11 Smartphone Photography Tips for Landscape Photography

Thanks to the upward shift in technology, taking photos is now easy and you can do it from different devices including your smartphone. In fact, you can take professional photos using your smartphone if you understand how to go about it. There are many smartphone photography tips you could use to produce professional photos and this is what I will help you understand.

Hello there, I am Matthew David Parker and I have been working as a professional photographer for over 10 years. I am based in Las Vegas and my career has been fun mentoring young photographers and exploring new horizons. Today I am taking you through smartphone photography tips that will help you dive into professional photography without necessarily having to buy expensive cameras. Here we go!

1. Clean the lens

Indeed, dirt could affect the quality of the photos you take with your smartphone. You keep your phone in your pocket most of the time and the surfaces on which you place it are not clean all the time. What this means is that it is likely to accumulate dirt particles around the lens and this will definitely blur your pictures. Before you begin taking photos, clean the lens area well. A clean lens allows light to pass freely and you can easily achieve sharp and clear landscape smartphone images.

It is these small details that people ignore that lead to major flaws in photos, so if you are looking to take high-quality photos the first step that you must adhere to is cleaning the lens of your smartphone. While cleaning, make sure the cloth you use is soft and wet to prevent scratching, which could complicate your problem further.

2. Ditch the flash

You probably have seen an image where its subject has red devilish eyes and yellow skin plus motion blur. Basically, a terrible result of poorly using the flash feature on the smartphone. This happens often and many upcoming photographers have to deal with the issue as they are not able to adjust angles and lighting well to prevent the production of poor-quality photos. Well, if you have been into such a problem it is time you ditched the flash. Smartphones are equipped with strong LED lights that can skew the color temperature of photos.

The duration of the flash is also very long, which means all images you capture with the flash on coming out blurry. If you want to take clear photos at night using your smartphone, it is advisable to look for another source of light other than using flash. You could even use a creative solution like a jukebox or neon light, which will help you to add the needed glow to jazz up your photos with color.

3. Adjust the focus

While taking smartphone landscape photography, it is essential to ensure that your subject is in perfect focus. You can easily confirm the focus of your camera by tapping on the screen exactly where your subject is within the frame.

Most smartphones have this feature and it allows you to adjust the focus so you can get the most perfect results possible. If the subject is moving about freely, you should make sure to tap the screen to adjust focus for a clearer picture. Once you get a sharp photo of the subject, then draw more attention by using background blur while editing. There are many apps available freely that you could use to add this effect.

4. Avoid zoom where necessary

Zooming has the effect of scattering pixels and what this leads to is a blurred image that does not represent the quality you are looking to achieve. It is, therefore, advisable to avoid using the zoom feature and instead move closer to the subject if you want to take a close-up photo. Get as close as you can to get a vivid picture and to ensure you achieve focus.

Getting close allows you to see all the finer details of the subject and this helps you to incorporate qualities like texture in your photos. Smartphone photography is interesting if you know how to use these features, so you need to start learning how to apply each.

5. Manually fix exposure

The other thing about perfecting smartphone photography that you need to understand is how to adjust exposure.

If you are looking to focus on your subject, you will need to adjust the focus point. For those who don’t know, exposure is simply how dark or bright your images are. Many cameras automatically adjust the exposure for you, but this does not always give you a perfect focus, so doing it manually could be a good way to clear over-exposure.

Doing this will ensure your landscape mobile photographs are exposed optimally, which clears noise due to inconsistencies in lighting that could be present in the venue. Practice every day on doing these things to make sure you get to the level of perfection where you can easily fix properties before taking your photos. Familiarity with different features will help you learn how to use them during different situations.

6. No filter

I know most of you love using filters to enhance the look of your photos, but this time I want to encourage you to pause using this feature a bit. Filters offer a distraction that helps you to produce photos that are polished to a certain degree, so getting rid of them could allow you to also express your art in a more natural way.

In your upcoming shoots, I recommend that you do everything raw before editing. Editing should come as the last step and should only help you to refine photos that are not to the level of perfection you prefer to get. To achieve this easily, you need to practice a lot as there are different conditions during the day and you don’t expect the weather to give exactly what you expect to work with.

7. Add some accessories

If you want to reveal the potential of your camera, you might want to consider getting some accessories. They might help you achieve photography smartphone awesomeness.

This could include everything ranging from a tripod mounting to lens add-ons that match your preferences. Adding accessories like these is taking your skills to the next level because you can achieve a lot more.

8. Explore camera apps

Honestly, your smartphone’s camera app is not as refined as the software that comes with your Nikon camera. It might lack some essential features and this is the reason you should consider downloading some apps that can help you achieve the things your camera is not built to do. Android phones offer fairly good camera features, but if you are using an iPhone you might need to download apps to help you get additional features.

9. The rule of thirds

Although the focus is vital in photography, the composition is essential as well. The composition is what allows you to take eye-catching photos, so you could use the rule of thirds to get this right. In this rule, you basically divide your image into sections using horizontal and vertical lines such that you can position the most important features of the photo at the meeting point of these lines. Try to place your subject along one of the vertical lines and this will be helpful when taking the photo.

Gridlines come in handy in this case and you can turn the feature off when you feel a photo does not need that much focus.

10. Shift perspectives

Don’t be stubborn while shooting your photos. You need to uphold flexibility and while at it ensure you shift points of view. Taking photos from different perspectives will give you different views of the same subject and this could help you to achieve interesting results. One of the essential techniques you could try is shooting from ground level. Most people understand a well chest-high level of shooting and this does not always offer interesting photos. To create some dramatic moments, you should shift the setting to ground level. Also, consider different angles while shooting to see if you can get an interesting preview of the subject.

11. Do multiple shots

Experimentation is part of smartphone photography that could allow you to explore different settings and features. One of the ways you could ensure quality in your photos is by trying out different shots and positions so you can pick only those photos that are clean. It is advisable to do multiple images from varying angles and positions and you might eventually notice some interesting images in your collection.

Some of the most interesting images you will capture will come without the need to have a plan and could be inspired by quick changes in the environment that could not be captured if you took your time to enhance the perfection of the photos. With this technique, however, you will also take photos that will be unusable, and you will need some time later to sort them to pick the ones that are a perfect fit for your needs.

Did I miss anything? We’d love to hear your thoughts on smartphone landscape photography tips, the best smartphone for landscape photography, and how to take better travel photos with a smartphone. Get in touch!