10 Cell Phone Camera Photo Tips by John Bentham

November 7, 2009

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10 Cell Phone Camera Photo Tips by John Bentham

Professional Photographer John Bentham offers 10 tips to get the best results out of your cameraphone.

Article rating: 8.42

Does your cell phone have a camera but all the images you take with it are blurry or just do not turn out well? Professional New York City based photographer John Bentham has ten tips for you to follow to ensure that you can indeed take great pictures, even with your cameraphone.

Tip 1: Make sure your fingers, hair etc are not blocking the lens.
You can avoid this by making sure you know where the camera lens is on your phone. Because phone/camera screens are so small you may not see obstructions until after you’ve taken the photograph and you view the photos on a computer.

Before & After (Top – Finger, Bottom - no finger):

Tip 2: Hold the phone/camera steady.
This is very important with a phone, the very small lens on a phone compounds issues like a lack of sharpness and increases blur. People tend to move a camera phone around a lot, or they take pictures while walking. You still need to stop and hold the camera steady to take a good photo with a camera phone as you do with a conventional digital or film camera.

Before and after, Blurry (top) & sharp (bottom):

Tip 3: Watch out for your own shadow in the photo.
Change the phone/camera angle to eliminate your shadow before you snap the photo. Be aware of things in the background and foreground of the photo. It is very common for people to get their own shadow in a photograph but this is very easy to avoid. Just move your body and camera around in relation to the sun. If you can’t change your position then lower the angle to get rid of your shadow.

Before & after Photos:

Tip 4: Change camera angle to make a more interesting composition and remove unwanted elements.
Move your position in relation to the back ground, the sun, and the clouds to get a better photograph.

Before & after of building, Ordinary shot and Interesting/dramatic shot:

Tip 5: Get in closer.
Get in closer to what is important in the photo. Remove distracting elements from the frame by moving in closer with the camera phone.

The first picture shows a baby in a messy room, the close-up photo shows the baby’s long eye lashes.

Before & after, Long shot & Close-up:

Tip 6: Avoid the Digital Zoom, just crop later in computer.
If your camera phone has an OPTICAL Zoom go ahead and use it. But most camera phones only have a Digital zoom.

A digital zoom just crops the picture tighter, its not a true zoom. If you use this feature you’re pictures will be very grainy and have a lot of digital noise. Avoid the digital zoom, get in closer before you snap the photo and/or crop in later on the computer to get better results.

Original Photo, Photo using Digital Zoom & Computer crop from Original photo:

Tip 7: Low Resolution & Image software enhancement.
Most camera phones have a relatively low resolution capture, usually one Mega Pixel or less, which is very low when compared with a regular 7-10 Mega Pixel digital camera. To counter this make sure you have your camera phone set to take the largest file size you can. Also set the image quality to fine or super fine if this is available on your camera phone. These settings are usually located in the options setting for the camera. This way you’ll get the best image your camera phone can produce. The images will still be relatively small but the quality will be much better. Then you can use computer image software to increase contrast, saturation and sharpness, and also further increase the image or print size.

Both Hi & Low Resolution, Photo untouched & Enhanced:

Tip 8: Add a data memory card to your phone.
By adding a memory card (usually a Micro SD card) to your camera phone you can take and store many more photos. If you just use the internal memory of the camera phone you can only store about 10-15 photos. With the added memory you can store 100 – 200+ and then transfer them to a computer using your phones USB cable or a card reader.

Tip 9: Flash:
Some Camera Phones have a built in flash. Go ahead and use this in low light but be aware that using the flash will drain your phone battery very quickly (after approx 25-50 shots). If you plan on using the flash a lot you may want to purchase and carry a spare phone battery. The flash on a camera phone will only be effective from approximately 4-8 feet away from the camera. It is good for shooting pictures of people close to the camera, but not something as large as a building, or a person on stage at a concert.

Tip 10: Buying a new Camera Phone:
If you’re looking for a new camera phone you will get better results if you buy a phone with at least a 2 Mega Pixel Camera. There are a few of these already on the market and a 3 Mega Pixel is coming. As phone technology advances and as phone manufacturers recognize the demand for higher resolution camera phones the available Mega Pixels in phones will increase.

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