Smartphone Photography: Shooting Like a Pro

Book excerpt: The smartphone camera is a powerful tool most people underutilize. Shooting a photo with your smartphone might be as easy as pointing the camera at the subject and clicking away, but there is more to it. The book teaches simple and advanced techniques that let to use the smartphone camera like a professional. Whether you own an Android phone or an iPhone, this concise guide applies as long as your phone has a camera at the back. From basic tips to follow as a mobile photographer to advanced manual controls that let you determine exactly how your photos turn out, this book treats every aspect of mobile photography down to editing. Lessons include: - Lighting: You are going to understand all aspects of lighting including positioning, using LED flash, and lighting gears. - Basic mobile photography rules: Taking care of your lens, zooming, focusing, and perspectives are some of the lessons treated here. - Camera modes and features: How well do you understand portrait mode, HDR, grid lines, rule of thirds, macro mode, and the rest that are often underutilized? - Manual camera mode: Tweaking ISO, shutter speed, aperture, white balance, metering and other professional settings to your advantage. - Using lens kits: How lens kits work and how they can improve your mobile photography. - Editing: This covers basic editing tips to understanding tonal ranges in photography and how all adjustment controls work. There are things this book doesn't teach. Some of these include how to locate your camera app, how to launch it, how to press the shutter button, and so on. You've been taking photos with your phone for years and this book takes that into consideration. Stepping it up to the next level and shooting like a professional is the focus.