The simplest way to get better photos from your phone camera.
For most normal, everyday, citizen camera users, there is one tip that will help you get a better photo, 99% of the time.
The one simplest thing you can do to improve your photos: is shoot in better light.
And the easiest way to get better light is: don’t shoot indoors!
- Just step outside and use available daylight.
That’s it. Simple, easy. Cost free.
As a professional photographer and educator, I coach and help people with all sorts of photography based questions. Over time, this one piece of advice has floated to the top of my useful and actionable advice list.
It’s obvious once you realize the problem- lighting indoors is often insufficient for hand held photography. For professional photographers this is familiar territory and we have equipment and techniques to deal with it.
But for the average non professional person with a phone cam, it can be frustrating to try to get a decent image indoors, especially when it seems like there is a clear image on screen when taking the photo. It’s often only much later, when you zoom in, that the image is revealed as not so great- unsharp, or a bit shaky, or grainy and blotchy.
If you need to take a high quality photo of something, you do have a very good device in your pocket - modern smartphones have very capable cameras.
But you do need to let your smart device do what it does best (and avoid giving it a task it isn’t very good at).
As the saying goes …
“Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” - Albert Einstein (maybe)
So here is the reality:
Cameras need light to create photos, and insufficient light means poor quality photos.
This problem is the achilles heel of todays phone cameras - because of their tiny sensors. Small sensors are just not great at collecting light. It’s basic physics. More megapixels doesn’t help. (In fact it usually makes it worse).
During the day, your indoor spaces have far less light than outdoors.
Regardless of how big your windows are, or how many lights are on, most domestic indoor areas are far more dimly lit than outdoors during daylight hours.
The difference between indoors and outdoors can be 10x to 1000x times less light.
You won’t usually notice just how huge this difference is because human eyes adjust automatically. Next time you are out driving during the day, notice how difficult it is to see clearly into other cars. Despite there being windows on all sides, the interiors are often so dark you can barely see inside at all.
You can most easily improve the amount of light available, and hugely improve the quality of your photos… by simply stepping outside into natural daylight.
(Obviously this isn’t going to be a solution if there is a blizzard, or high winds, or you live in the arctic circle and there is no sun visible for weeks). But for most situations, you can find a few minutes of daylight outdoors and get a decent picture with your phone cam.
You do not need a “picture perfect” sunny day with blue skies. In fact, a cloudy day is usually best.
Avoid direct sun. (It may create harsh shadows**). If it is sunny - just pick a spot in the shade.
With plenty of light, your phone camera can now perform at its best.
Here are 3 reasons why:
Plenty of light allows even that tiny sensor to capture high quality digital files. This means smoother tones, finer detail (less graininess) and more accurate colour.
Abundant light helps your camera’s physical focusing mechanism to see better. This means faster and more accurate focusing (sharper images), and better tracking for moving subjects too.
And with more light, your camera can utilise faster shutter speeds This means less blur from shaky hands, or from the subject moving around.
Of course, there are some subjects you can’t shoot outside. Photographing an interior space, for example, or recording yourself at your desk for social media; or other indoor based activities etc. For those situations, there are options for adding more light: strobes/flashes, LED photo lights, reflectors, etc, but these are an added expense and you need to learn how to use them. Or you need to buy a professional camera kit, or tripod, or perhaps hire a professional photographer! They are special cases, that I can discuss in future posts, so lets just put them to one side for now.
But, for most of your regular photo capture needs, there is usually a version that can be done outdoors in daylight. And that will give you the best result for the least fuss.
Phone cameras might suck at shooting in low light… but they excel at being portable and easy to use in almost any location.
Portability is one of your phone camera’s super-powers.
In Summary:
for most of your photo tasks, stepping outdoors is the quickest path to success. Avoid direct sun - an overcast day is ideal. Or pick a shaded area.
With an abundance of light, your phone camera can do its best work and generate more high quality shots and fewer duds.
Much more can be said about many other aspects of light quality, and in future articles I will explain some of these other qualities and other techniques. But the first and most important quality of light is that there is enough of it reaching through the camera lens, so that an image may be properly recorded.
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FOOTNOTE:
** Although as a rule you usually do want to avoid direct sunlight, it can be great for food photography. Food photography often utilises directional light. It helps to create shadows and show texture, gloss and shine. (We often judge food by its textures and shinyness).
If food is a subject you shoot often, I recommend you experiment with shooting in direct sunlight vs shooting in the shade and see which style is more suited to your subject. Food photography is a fun topic we will dive into in more detail in future articles.