With all the technological advancements of today, capturing some precious moments with your camera has become quite easy. The capabilities of smartphones are improving and there are some free apps, photography websites, and e-books. They help you in improving your photography skills to a great extent. In recent times, you don’t really have to be an expert photographer to take some meaningful photos.
There are certain tricks that you can employ to make your snaps Instagram-worthy. Whether you use a DSLR or prefer shooting with your smartphone, these tricks will surely come in handy. Now, let’s take a look at some of these popular photography tricks:
1. Use apps like Camera Awesome to make your smartphone photos look glamorous
Camera Awesome is a photography app that’s available for both iPhone and Android users. It has a timer that’s quite easy to set and enhances photos with the burst feature. The app also lets you set the ISO, exposure, and white balance separately.
The photography apps for smartphones have come a long way over the years. Of course, you can’t get the professional capabilities of a DSLR in smartphones. Despite this, such apps can elevate your simple photos to a new level.
2. Use the ‘Aperture Priority Mode’ to get portraits with out of focus backgrounds
This mode is usually shown with an ‘A’ in your camera app. Aperture Priority provides more control of the depth of the field. However, you must note that the wider apertures have lower numbers and the narrow ones have higher numbers. For example, an F2 will have a wider aperture than an F22.
You can decrease the depth of the field in your photo with a wider aperture. This will help you blur out the background while maintaining focus on your subject.
3. Combine artificial and natural light for ideal night snaps
For taking excellent night shots, you can mix the natural and artificial lights. Time your clicks in such a way that the light levels from artificial and natural sources are the same. This will result in a shot that’s exposed evenly. You can take a spot meter reading from an area of the shot that has good artificial lighting.
You can also take the spot meter reading from the sky. Using these spot metered settings, start shooting when the sky is slightly brighter for the artificially lit part. Continue taking the snaps using the exposures. During a ten-minute window, you’ll have a few shots that are perfectly lit and exposed.
4. Use the burst mode for capturing a wonderful range of motion and expressions
The burst mode is available on most of the DSLRs and digital cameras. On your smartphone, this feature will be available in the camera app. You can use the burst mode to shoot several photos in quick succession. Just hold down the shutter button on your camera and shoot in continuous high speed.
5. Change the direction and angle in panoramic shots
You can simply rotate your smartphone and bring it to the landscape orientation for taking panoramic shots. Pan vertically from high to low or low to high instead of panning horizontally. You can change the direction of panning by simply tapping on the arrow. This will switch its direction. Changing the direction and angle is not at all complicated with the camera apps of smartphones. It’s just that you might’ve not realized this yet.