10 Common Mobile Photography Mistakes To Avoid
If you want to take amazing photos with your mobile camera, you need to be deliberate and think things through before you take your shot.
When starting out as a mobile photographer, it is easy to make some mistakes along the way as you learn the ropes.
To help you along, I’ve made a small list of some most common mistakes that beginner smartphone photographers make that you need to avoid.
1. No clear subject
The subject of a photo is very important. It is the very thing that’s the main focus of a photo. Without a clear subject, whoever is looking at your photo will be confused as to what they’re looking at.
There are a number of things that can make the subject unclear. One of them could be that the subject blends in too well with the background to the point where it’s difficult to make out the subject from everything else around.
Other reasons could be that the subject is too far, too dark, or too blurry. This is a problem because, without a clear subject, your photo will not look appealing at all.
2. Bad lighting
Because smartphone sensors are so small, they need as much light as possible so that they can produce decent quality images. This isn’t much of a problem when taking pictures outside during the day. The issue arises at night or in low light conditions.
When lighting is inadequate, the camera will compensate for this electronically by boosting the ISO. Although this works well to an extent, it introduces digital noise which can compromise the quality of the photo quite considerably.
To avoid the issue of bad lighting and the problems associated with it, you need to make sure that you take photos in places and areas that have adequate lighting.
If you’re shooting at night, there are a few things you can do to ensure your photos come out well in low light. For example, you could use anything from street lamps outside or light fixtures indoors to illuminate your subject. Whatever you can find as a light source can make quite a difference.
3. Overkill on the edit
However, it is possible to go overboard with the editing. When this happens, the image ends up looking too processed and loses its natural beauty. An example of this would be adding too much saturation to the image or smoothing the skin to the point where it looks unrealistic.
Too much editing can also make imperfections such as digital noise more noticeable. When dealing with exposure, brightness and contrast, you need to be careful not to brighten the image to the point where it becomes noisy in the shadows or blown out in the highlights.
Also, you want to be aware of losing detail in the darker areas of the image by crushing the blacks too much.
True, editing is subjective. So, what is adequate and looks good to me may not be the same for another person. Also, every image is different and requires different amounts of post-processing work. For these reasons, it is difficult to say how much editing is enough for any given image.
4. Using on-camera flash
A phone camera flash is not detachable nor is it adjustable. Although different phones use different types of flash, they’re all far less powerful than the flash that’s used with bigger cameras.
Photos taken with the phone’s camera flash turned on tend to come out looking washed out and unflattering. Objects closer to the camera tend to be more exposed while the background remains dark. You also run the risk of encountering red eyes in your photos. Shiny surfaces will reflect the light which causes glares.
5. Using digital zoom
When their subject is quite a distance from them, it is common to see a lot of people use the zoom feature of their camera to bring the subject closer. In most cases, the camera uses digital zoom to achieve this but the downside is that it degrades the quality of the image.
Normal zoom lenses for larger cameras use optical zoom, which uses the glass elements inside the lens to magnify the image. Therefore, the image retains its quality.
Digital zoom, on the other hand, uses software to crop the image and then stretch it out to fit the frame. The resulting image is usually of inferior quality.
If you feel the need to zoom, walk closer to the subject. If it’s not possible to get closer the subject, take the photo without zooming in and then crop it later in the edit. This way you can still have some decent picture quality.
6. Ignoring Manual mode
Not to say shooting on Auto is a bad thing. It’s great. It’s amazing how such a small camera can look at a scene and figure out what it thinks are the ideal settings to capture the scene.
As much as this is impressive, it is a downside because the creative control of how the image should look is left to a computer.
Shooting in Manual mode (sometimes known as Pro mode) has many benefits. Firstly, it gives you complete control over how the picture should look. This opens up the doors for you to be creative with how you capture your images.
7. Poor composition and odd angles
Composition refers to how the subject and all the elements in the photo are positioned. Good composition results in photos that are pleasing to look at. One look at a poorly composed photo and you can tell that something is off.
What’s also important to keep in mind when composing your shots is headroom and looking room. Having enough headroom means that there isn’t very little space between the top of your subject and the top the frame all the while there’s a lot of space below the subject.
Also, you don’t want to have too much space above the top of your subject without anything happening in that space.
When it comes to looking room, if your subject is turned away and facing off-camera, it is common practice to have more space in the direction the subject is facing than behind.
8. Not backing up photos
If your phone is not set to automatically upload your photos to your cloud storage, then I suggest you do so. It’s convenient and you don’t have to worry about it because it happens automatically. Just make sure everything is password protected and secure.
If you can’t save to the cloud, then transfer your photos to your computer or external storage device. Of course, because this is not automatic, you’ll have to transfer the files regularly.
I had to put this point here because I have lost my photos so many times. The last time it happened it was towards the end of my week-long vacation at one of those tropical islands with warm, crystal-clear blue waters and white sandy beaches.
I lost my phone and along with hundreds of pictures from my holiday because I didn’t back them up.
9. Blurry images
One of the most common issues that amateur mobile photographers face is that of blurry photos. They take a photo and all is well but when they look at the photo, it’s all blurry. This can be very frustrating but sometimes easy to solve.
One of the reasons photos taken with a smartphone may come out blurry is because the lens is dirty from coming into contact with various surfaces. Cleaning the lens might help fix that problem.
Another likely scenario is that perhaps you are using a slow shutter speed. This may be the case at night or in low light conditions where a slow shutter speed helps the sensor receive more light over an extended period.
Because the exposure time is longer, if you don’t keep your phone very still, even the slightest movement will result in a blurry photo. The best way to work around this is to support your phone. A tripod works best for this.
10. Not practising enough
The only way to get better at something is to keep doing it over and over again until you get it right. Nobody starts off as a good mobile photographer. It takes practice. And as they say, practice makes perfect.
Practising does not mean just constantly taking random pictures and hoping to get better and better after each shot. You need to be deliberate and practice with intention.
If you want to get better at shooting outdoors with natural lighting, spend a day outside taking pictures of various subjects at different times of the day. Do this until you get the hang of it and understand how to work with lighting. Once you’re happy, move on to the next thing you want to improve on.
After a while, things like composition, camera settings, lighting, etc. will come naturally to you. In time, you’ll develop a good eye for taking photos with your phone. You just need to keep practising. And have fun while doing it.
Conclusion
That’s 10 common mobile photography mistakes that many beginners make that you need to avoid. By closely studying each one and applying the lessons, you can start taking mobile photos that look really good.
For useful tips on how to capture great photos with your phone, check out the 15 Tips on How To Take Amazing Photos With Your Phone.
If you want to learn more about how to improve your smartphone photography, download the 5 Ways To Improve Your Smartphone Photography ebook here. There’s a lot to learn in its 22 pages of content and it’s ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!
Originally published at https://thesmartphonephotographer.com on January 31, 2020.
