Stopgap Snapping : Photography using phones

I don't have a camera or collection of lenses to take nice photos of my dolls, and such I feel a little embarrassed when I do put photos up on the forums here since everyone has such lovely shots. It also occurred to me maybe there were other lurkers who are restricted to using just their phones as well so I thought I would make this thread.

 

Does anyone know any apps or tricks that we can use to make our pictures look more professional?

I have a budget camera and my phone camera. Most of the time i use my phone, just for ease of sharing and uploading

 

I have a function where i can use "selective focus" which gives me some nice clear shots.

 

Also using my phone outdoors or having lots of natural light seems to help too

 

Ill never be any kind of pro, so i just share any kind of pic i take haha. Like it or leave it, ill still be playing with my dolls

 

Happy birthday mariko by Shoujo Magic, on Flickr

Remember, it's not the camera that makes the shot, it's the person behind the camera. Take the time to learn about light and how it affects a scene, and then you'll be able to apply that to whatever camera you have in your hand. But in the end, don't let anything keep you from sharing photos you take.

eheh I have a DSLR and five or six lenses and I still use my phone camera more. Phone cameras nowadays are pretty nice quality, I don't think you need to think of it as a stopgap.

 

I would say it's important to have a good camera and editing app. I use VSCO. It has film-effect filters and such, but the real strength of its editing is that it lets you edit exposure, white balance, and color casts, and edit down blown out highlights or overly dark shadows. It lacks a clone stamp feature though, so for that I use Snapseed. Both apps allow you to take photos in the app and to import them into the app. Snapseed also has dodge and burn features to enhance highlights and shadows in particular regions (basically you draw over what you want to make brighter/darker) which can add contrast and visual interest to eyes.

 

Things to avoid when using a phone camera:

1. noisy, messy backgrounds. You will not have the wide aperture you can get on a SLR with a fast lens, so the details of a messy room in the background are going to show up clearly.

2. phone cameras generally don't do that well in lower lighting, so if your shot is really grainy, or blurred, you'll need more light. (If you're getting blurring, you can also try propping the phone on something secure--a makeshift tripod--and using the self timer feature; this should eliminate blur from shaky hands).

 

The other thing to watch out for is lens distortion, since phone cameras usually have wide angle lenses. You can read more on how to avoid this in this tutorial:

http://mimiaumiao.tumblr.com/post/143905233581/bjd-photography-tutorial-phones-small-cameras

 

I personally feel much less pressured to get a perfect shot when using my phone, so I often actually get better pictures because I'm experimenting and just having fun.

 

Anyway, I hope this was useful!

 

Edit: a reflector is also very useful in getting nice, even lighting, no matter what kind of camera you have. I have a 12" cirbleepference reflector, one side white, one side silver, and it is well worth the approximately 10USD I paid for it. You can also make your own with white poster-foamcore and foil on one side.

I thought I'd put this up for anyone else who was curious of this thread.

 

First I tried VSCO, but one of the requirements was that I sign up for a $20 repeating membership so that was immediately a no go for me.

 

Then I tried SnapSeed. Bam. Done. I don't need to look at any others. It is 100% user friendly. I don't know much about highlights, balance, ratios etc but this app made me feel like a pro. I really wanted the lights of the heart to stand out (they are actually a lovely warm colour) but unfortunately they were to weak. But being able to selective focus and warm them made them a lot closer to what I was actually seeing with me eyes.

 

Look, I did this in my first 10 minutes of getting to know the app. I think that's a testimony to itself how easy it is to use.

 

Original :

 

Edited on SnapSeed :

Buy a used camera body. The prices on those things drop like a rock once they're a few years old, and quite honestly anything made after 2012 is plenty more than good enough (a nikon d3200 with a lens is 300$ from a quick ebay search, and I guarantee you can find it for less than that if you look). The key thing is that you have something with manual controls, which most phones don't provide yet (though why that is I don't really know...they're almost certainly capable of doing so).

 

The main things beyond this are having a good lighting setup, for which you can start cheap with lamps you have lying around and tinfoil sheets for reflecting them. Or finding some pleasing backdrop indoors or outdoors, for which you may or may not really need that extra lighting stuff beyond a reflector you can make for pennies.

 

Yes...I know you said you wanted to use a phone, but getting a good camera with the manual controls isnt cost prohibitive these days, especially if you're already buying DDs here, and will be better in the long run than using fake filters over photos.

 

First I tried VSCO, but one of the requirements was that I sign up for a $20 repeating membership so that was immediately a no go for me.

 

Huuuuh...this must be a new policy? When I downloaded it, there were filters and such that could only be purchased, but no membership requirement and no general user fee.

 

Anyway, I am glad that SnapSeed is working for you. It's quite a useful app.

I know this thread is hella old, but I figured I'd offer some input ^^;

 

Phones are hardly a gimp to your photography anymore.

My iphone6 handles low light better than my D7000 DSLR.

 

My favorite apps are:

 

Lightroom by Adobe is going to be your holy grail. Wonderfully powerful and free!

 

Camera+ it's free with ads iirc or like 5$ if you want ad free.

 

Line Camera is fun for filters, stickers, and has light editing tools

 

Instagram is my go to, though I find myself sometimes needing to take the photo outside of instagram then editing within to get the best quality. The built in social networking also feeds inspiration and networking making it a really solid experience.

 

 

 

 

phone photos:

not a doll, but one of my favorite photos I've ever taken. This was an Samsung Galaxy S3, with a battery that was almost dead. I can't remember what apps I used, but probably just instagram.

 

Just instagram