It took us all next to no time to feel a complete reliance on our smartphones. It’s our gateway to the world, but probably one of the coolest things is to carry a pocket-sized camera with us wherever we go.

As a photographer, I love it. 

As a mom, I find it priceless. 

As a business owner, I consider it an asset.

Because I consider my smartphone camera so important to my life, I do like to get a good one. I just recently updated to the iPhone 12 Max Pro. I do love it, but with the good comes the bad. 

 

3 Reasons Smartphone Photography is RAD:

 

1 – It’s so quick and easy to do so many things and it actually takes pretty good photos.

You can document family milestones and share them seconds later.

You can take behind-the-scenes business photos and share them straight to your Instagram Stories.

Smartphones actually take really great photos now, but ALL photography rules still apply. If you know the basics of how to take a good photo, then you can take fantastic images with your phone camera. 

Check out these 10 tips that everyone should know to get better photos. I promise you, you won’t be disappointed with the immediate changes you’ll see in your photography.

2 – You can take the photo and edit it on the same screen.

If you’re not using Lightroom for mobile, get it right now. It is the best app to edit photos from your phone. I even use it to edit my fancy camera photos of my family. 

Check out my shop and you’ll find how to A Simple Guide to Photographing Your Kids. You’ll get lots of information in there about using good lighting and composition, but it also includes the Lightroom editing preset that I use on all my photos as well as a tutorial on how to edit photos.

3 – It’s built-in storage.

Since you’re taking so many photos make sure you are backing up your photos in some way. Many plans do it automatically, but you can run out of space and not realize it. 

My suggestions are to back up two places and also cull your photos at least once a week. Delete all the photos you don’t like or that were blurry repeats. You only need about 1-2 photos from a “scene”…I promise! I use Google Photo and iCloud to back my photos up on my phone.

To save space wherever you back up, pick your favorite and get delete the others.

Your future self will thank you.

 

2 Reasons Why Smartphone Photography Sucks.

Now, let’s talk about the reasons they suck. And these are BIG ones and there’s not really anything you can do about it and that’s why it sucks even more. Maybe you have wondered about and found frustration with some of these things too.

 

1 – The smartphone cameras distort the image. 

Have you ever taken a group photo and been on the outer edge?

Then you look at the photo to approve before sharing and your body is all stretched out. It’s like the camera added 25 pounds! 

You immediately start screaming “DELETE THAT PHOTO RIGHT NOW!” And then spend the rest of the night questioning yourself thinking, “Do I really look like that?!!”

The answer is no. You do not. I promise.

The phone camera is a wide-angle lens. It has to be that way to fit an entire scene into the screen.

That’s also the reason why your nose may look a little bigger in a selfie than it actually is. Your arms can’t stretch out far enough to give fit you in the photo without a wider angle lens.

In portrait sessions, I would NEVER get out my wide-angle lens to take your photo. 

Trust me, I would never ever do that to you.

 

2 – The smartphone camera is terrible at adjusting for highlights and shadows.

The phone camera’s programmed response is to evenly light the entire scene. That means if you’ve got light on your subject (maybe you’re using a ring light or standing next to a window), your camera wants your background to have some light too even if it doesn’t have it naturally. Your camera wants the scene to be evenly lit.

So without even asking you, the camera will make adjustments for you. If the scene you are photographing doesn’t have even light, the camera’s adjustments are usually bad.

Being able to control those two things is what makes photos good. It adds dimension and character to your shots.

 

Here are a couple of tips to give you a little more control with your smartphone photography.

• Use the AE/AF square and the little slide the little sun icon up and down to fix your lighting (learn about that with the 10 tips!)
• Turn off live photos. Live photos automatically adjust after taking the photo even if you’ve worked with the auto exposure to get a more pleasing photo. That’s super annoying.

So yes, these smartphone cameras are fantastic but still flawed. I’ll even admit they are a great supplement to professional photos since you’re not able to get those as often.

Check out this video for a more detailed explanation of some tips:

 

The frustration with only having these smartphone photos is what causes my clients to contact me. Because yes, these little pocket cameras we have are so great for that real-life day to day but…

 

You’ll never be able to beat the printed quality that a wonderfully styled photo session gets for your family photos.

Your business can handle smartphone photos here or there, but professional images are what sells.

 

Submit your information below and I’ll send you those 10 Tips to better smartphone photography to help you get by.

But don’t forget to contact me to give you RAD photos can you be proud to show off.