How to take quality pictures using your phone

Most of us pull out our phones to take a picture of the moon when it looks really big and bright in the night sky; unfortunately, none of those pictures represent the beauty that we see with our eyes, and unless you are yielding a professional photography camera, it can be difficult to capture the moon as we see it. Camera settings, lighting, scene modes, and composition all play a part in taking the best photo possible, so rather than buying a big camera, let us go through some ways we can take better pictures using just our smartphones.

Adjust focus and exposure

Phone cameras usually focus on something automatically, but manual focus is also available through a simple tap on the area you would like more attention – make good use of it! You can also change the setting on how much light is allowed into the frame, so adjust the exposure to your desired amount and tap for focus, then see how much of a difference this makes.

Use HDR mode

Otherwise known as High Dynamic Range, this feature brings detail out of the darkest and lightest parts of the picture and creates a better balance of colour overall. The downside to this is that it takes longer to process when you take a picture, but the results are worth it!

Make use of natural light

Avoid using the phone’s flash and use the natural light to your advantage; in fact, you can play with light and position subjects in a way that can create different photo outcomes, such as silhouettes, shadows, light reflection, etc.

Rule of Thirds

An old photography trick that has been around for years involves an image split into nine equal blocks that form a three-by-three grid, which can then be used to get the most interesting parts of the image near the corners of the segments where the gridlines meet.

Take photos bursts

Most phones come with a burst mode that can be activated when holding down the shutter button in photo mode. The advantage of this is that you can capture every movement of a subject, so that later you can pick the best photo out of the multiple taken through the burst.

Thanks to advanced technology and constant updates to phone cameras, we can take better high-quality photos without editing them too much, or at all. As long as we know the tricks on using the settings and features in our smartphones to our advantage, there is no stopping us from taking beautiful pictures of the moon and other visual beauties that we find in our everyday lives, so go out there and start testing these tricks out!