Is the one you have with you!

I always advocate to take your camera with you wherever you go, you can’t take a photo if you don’t have your camera.  Sometimes though it’s not practical to carry a DSLR or even a point-and-shoot camera.

I’m guessing that 99% of the people reading this post have a cellphone within arms reach and that the phone has a built-in camera. With that in mind, here are some tips on getting good photos with a camera phone. Since I have an iPhone, that’s the perspective I’m writing from, if owners of any other phones want to chime in with tips of your own, that’s why there’s a comments section, go for it, especially with respect to the apps I mention.

1. Understand the cameras capabilities- a camera phone will NOT take good low light photos, the images will be grainy. Does it start up fast or slow, is there shutter lag or not? How effective and what’s the range of the flash? You’re basically using a point-and-shoot in auto mode and while there’s a lot it can do, it won’t be as capable as a “real” camera.

In iOS5 there’s a fast shortcut to the camera mode- when the screen is off, double-tap the home button and you’ll see a camera icon in the lower right hand corner. Press that and it will bring you right to camera mode without having to slide your finger to unlock the phone. It even works if you have a passcode lock set.

2. Clean the lens- where does your cell phone live? For me it’s in a pocket when I’m out and about, so chances of a smudge on the lens are pretty good. If you don’t have a lens cloth handy, and if you’re not carrying a “real” camera you probably don’t, a cotton shirt will do just fine.

3. Don’t delete “bad” photos right away. The displays on phones, smartphones in particular, are *really* good. However, they’re not as good as computer monitors and ambient lighting conditions may influence how you see the image. What looks like a just-okay photo on the phone may look really good once you’re looking at it on a computer screen.

Now that I think about it, the same can be said for the display on a DSLR. I’ve looked at some photos on my D90 and been disappointed, only to download them to my computer and be pleasantly surprised.

4. Zoom with your feet, not with the camera. A zoom function on a camera phone is a digital zoom, not an optical zoom. Imagine zooming in on an image to 200% of it’s original size and then cropping it- that’s digital zoom and ALWAYS comes with a lose of image quality.  You want something to fill more of the picture frame, get closer to it!

5. Apps are great!  Instagram, Hipstamatic, and god-only-knows how many others are out there and can be used to indulge in creative effects. Another good app is PS Express, which I believe is free, and offers some basic image editing capabilities right on your iPhone- cropping, straightening, some color adjustments, it’s very useful and my favorite iPhone post-processing app.

6. Beware of blurry photos, it can be difficult to hold a camera phone still. Hold the phone like you would a “real” camera, with 2 hands. A tip I learned is that on an iPhone an image is captured not when the shutter is pressed but when it’s released.

A good way to reduce blur due to pressing the shutter is to use a self-timer app, I like FotoTimer. I can set the delay to 2, 5, 10 or 20 seconds and there is also an interval timer mode where you can take multiple images over a user-defined interval.

Oh, and for me FotoTimer is essential if you like to take naked pictures of yourself