7 common mistakes when shooting

‘The best camera is the one you have with you’ is a common saying among photographers. And we always have our smartphone to hand for a photo opportunity. But we make some mistakes very often when shooting with the smartphone.

It seems as logical as what: not a finger in front of the lens. Yet we still see enough shots that have failed because there is a blurry spot of a finger in the corner. And that’s a shame. One solution is to hold the camera in landscape mode with two hands: thumbs on the bottom edge and your ring fingers on the top edge. As a result, at most your little finger can come in front of the lens. An even better way is to control the camera with your voice. This way you can keep all your fingers safely on the edge of the phone. Learn how to enable voice control in our tip on Shooting with your voice.

The above tip also helps in taking sharper photos. The tighter you hold the camera, the less likely you are to get shot failures due to motion blur. If necessary, place the smartphone on a special telephone tripod. Another reason for blurry photos is using a shutter speed that is too slow. Although many smartphones today are so smart that they can estimate whether an object is stationary or moving, sometimes automatic settings still go wrong. Result: a photo of a faint line instead of a spectacular action photo of your grandchild playing football. Fortunately, most photo apps on the phone have a manual setting where you can set the shutter speed yourself. When moving, ensure a shutter speed of at least 1/125th. The faster the movement, the higher the shutter speed. Want to know more about manual settings? Then read the article Know your camera.

Flash generally produces moodless photos without depth. Then there is the danger of red eyes in the photo. Moreover, such a bright flash light in your eyes is not nice at all. In short: we are not a fan of flash photos. How then? By turning off the flash, the camera automatically increases the so-called ISO value. This term has been adopted from the days of film rolls. The darker the conditions, the higher the ISO you need for a well-exposed photo. The manual mode also offers a solution here: you can often set the ISO value yourself. Pay attention! A higher value will lead to noise in the photo. Therefore, in situations where this is possible, it is wise to keep the ISO setting as low as possible.

Some people love it, others hate it: crooked photos. Whatever your preference, if you’re going to do it, do it right. Choose really straight or really crooked. A horizon that slopes slightly causes a sea to empty or that a building is about to fall over. The guideline grid is a handy helper to keep lines straight.

To set up guides (grid) on Samsung device:

• Open the camera app.
• Tap the gear.
• Tap on Helplines.

To set up guides (grid) on iPhone:

• Tap on Institutions.
• Tap on Camera.
• Tap the slider behind “Grid” if it’s gray. The slider turns green and the feature is enabled.

When taking photos, it is important that you focus on the subject of the photo. Focusing with the smartphone is not complicated: hold the phone as still as possible and tap the screen on the point where you want to focus. The phone’s camera now focuses itself. This is visible on the screen. After that, tap the button that allows you to take pictures to take the shot.

Phone cameras are getting better and better. Some smartphones even have multiple lenses for different photo opportunities. However, there are limitations: it is better not to zoom in with most smartphones. The sharpness of the photo becomes a lot less, sometimes even blocky. Zooming in is not done with a special lens as with a camera, but via the software. This is called digital zoom and always results in loss of quality. If the subject is too small in the frame, try zooming in with your feet by moving closer to the subject. You can later crop the photo with an image editing program.

Forgetting where that nice photo was taken is not a mistake, but sometimes very annoying. And very inconvenient if you want to visit the place again or want to tip someone else. With GPS coordinates you always know exactly where that special photo spot was. To do this, you must have the location services turned on.

Activate camera location settings on Samsung devices

• Open the camera app.
• Tap the gear.
• Tap on Location Tags.
• If necessary, tap Switch.
• A pop-up screen may appear to improve location accuracy. Tap on Agree.

Activate camera location settings on iPhone

• Tap on Institutions.
• Tap on Privacy.
• Tap on Location Services.
• Turn on Location Services by tapping the gray slider (unless it’s already green).
• Tap on Camera.
• Tap on When using app.