Smartphone Photography Tips

What's the advantage of shooting with your smartphone ?

In short, it’s a time-saver: You can shoot, edit, and list your photos in one go. And you won’t get caught up in cords to transfer photos from your phone to a computer. Secondly, if you don’t have a DSLR or a point-and-shoot, phoneography will save you money.

1. Make sure you have plenty of light. This is particularly useful when you are doing a product , person or object photography.When you’re shooting in a low-light environment, your smartphone knows. To compromise, your phone adjusts the exposure to let in as much light as possible. The result is “noise” — that not-so-pretty grainy look. Here’s the fix: Fill your shooting area with light! We recommend the following three tips to illuminate your product from every angle. You’ll achieve the best results with all three, but if anything, choose one of the first two and a bounce card.

1. Shoot near a window.
2. Use an external source of light, such as a flash or lamp.
3. Use a bounce card, which is a white mat board or foam.

2. Use a tripod or a timer. Camera shake comes from touching your camera to set off the shutter. Though you might think your phone should be able to remain still while you tap the shutter, truth is, it’s so lightweight and small that it shakes ever so slightly. 

3. Avoid zooming. Using your phone’s zooming feature delivers similar results as cropping your photo to provide a closer view. The process actually decreases the quality of your photo because it enlarges your photo without changing the resolution. If your goal is to take quality item close-up shots, try phone lenses. Macro lenses provide an incredibly close-up view of your product, which is good for showing fine detail. You can also play around with fisheye, telephoto, and wide-angle lenses. 

Smartphone Editing Tips

1. Shoot a-plenty, then edit down. Your phone’s photo gallery is like your contact sheet, a term that photographers used back in the analog days for a sheet that displayed all their negatives on one page. Seeing similar shots side-by-side will help you figure out which angle looks the best. Nowadays, Adobe Lightroom or Adobe Bridge serve as a digital version of a contact sheet.

Pro Tip: Don’t be afraid to shoot lots of photos — change up the angles, backgrounds, or setups. Viewing your “contact sheet” will help you quickly edit down.

2. Sharpen. Sharpening your photos will bring out item details that buyers are eager to see. A number of editing apps include sharpening tools. I like Snapseed because it has other useful tools and is free for both iOS and Android users.

3. Enhance color. There are several photo editing tools. You might not even have to go to an external app to get your photos looking good before you upload them. You’ll want to pay attention to how bright, dark, or off-color your photos are. The tools include an auto-enhance feature, which provides a subtle boost in brightness and color — so you can get creative with your item photos.

Pro Tip: If your photo has a strange blue or orange hue, you’ll want to adjust the white balance. Snapseed has a good white balance tool. 

4. Rotate and crop. Do you have a perfect item photo that needs just a tweak of positioning or framing? Keep in mind, if you need to significantly crop the photo, you might be better off re-shooting.

Story and Photo by Lisbeth Ortega

Lisbeth Ortega is the editor of Photojojo. For more phoneography tips, check out Photojojo University. 

Visharad D Jadhav : Black and White Photography Submission

Ayush Gangwal : Black and White Photography Submission

Varun Surana : Black and White Photography Submission

Planet Aurangabad Black and White Photo Contest 2013

Whether you are a budding photographer or a pro ... whether its your hobby or your profession...we want you to share your best snaps with us.

Each week one picture will be chosen and published in Planet Aurangabad - the English Weekly. This picture will not only receive an attractive prize for that particular week, but it will automatically become eligible for the "Award for Excellence in Photography" for Planet Aurangabad Black and White Photo Contest 2013. 

This Final Selected winner will be selected by an open voting system by the Aurangabadites..

The overall winner, at the end of the year, will take home a MEGA PRIZE and have the coveted "Award for Excellence in Photography"

AGE NO BAR.
You can send unlimited entries every week.
There is no theme whatsoever - you can click whatever you like. So what are you waiting for ? The chances for selection are each week. Take out your camera and CLICK !

The judging criteria is -
1. Originality and Clarity
2. Out of the Box thinking is appreciated

Please read the important terms and conditions below before submitting your entry -
* All photographs submitted must be the work of the individual who submits them. Entrants must ensure that photographs of people have been taken with the permission of the subject (where identifiable).
* No digitally altered images will be accepted. (No cloning, adding or removing elements). Only basic enhancements are allowed, for eg brightness, contrast, and sharpening etc.).
* All pictures should be submitted as JPEG files (.jpg). Please include a caption of about 20 -50 words to explain your picture. Resolution should be medium / high (minimum of 1,000 pixels on shorter side of image, maximum of 4,000). Photographers will be credited (eg. Picture: Nitin Bharadwaj)
* You warrant to us that all contributions are lawful and do not infringe any rights of any third party and that you will indemnify us in respect of any breach of that warranty.
* Planet Aurangabad accepts no liability for any content submitted by third parties.
* The photographer agrees that he/she agrees to allow Planet Aurangabad to electronically publish the selected  images in both Planet Aurangabad - The English Weekly and on its online channels (promotional material, social media, website , blog etc) 
* We respect the intellectual property of all photographers and we ask our readers to do the same. All material published is protected by copyright and no one is allowed to copy or reproduce anything without the consent of the photographer.
* We reserve the right to share your identity with any third party who is claiming that any photograph submitted by you violates copyright laws.
* You will not submit photograph that is offensive, nudity,abusive, indecent, defamatory, obscene.
* You accept that we may exercise editorial control over the photograph and may decide not to allow publication at our absolute discretion.
* We reserve the right to crop any photographs submitted by you at our discretion in order to fit the overall design and format.
* No payment will be made for use of the pictures submitted to 'Planet Aurangabad Black and White Photo Contest 2013'
* No relatives of employees of Planet Aurangabad are allowed to enter the competition.
* Judges / Management decision is final.
* Planet Aurangabad retains the right to reject or disqualify a picture from the competition.
* You may enter unlimited entries in each competition week. For production reasons, weekly winners will be picked each Thursday. Therefore a week for competition purposes begins each Thursday and ends on a Wednesday. In the case of multiple entries being sent by a single individual in a given competition week, the judges will choose one random image from the selection to put forward for consideration.