Phone tips?

[MarkoKovacevic]

Hey all,

Since my olympus P&S broke recently, i've turned to my phone as an everyday camera. It has a surprising amount of options; ISO settings, flash on/off, white balance, grid in the VF, contrast/sharpness, ect. its a N95, with a 5MP AF cam. I'm used to my Leica, and honestly have never owned a digital point and shoot before, so I'm looking for tips to get the most out of it. I'm assuming the tips include 'edit a lot in photoshop?'

Also, its surprisingly decent for noise:
http://imageexchange.nokia.com/photo/1818808


Thanks in advance for all the advice!

 

[konicaman]

1. If you can actually control the ISO (which is unusual on a camera phone), keep the ISO down.


2. Don't ever use the digital zoom - it is better to make a cropping in PhotoShop. Cropping is what the camera does when "zoomíng" - only PhotoShop will do it better.

3. The flash will not reach more than a couple of meters - turn it off and find a steady place to rest the camera if you are to cover a whole room or the subject is more than a couple of meters away.

4. Use the manual settings for white balance when shooting indoors - auto usually does not do a very good job.

5. If possible set the camera to focus on the center of the image - then you have a fair change of letting the camera focus on what you want by pressing the button half way and then composing your image.

6. Did I mention: Edit a lot in PhotoShop? 😀 Normally you can get a long way with Unsharp mask and little work on highlights and shadows - and maybe saturation as well.

7. Don't shoot B/W with the camera. Shoot color and convert to B/W using Channel Mixer. The digital B/W image only contains 256 tones of grey. Having a full color image, will enable you to get far better tonal values when converting.

8.. I really like that "photo wall" of yours!

Happy shooting

 

[ZeissFan]

Get yourself to a thrift shop and buy a 1980s/1990s point and shoot. It shouldn't cost you any more than $5 or $6, and in most cases you'll be helping a charity.

 

[MarkoKovacevic]

Get yourself to a thrift shop and buy a 1980s/1990s point and shoot. It shouldn't cost you any more than $5 or $6, and in most cases you'll be helping a charity.

I biked over the other day, and no cameras 🙁

 

[arfrommymobile]

Hi there

My advice would to be to experiment. Take snaps of anything that interests you, espicially if you normally wouldn't get your 'normal' camera out for it.

Try leaving Photoshop alone for your phone. For my phone shot's I use Picasa and Picnik to that I can make quick and dirty edits. I'm enjoying doing this much more than my DSLR and Photoshop combi I'm used to. Even the GR Digital is having a rest at the moment 😉

The great thing about using your mobile is that nobody is aware of what you are up to. Great when your nervous like me 😱

Here's some shot's I took for my blog: www.artfrommymobile.blogspot.com or for larger versions: http://www.flickr.com/photos/35963391@N08/

Ps, One of these photos I had blown up to A0 size and it looked great 🙂

 

[Mephiloco]

My N73 takes surprisingly good pictures. The lens is a Zeiss something or other, and the sensor tiny, but I've gotten some great shots with it. I'd use it more except that in it's old age the camera's interface has gotten slower. 3 Megapixels isn't so bad for most shots though.