“The best camera is the one you have with you”. - Unknown unfortunately
Originally I thought that this blog would be all about phone photography and how you can improve the photos that you take with your phone. Whilst it will still have this as the main message, I would like this blog to have the underlying message that phones can take some amazing photos, and yes it might be nice to have a top of the range DSLR, however it is anything but a necessity if you want to get into photography.
Phone cameras are great. Extremely accessible, easy to conceal in busy places as to not attract too much attention to pricey gear and produce top quality photos - especially for social media sharing.
One of the amazing mountains overlooking Marbella
A couple of weeks ago I managed to get away for a week and I didn’t want to be carrying my big DLSR around with me the whole time so I opted to leave it at home and take my phone as my only camera. Recently I got a new phone, the Huawei P20 Pro – a great phone with an ability to capture amazing photos so I thought I would utilise it!
Rear: Leica Triple Camera, 40MP RGB f1.8, 20MP BW f1.6, 8MP RGB f2.4, 5x Hybrid Zoom, AIS, dual-tone LED
Front: 24MP, f2.0
The P20 Pro has some amazing features, the ability to change ISO, shutterspeed and even put the phone into manual focus mode. Other modes include portrait, night, light painting, panorama and more (it even recognizes when you’re taking a photo of a dog!).
I can't believe the night photo ability!
One of the most important aspects of photography is composition and one of the (if not the) most common compositions is the rule of thirds, where you divide the photo in thirds vertically and horizontally. At its very simplest, you are to place your subject on any of the four cross hairs or place your horizon on either of the horizontal lines. Many phone cameras have the option to overlay this grid when taking a photo, an excellent idea if you are just starting to explore composition.
Although not completely on the cross hairs, this photo ultimately conforms to the rule of thirds
When it comes to taking photos with your camera phone, I think the most important thing to try and do is to think outside the box. You can kneel right down to get a different angle, you can even flip your phone upside down to maximize this effect. This offers the opportunity to capture shots that are just not possible by standing there and simply pointing your phone at something. The photo taken below was taken using this method, although I looked a bit silly, I got a shot not many other people will have.
Utilising the versatility of my mobile phone
One of the more helpful aspects of smartphones is that the touch screen allows you to precisely choose where the focus point is, offering a great opportunity to play around with your photos.
Experimenting with some focus with the wonderful travel couple @therunawaymanual (find them on instagram).
Once you have the shots, the lightroom mobile app is a great little app to get to grips with photo editing and can transform a good shot to a great shot. Personally I have noticed that the P20 Pro oversaturates images so this is a great opportunity to reduce the saturation.
The blues in this were sickeningly oversaturated, so I reduced the saturation a tad.
Overall, I think beginner or not, everyone should delve into the realm of mobile phone photography and see what shots you can get, I would love to see some of your favouritephone shots – send me a direct message on Instagram!
Thanks for reading,
Sam.