How To Take Better Photos On Your Phone

Whether you’re wanting to perfect that shot of brunch for the ‘gram, take a snap of your pet pug or make your mates envious with your holiday exploits, here are a few tips to help you create epic shots on your phone.

Clean your lens

Your phone spends a lot of time in your pocket or bag, and everytime you grab it chances are you’ll get your finger on the lens. So before you take that next snap, give your lens a quick wipe to get rid of any dust or smudges. You might be surprised at how much crisper your photos turn out.

Try Burst Mode

Burst Mode is awesome to capture those fleeting moments and is seriously useful for action shots, nature scenes, and pretty much anything involving kids and pets. Just hold your finger on the shutter button and it keeps taking pictures, then it packages all of them up together so that you can select the best ones out of the bunch. One thing to keep in mind is that all those photos can take up loads of space on your phone. So, if you’re on an iPhone when you’re done go to Camera Roll and tap Select. Go through all the shots, tap the ones you like then tap Done; you'll be given the choice of saving everything or just the ones you like if you choose the latter, all the others will get deleted freeing up some space.

Set your focus

Your phone’s camera is pretty clever, and the focus feature is one of our favourites. Whether you use an iPhone or an Android, choose where on the photo you want to set the focus and tap the screen there. You can even lock the focus to that point with a tap and hold. While your there, you can fine-tune the exposure as well. This can be done by sliding your finger up or down the screen to get the exposure for your shot just right.

Don’t zoom - move

While your phone does have a zoom feature, using it often results in grainy or pixelated images. So, if you want to take a close-up, get right up close and click. If moving up closer still doesn’t get you the shot you want, you can always crop the photo once it’s taken.

Use your thirds

The rule of thirds is thought of as the golden rule of photography. It helps with composition and is one of the best ways to improve the quality of your photos. The rule of thirds is applied by lining up your subject with three equal horizontal and vertical guidelines. Lucky for you, your phone has an amazing grid tool that does this for you. All you need to do is turn on the “grid” in your phone’s camera settings, here’s how:

To set up gridlines on iPhone cameras:

• Go to “settings”
• Select “photos & camera”
• Find “grid” and turn it on.

• Open the camera app
• Go to “settings”
• Scroll down and switch the “gridlines” option to “on.”