With Camera Phones Lighting, composition and correct use of manual mode are the keys to good camera-phone snapshots. From "The Whole Picture" episode DTWP-201

This great candid shot was taken using a cell phone camera.

In this Whole Picture lesson, professional photographer Erin Manning discusses and demonstrates how to take quality photos with camera phones.

Materials:

camera phone
phone manual

advertisement

	Some cell phones with cameras can have additional memory added.
	Erin Manning and her student experiment with composition using the phone camera.

Camera Phones and Digital Storage

The first thing you need to understand is that a lot of things vary from phone manufacturer to manufacturer and by wireless provider, so this is one of those times it is really beneficial to check the manual for your phone. One of things that you need to find out is the storage capability of your phone. Phones have limited storage capacity.

What the phone makers have done to help remedy that problem is incorporating the capability to add a memory card to your phone to increase the storage capacity. These cards are similar to those used in digital cameras, only they're much smaller.

Important: Because of their size, they are not designed to be taken in and out of your phone and handled a lot, so be very careful. And whenever you are putting the card in or out of your phone, be sure it is turned off. This is a standard precaution that you should take whenever installing or removing any storage card into any device. Failure to do so could damage the device or the card and you could loose the pictures.

	Bad lighting results in poor color quality.
	Good lighting provides accurate skin tones.
	Good lighting on the subject can also be used to achieve dramatic results.

Taking Your Camera Phone Out Of Automatic Mode

To take great camera phone pictures, you have to take your phone out of automatic. When shooting photos with a camera, professional photographers would never use the automatic functions and let the camera make the decisions.

The first thing to do to ensure good pictures from your camera phone, is to make sure the lens is clean. A dirty lens will prevent the camera from accurately focusing or getting the correct exposure.

Next, make sure that your camera phone is set to the highest resolution possible. The higher the resolution the more information is stored. The more digital information that you have, the easier the photo will be to work with on your computer later.

Remember your motto for good camera phone pictures should be "good light = good pictures; bad light = bad pictures." Try to shoot where you have full, bright light. For the best images, avoid using the automatic setting. Don't leave it up to your camera phone to guess the correct lighting situation. On automatic, the camera is determining the existing light for you and it usually has a hard time.

Knowing the type of light you're shooting in is a big determining factor in what the color is going to look like. It also determines the exposure time. So if the camera guesses wrong, your pictures will be wrong.

Before taking your pictures navigate your phone to the picture set-up option and then select lighting conditions. Then it's up to you to choose the setting that best suits your lighting situation.

Another key to taking good pictures is to wait about five seconds after you frame your subject before taking the picture, This gives the camera time to focus and set the exposure.

Take pictures and experiment with the lighting settings. You can also adjust the camera's contrast and brightness settings. Just play with them until you are happy with what you see.

Page  1 | 2