How To: Landscape Photos with your Smartphone

So I've had several requests to write an article about smart phone photography. In fact, I have an article here about taking photos of your pet with a phone, but I realize that there's more to be said on the subject.

So, what are some of the keys to great smartphone photography?

Well, the most important thing is to choose your subject wisely. With a phone, you are limited by a fixed (short) focal length, lower resolution, and mediocre exposure metering software. Thus, you want to select a subject that is large, easy to get close to, and evenly lit. In other words, landscapes are excellent subjects for the smartphone photographer.

Anastasia State Park - read more here.

What are the basics of landscape photography?

Well, lucky you! If you are using a smartphone, a lot of the basics of photography are out of your hands - so I won't talk about them here. Normally landscape photography requires a discussion on aperture and depth of field, but you can't control those things with a smartphone. This means that your photographs won't always turn out exactly how you like, but you can still create beautiful images with these simple cameras.

Okay, so what are some of the things that apply to me?

Pick an evenly lit scene. As discussed above, most smartphones do not have advanced exposure metering modes like DSLRs will, and thus they cannot compensate well for scenes with large dynamic ranges. The dynamic range is a description of how much variation there is between the lightest and the darkest part of the image.

This is an example of a scene with a large dynamic range. Notice that in the middle-right section of the image, the subject is almost entirely black. Conversely, in the top left, the sky has been bleached white. This results in loss of detail in both areas of the image, and is considered poor photographic technique.

The dark areas of the frame are termed "underexposed" - that is, they did not get enough light during the exposure. 

The bleached areas of the frame are referred to as "overexposed" - they received way too much light.

Overall, I do still find this photograph pleasing, but it's not a technically great image.

Well, fine, but my phone has HDR, which I know expands the dynamic range.

That's true. Many phones (and DSLRs) now come equipped with HDR (high dynamic range) technology. There are several ways to create an HDR image, but the most commonly employed method is to take several photos in quick succession using different exposure ratings. For example, the camera may take a globally underexposed photo, a globally "normal" photo, and a globally overexposed photo. Computer software then combines these images into one. (Yes, the iPhone HDR feature works like this - I believe it takes 3 images). This does result in an increased dynamic range.

However, this does not solve the dynamic range problem for smartphones, which allow for little user control of exposure. The above image is an example of a nightmare scene for a smarphone camera - dappled light, creating areas of dark and bright scattered randomly across the image. This photo was in fact taken with the HDR setting, and while it is improved against photos of that scene without HDR, it is not great. In short, it's best practice to avoid shooting these types of scenes with smartphones.

(They are no cakewalk with a DSLR either).

What are some other things I can do to improve my smartphone photography?

Well, like I've said before, the basics of all types of photography are the same. Photographs are composed of three main elements: subject, composition, and lighting. Lighting can be broken down into four components: Ambient light, shutter speed, aperture, and ISO rating. With DSLR/SLR photography, we have greater control over the latter 3 items. However, with smartphones, we are largely at the mercy of whatever creative decisions the software makes for us (the amount of control you have of course varies from phone to phone). As a result, it's important to capitalize on the things we CAN control.

Ambient Lighting

Seek out dramatic lighting to illuminate your images - it can transform even the most drab frog into a princess. (Note here that this is one of the few situations a high dynamic range photograph is successful).

Composition

Presumably we do photography because we want to show the world what we see. Bring your photography to life with images that are descriptive, poetic, and unusual. Think carefully about your composition before you click that button - you've got plenty of time; that gazebo's not moving. I find it helpful to do composition "exercises". Challenge yourself to take at least 5 different images of each of your subjects. Then, if you can do 5 easily, stretch to 10. Force yourself to think outside the canonical box to produce artistic images.

You can click here to read my article on pet photography with a smartphone.

Okay, I've talked enough - now it's your turn. What do you think about smartphone photography?

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How to Take Great Pet Photos with your Smartphone

I'm diverting slightly from my usual content to discus one of the biggest revolutions in photography - the smartphone. Suddenly, everyone is carrying mini digital cameras in their pockets - and these cameras are becoming more and more sophisticated.
So is it possible to take professional-quality photographs with your smartphone?
Well, yes...if you choose your subjects and your lighting carefully. As my facebook feed is constantly flooded with pictures of people's pets, I figured pet photography was a good starting point.

How to Make the Most of your Smartphone Camera 
I mentioned earlier that you can create excellent photographs with your smartphone, if you choose the right scene. My experience here is with the iPhone camera, which does not let you manually adjust camera settings.
Here are a few general smartphone pointers:
1. Avoid contrasty scenes
Scenes with a large difference between the darkest and the brightest point in the picture will turn out over- or -underexposed on many smartphones. Choose a situation with fairly even light to get the best results.

The bright white blown-out computer screen is very distracting in this high contrast photo.

2. Read the manual
This is the first thing you should do with ANY camera. Seriously, the features won't help you if you don't know how to use them.
3. Work with easily available subjects
By this I mean, your subject should fill the frame. However, most smart phones have very limited zoom capabilities. The "digital zoom" most are equipped with usually just results in very low image quality. Instead of resorting to this, your phone's camera is best used for subjects that are very large (ie, landscapes) or that will let you get very close to them (ie, your dog).

All right, so let's say you, like so many others, have found your "available" subject in the form of your adorable, fat puppy. Now what do you do?
Well, the basics of pet photography apply regardless of what kind of camera you are using.

1. Shoot at eye level
While the top of your kitten's head is cute, his face is probably cuter. We have a tendency to "shoot down" at animals because they are shorter than we are. This results in photos of backs and ears from funny perspectives. That's generally not what you want. When you're photographing an animal like this, your camera should generally be at the eye level of your subject.

Top-down, we can't even really see what he looks like

This picture was taken at the same time as the one above, but was taken at eye level. 

2. Think about the composition
One of the biggest advantages of photographing your pet versus a wild animal is that he will generally sit still for you for long periods of time. This should give you ample opportunity to think about the composition of your photograph. Are you following the rule of thirds? Is your underwear unobtrusively sitting in the background of the picture? Is your lighting ok? These are questions to consider before you click the "shutter" button.

This picture is pretty cute, but there is a lot of distracting material in the background that takes away from the subject.

Here, the background is clean, allowing us to focus all of our attention on the subject.

3. Try shooting with natural lighting
Many times when we are with our pets and our phones, we are indoors. This results in photographs that may be dark, yellow (from incandescent light), or "flat" (from the automatic flash). Try to get your subject in front of a window for a little taste of soft, natural lighting inside.

4. Turn off your flash
On a smart phone, the flash feature generally serves to hit your subject right in the face with a blinding burst of light, creating red eye, casting weird shadows, and lending a characteristic "flatness" to the photo. It also tends to startle animals or make them squint. It's no good. Just turn it off.

The flash causes apparent "flattening" of his head against his body, red eye, and squinting. No wonder he looks so mad.

5. Try to capture a mix of interesting behavior and portraits
Here's my final tip for you. A lot of us rush to grab our cameras when our pets are "doing something cute" -- and that's good. One of the keys to pet photography is variety. You don't really need 50 pictures of your overweight cat sleeping on the couch. At the same time, you don't need to spam your grandmother's inbox with photos of him sitting on your head. Or whatever. Try to illustrate elements of your pet's personality in your photos. In the end, your pictures should describe him (or her) as an individual, and not merely be a record of his existence.

Would you rather be taking pictures of flowers? Head over here for some great flower photography tips!

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