This is an excerpt from one of the courses we offer at Bristol Photography Lessons. And its all about how to get the most out of the camera on your smart phone.

Any smart phone will do for this workshop and all photos were taken using my phone which is an iPhone 7 (it’s good enough for me!)

GETTING INTO THE DARK SIDE

The first feature of your camera phone that we are going to unpack is a double bonus – we get two features in one.

 With the camera app open, touch the screen. You will see a yellow square appear with a sun symbol and slider next to it.

 Slide your finger up and down and the image gets brighter or darker. Magic!

When it gets darker we call this – underexposure and lighter overexposure.

Now if you hold your finger down for a second or two we get another option – AE/AF lock (auto exposure/auto focus)

 With this function you can also decide where the sharpest point of the image will be PLUS you can still change the exposure. You can also click around the screen on different points, letting the camera decide on the exposure you want.

In the above photograph of clouds I am using this feature and have darkened the image for extra drama! I am using the iPhone so if you are using another manufacturer there might be a variation.

GRIDS AND OTHER COMPOSITIONAL DEVICES

Moving rapidly on today to a cameraphone setting that will change

your life forever!

It’s the humble grid, which you can find on your phone under, yes, you’ve guessed it – Settings. Flick the switch and you are ready to go.

 What you will find on your camera screen is a grid that divides the frame up into thirds. And this has many, many uses, one of them being… And I can hear from photographer friends shouting it out across the country!

It is the RULE OF THIRDS, so important and useful I am shouting it out too.

Now, to explain this rule in depth takes fancy diagrams and a few photos so I have included a link to another blog, where I explain it in full.

So, go take a look.

 Just a quick thing on rules that I tell all my students:

1. Learn the rules

2. Break the rules

3. Make up your own rules

GET UP CLOSE

Now we are getting to grips with our camera phone we are going to enter the weird and wonderful world of macro-photography.

Ok it’s not quite true macro but nevertheless the camera phone has a remarkable ability to photograph things close up.

So, here’s are 4 tips to get better quality images when shooting macro:

1. Fill the frame with the thing you are photographing. Being careful not to cast your shadow on the object!

2. Decide on the part of the image you want in focus and then press down and hold with your finger on the screen till the “focus-lock” is activated.

3. Shoot several images and choose the one that’s is sharpest later, ideally using your computer screen so you can make sure it's sharp.

4. A bright day will be better than a dull day as this will help freeze the movement of the object, especially if there is a breeze. It’s to do with the exposure triangle, if your really want to know.

IT"S ALL GONE A BIT BLURRY

You don’t need the latest camera phone to get those nice out of focus backgrounds.

 Which by the way can look rather un-real.

No, I have achieved it with my phone, which is certainly not the latest model.

You simply get up close to whatever your photographing and the closer you are the more the background goes all blurry or out of focus.

Photographers have a “special” word for this – Bokeh!

And if you zoom in on this image of a flower you can see the camera on the phone does a good job.

Well, it surprises me anyhow.

Ok, last tip coming up and it’s all about editing.

THE LAST STEP

You can really change the way your camera phone photo looks in the editing stage.

There are filters you can apply but I think it’s nice to do it yourself and maybe be a bit subtler.

The phone app that I like best is Photoshop. It just seems to do the job really well and is recommended.

Another editing software, and sorry but this is for Mac users, that I have recently discovered is the revamped Photos, which comes installed on your Mac.

Go to the edit section and there are some really useful tools that are surprisingly effective.

Now, I know there’s a lot of options out there.

So maybe you could share some of your favourites in the comments?