#phonephotograhy

Why you need the HDR Max app!

Imagine all the times you have tried to capture an image and your background has a pale colour or that of your foreground does. Or the time you tried capturing the blue skies that seemed very blue to your eyes but appears as something else in your shot. Do you know how to correct this? That’s where HDR comes in.

HDR stands for high dynamic range. Dynamic range means the difference between the brightest and the darkest elements in your image. Your phone’s camera app achieves this by taking multiple photos at a variety of exposures in quick succession and combines them to produce a single photo with a higher range of colours.

HDR corrects exposure imbalance and enhances details in the foreground and background of the image. And that is HDR on your camera app.(More on HDR)

Then there is the HDR Max app. This takes HDR to a whole new level! Why? Well, there are a few reasons.

1. While the camera app takes several images that blur the final image in case of any movement, HDR Max makes a way to shorten the process of capturing the images and merging them thus reducing the risk of blur.

There is motion blur on the moving car and the ladies

2. This app doesn’t require you to set anything on HDR, all you do is open the camera app, adjust your focus and take your shot, and you’ll have it at full colour.

3. The app, apart from offering a camera, it also offers an image editor that gives a wide range of options from adjusting HDR, contrast, sharpness, exposure, vignette, fisheye and even making cartoons of your images!

The wide range of editing options at the bottom.

4. Last but not least, as the name states, HDR Max maximizes the HDR giving you a higher colour intensity than your normal camera.

What are you still waiting for? Download HDR Max for an amazing experience, you won’t regret it. As you learn don’t forget to share! I’ll highly appreciate your feedback, let me know if it works for you. Is it a hit or a miss? 

Sunset in HDR

Phone Camera Settings: WHITE BALANCE

Have you ever taken a picture that after you take it appears to have some sort of bluish, greenish or even an orange like tint? Yeah, for me, more than once. You see, an object’s colour is affected by the light under which it is viewed. We are able to see the actual colour because our eyes and brain compensate for the different lighting conditions. White objects, therefore, appear white to us whether viewed in the sunlight or in the shade, indoors or outdoors, under incandescent or fluorescent light. The camera does not compensate for this and therefore needs to be set.

By Laughing latte. Colour cast on images

WHAT IS WHITE BALANCE?

White balance is balancing any colour cast or tints in an image so that objects that appear white in person also appear white in the image. It is one of the camera settings that compensates for the lightning conditions. It can also be employed to warm or cool colours for artistic effects.
Setting white balance is quite easy. The hard part is understanding when and why you should choose a particular setting.

WB on the camera app

HOW DOES IT WORK?
When you set white balance, the camera identifies a white object in the scene and tries to make it appear white. In the process, the tint or colour that hinders the white from appearing as such is removed from the whole image. It works under the assumption that if the white is correctly captured so will other colours.

Warming a picture with WB

Understanding white balance
White balance is usually set to auto mode when you open your phone camera.

  • Auto White Balance/AWB

What happens here is that your camera reads the colour temperature (intensity of the light source) and chooses a setting in its collection or any pre-programmed adjustments. It is a good solution when the scene has one type of lighting and there is a prominent white or neutral subject in the scene.

It is good though to do manual white balance setting in some cases. Some manual settings are:

  • Incandescent

This is best for traditional household bulbs. Light from the incandescent/tungsten bulbs appears more orange than even daylight thus this setting adds a little blue to the picture.

  • Daylight/Sunny

This is good when taking pictures under direct sunlight.

  • Fluorescent

This prevents photos taken in fluorescent light from having a sort of green hue.

  • Cloudy

This is good for taking outdoor shots. A cloudy day seems a little blue. This setting adds a bit of warmth to the light in your scene.

  • Shade

Shots taken in the shade may appear a little blue making this good for them as it warms them up.

  • Warm Fluorescent

Shots taken under warm fluorescent light are orange-like in colour and this settings adds a blue to cool the colour temperature.

Effects of various WB settings

Not all phone cameras have all the settings above but they may have some. If you have an unwanted tint or hue in your picture, take note of your light source and tweak your settings accordingly. When you do that, you can pre-view it before you take your shot. Just like most camera settings, no hard rule is set on how to use it. It highly depends on what you want to project in your image, be it the look, feel or mood.

Try it and let me know if this has been helpful. And as you learn do not forget to share. Because that’s,s how it is!

​PHONE CAMERA SETTINGS: HDR

Phone photography gets interesting with every new piece of information you get. I, for one, I love making good use of my phone camera and I always wondered what HDR does. I could click on HDR and wait to see if there is a visible difference but no, I did not see any so I went back to normal mode, and life moved on. But well, it did not disappear from my phone so I had to find out, what is HDR? How do I use it and when? If you are asking the same questions, well let’s learn about it together.

Courtesy of android pit: An image with no HDR. Look at the sky.

Courtesy of android pit: An image with HDR. Notice the difference in the sky.

What is HDR?

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. In photography, dynamic range is the difference between the lightest and darkest elements of an image. HDR is achieved by taking multiple shots at a variety of exposure levels (usually 3-5) in quick succession and combining them with software. The software, having multiple exposures for the single image, it can produce a single shot with a higher range of colour and brightness pulling the highlights and lowlights in the right areas from each original image.

 HDR often makes up for the smartphone camera shortcomings especially that of small sensors that are unable to capture a wide dynamic range in a single image. It corrects exposure imbalances and enhances details in both the subject’s foreground and background. HDR photos are said to be saturated, high in contrast and rich in colour.

The problem in HDR is that each manufacturer does it differently and it could be sometime before one gets used to the intensity at which your phone processes HDR.

How do I use HDR?

It is quite simple. Open your camera app and click on HDR to turn it on or off.

In some phones, HDR appears on the icons when you open the camera app. In other phones, you can open your camera settings to find it. In others, it can be found on the shooting mode menu, camera scenes section or even on the smart modes menu. In other phones, it cannot be found. Worry not though because there is a number of apps on Google play that can help.

When do I use HDR?
There is actually no hard set rule as to when or when not to use HDR. As stated earlier, different phones handle HDR differently but despite this, there are a few tips on when HDR can be used to improve shots, i.e.:

  • Wide range of brightness
  • Landscape shots- HDR can be beneficial when taking a landscape photo when the sky is too bright and the subject has a dark foreground.

This is one of the photos taken at a high exposure level.

This photo is at a lower exposure level.

When combined using HDR, the exposure imbalance is corrected.

  • Portrait shots- Such shots taken under sunlight or if the background is bright.

Android Authority: an image with no HDR, the background is brighter than the foreground.

Android Authority: an image with HDR. The foreground is brighter, more visible.

  • Dim scenes. HDR can be useful in remedying low light situations. 

Android Authority: a dim scene with on HDR.

Android Authority: the dim scene with HDR.

  • Sunset shots. When taking pictures of the sunset it may appear too dark or too bright. HDR brings out/ balances the contrast between clouds the sun to make the sun appear just right.

When do I not use HDR?

There are instances when use of HDR is not advisable, i.e.: 

    • In super low light situations- In lowlight situations, the shots captured are of low exposure to a dull image. HDR may attempt to smooth out the shots but this will end up blurring the entire shots. While it lights up dim scenes, HDR does not create light when there isn’t.
    • Motion- As said earlier, HDR captures multiple shots therefore a moving subject leads to ghosting around objects, streakiness instead of sharp lines and discolouration.
    • High contrast scenes- Some pictures look better with strong contrast and as HDR reduces the contrast, the desired effect will be less pronounced.
    • Vividly coloured scenes- HDR can bring vibrancy to lifeless colours in a scene. But if the colours are already much alive, it can make them look garish.
    • Similar brightness- Areas of relatively similar brightness levels may lead to an image which looks fake and cartoonish due to over processing by the HDR.

    The best tip however is to take the photo with and without HDR and determine which you prefer.

    A night photo with HDR.

    A night photo with no HDR. Which do you prefer between this and the one above?

    Have you learnt something new? Do you use HDR mode on your phone? What tips do you think we should add in the use of HDR? Interact with me in the comments. When you try it, you can share your shots too. And as you learn, don’t forget to share ’cause that’s how it is!

    PHONE CAMERA SETTINGS: ISO

    Most of us use our phone cameras but not extensively. We just open the camera app and take a snap. The only setting we use most is the face beauty, because it makes us look prettier on our selfies. Well, I used to be a victim too but now we get to change that. This happened mostly because we do not know what everything else is about; therefore we are going to learn more about the camera settings. We are going manual now!

    ISO

    One of the most common and important settings on your phone camera is the ISO setting. Almost all advanced cameras have this on their settings. ISO is an abbreviation for International Standards Organization, an organization that sets standards for numerous products and services. In digital photography, the ISO rating or number is an indicator of how sensitive a camera’s image sensor is to light at a specific setting. Basically, ISO adjusts the image sensor’s sensitivity to light. The lower the number, the less sensitive the sensor is to light.

    Therefore, increasing the ISO, which increases sensitivity, can help capture brighter images in dark environments.

    ISO 400 captures a dark image.

    ISO 800 brightens the image due to higher sensitivity to light.

    ISO Auto

    This comes at the expense of extra “noise” (tiny dots or specks in an image generated when the image sensor’s sensitivity is increased to read more light.)

    ISO 800 with digital noise

    ISO 100 with less digital noise.

    You should also know that your camera’s ISO is also tied to how quickly it takes to capture light or an image. Additional light takes more time to capture which means a low ISO will also require a longer time needed between opening and closing of the shutter to capture enough light. The problem with leaving the shutter open for longer periods is that it increases the risk of your photograph being blurred. However, the image will be of good quality if the camera is steady.

    When you are trying to capture a fast moving scene, a higher ISO helps you to avoid motion blur but with a lower quality image.

    ISO 100 results in a blurred image when capturing a moving object.

    ISO 400 reduces the blur.

    While shooting stationary images, using the lowest possible ISO will produce higher quality looking photographs. Increase ISO only if you can’t capture enough light or you are taking an action shot, and even then use it sparingly to minimize “digital noise”. The key to capturing clean looking images is to keep the sensor’s sensitivity as low as possible, though it is tough to achieve it with the limited smartphone sensors.

    Hope you learnt something new. As you learn, don’t forget to share cause That’s how it is!

    DID YOU KNOW? ABOUT PANORAMA MODE

    Yeah, you have probably seen it on your phone. And maybe like me, you selected it and saw no difference so you never tried it again since then. But now we are learning cause it is one of the easiest and coolest shots you can take with your smartphone. 

    What is panorama? It is a series of images stitched together to form a single wide angle shot. It is an option that allows you to take panorama by moving your phone so as to capture much more than just a single field of view. This format enhances our creativity and makes us see things in new ways.

    When you need to capture an image with just a bit wider field of view at a greater detail, then your camera and lens combination can provide in a single shot. You can let it travel a little bit then stop it. You can make it as long or as short as you like capturing only what you need to include.

    HOW DO YOU TAKE PANORAMIC IMAGES WITH YOUR PHONE?

    1. Open your camera app on your smartphone.

    2. Go to settings and change the shot mode. On some phones you don’t even need to open the settings as it is on the icons on the top side of the screen. If so, then just select it. Like in the figure below on the top left corner, in blue is the panorama icon.

    3. Tap the shutter button. 

    After you tap the shutter button it becomes as shown.

    4. Move your device in one direction slowly, be it left, right, up or down, according to the arrows guiding you.

    5. You can stop at a certain number of images when you feel you have captured what you needed. The small boxes in the above image indicate the number of shots taken.

    When the shots are stitched you get this kind of panoramic image. That road is not bent by the way in reality.

    TIPS ON CAPTURING PANORAMIC IMAGES

    • Positioning and stability 

    Before shooting, you can find a focal point at which you will stand and move your device. You can do some test shots before doing the actual image. Pivot around a single small point, i.e. turn your camera not your body. The smaller your pivot area the better your shots will be. You can use this for landscapes and large shots with no object in the foreground. But if there is an object, you can move. Take multiple shots even with some side to side movements. If the object is large, it is not an easy task but standing in one place could result in a curving distortion when you stitch your panaroma together. Bad positioning can cause ghosted images or bumpy horizons. Horizontal straight lines positioned close to the camera can be bent in the creation of a panorama but can be used intelligently at an advantage.

    A steady camera is required even for normal shots. Here, when unsteady, it results in a choppy stitch especially if the camera allows continuous shots. Keep your phone level. Some phones can guide you in this. A trick to steadiness is holding your phone vertically. It is very tempting actually to hold it on a landscape mode for better viewing of the shot as you take it but, resist the urge and hold the phone upright.

    Unsteady camera making the image blur.

    • Lighting

    To create a wide angle ununiform looking stitched image, the lighting has to be consistent. If the exposure is different in different shots imagine how the photo will look like stitched. It could still make an interesting photo but try consistency, especially when indoors or in a low lit situation. However, some phones ensure the exposure doesn’t change in the shots for one panorama image.

    Due to inconsistency in exposure, some parts seem darker others brighter in the image.

    • Movement 

    It is tough when creating a panoramic photo of people as they tend to move. As such, panoramic photos should avoid including anything that moves so rapidly. People will need to be still to achieve the desired shot. The weather, wind and rain, can create problems for a panoramic photo when matching up subsequent shots and are best avoided.

    Movement creates some blurred shots making the stitched image not clear on one side.

    • Multiple shots

    Don’t be afraid to go over the same area more than once. It helps you get the overlaps and can also help you have other options should your exposure turn out wrong. Also ensure that you have passes including a little more of the area above and below your intended shots. This way, you can be sure to capture an even amount of sky and ground for when you stitch and you can crop later.

    • Use panorama mode 

    This is the most basic tip. If you are taking panoramic photos, then use panorama mode. It will certainly produce better panoramic images.

    • Take vertical panoramas

    Most of the time when we think panoramas we just think the horizontal landscapes. We should not forget the vertical ones! Imagine the sky, sunset over mountains that you want to capture. Those tall buildings, high waterfalls and all those other tall stunning views. Wouldn’t it be interesting to capture them with a vertical panorama? Try it now for some interesting shots.

    An example of vertical panorama.

    If you never understood what that thing on your phone called panorama was for, now you do. If you have learnt something new, share widely and I would really appreciate your feedback. Don’t forget to try it and share too! ‘Cause that’s how it is!!!

    6 PHONE BRANDS WITH QUALITY CAMERAS

    Do you remember why you bought your phone? I do, I bought it because of the camera. Hell, I could say I bought the camera even before I bought the phone, which is not true since they come together, but you get the gist. I know other people buy for the space, processor, or even if it is dual or single sim. But most of you probably are like me, we go for the camera. We look for phones with the most mega pixels, be it 8mp, 13mp or even 16mp nowadays. Because the higher the megapixels, the better the photos.

    Old is gold, they say. I don’t know who ‘they’ is but, well, they said so. And I cannot beg to dispute it because it applies here. We try choosing phones with the higher megapixels but sometimes this doesn’t mean the camera is of good quality. However, there are some phone brands which have made a name for themselves in the camera sector. They existed since before I-don’t-know-when and therefore are known to be of good quality. They have always had great cameras, real high quality, despite the number of megapixels. Yeah, true gold. Together with these, other new phones have quality cameras that I would like to list the best I’ve encountered.

    1. iPhones.

    Well, we have all seen all those mirror photos on social media. Everyone with an iPhone is showing off at every possible opportunity. Ask around, it is known to be the best smartphone everywhere globally. It also has a very good camera. What an understatement! It’s a high quality camera actually, whether it is an iPhone 5, 6, 7 or 8. The minor problem with iPhones is just the price. It is not affordable to many, thus the show-off.

    iPhone 5 image

             2. Samsung.

    This brand is famous too internationally. The Samsung phones take amazing photos too with amazing details almost like a real camera. Some of the phones on this brand are expensive while others are quite affordable. The quality of its photos depends on high megapixels but still the photos cannot be compared to others that claim to be of equal megapixels.

    Samsung J7 prime image by Thechemutaicollection

           3. Sony

    Some brands started out strong and are not compromising their quality for nothing. Sony is one of them. It is not as popular as other phones in Kenya, but well, it is quite common too. Sony are mostly known for other electrical appliances but not much for phones. They however have very high quality photos as their cameras are built upon decades of Sony camera expertise. You can find some of them here.

    Sony Xperia image

             4. LG

    Talk about a brand that’s made a name for itself, LG certainly has. From electrical appliances until they launched their first smartphone in 2009, it is indeed a trustworthy brand that most people trust. And it’s camera, it doesn’t disappoint. From clarity to beauty and full colur, you cannot not fall in love with the phones.

    LG-P713 image

             5. Tecno

    There are ‘the phones’ and then there are ‘phones’. People mostly classify Tecno phones in the second category. True, it cannot be in the same class as the iPhone but I think by now it is pretty close. They are keeping up very closely and the good thing about it is that the have cheaper or budget phones per se, specs closely similar to iPhone and the like but at a slightly affordable price. Not that all Tecno phones have amazing camera but they have the Tecno Camon brand specifically designed for camera advantage.

    Tecno C9 image

               6. Infinix

    This one’s one tricky brand that came out of the blue and suddenly flooded Kenyan markets. Not that they are of poor quality, not at all. They bring competition to the expensive brands though at an affordable price for their users and with amazing specs, especially the camera. Impressive pictures they take.

    Infinix Hot 4 image by NjemArt

    Now, I know I am talking about phone cameras taking good photos but even with the best camera you can have a pitiful photo if you don’t take into consideration the phone photography tips. But don’t expect to have a 2mp camera producing a photo like one of a 16mp camera. They both go hand in hand, a good camera and good skills. Anyway we are learning and sharing all day everyday to get it right. And that’s how it is!

    DOs and DON’Ts OF PHOTO EDITING

    I heard once, that the point of women wearing make-up is to make it look like they are not wearing any. Imagine encountering a woman with a face full of make-up that looks as if it is mud-caked? If you are a woman and the first thing I notice about you is your make-up, then you’ve done it all wrong. Make-up is supposed to look natural, to agree with your face, your skin tone. God knows we have enough people looking like they’ve had head transplants. This is the same as photo editing. 

    It is supposed to enhance a photograph but not to make the photo look enhanced. With that, there some does and don’ts of photo editing I would like to share below.

    1. Don’t over–edit.

    It is better to under edit than to over-edit. If you over-edit a picture, it becomes the first thing the viewers see in the picture when they see it. If that is the case, then you’ve missed the whole point entirely. Your photo becomes the woman with too much make up.If you have added too much elements to your photo then it might even change the meaning the picture was supposed to portray. If you are not sure about what you are adding, do not add it. Just let your photo look natural. Remember, it is better to under-edit than to over edit.

    That is not a ‘natural plant’ green. Too much concentration of colour.

               2. Adding frames

    Do

    Frames can enhance a photo if they blend in well. A frame moderately decorated is good for use as it makes a photo look beautiful without distracting the viewer from the photo.

    Just a simple frame is good.

    Don‘t

    Okay, there are frames that leave a picture looking weird. Those frames that people add others with balloons to indicate a party mode, others with seaweeds and fish to indicate I don’t know what, please avoid. They sometimes change the meaning of the photo and end up causing a distraction.

    Anyone can tell that is fake vegetation and it is certainly not blending

              3. Blur.

    Do 

    When your photo has a blurred background focusing the eye of the viewer, it is beautiful. Some photo editing apps have a fake blur to bring this effect. This brings an interesting element to a picture and makes it appealing to the eye of the viewer.

    A good blurred background

    Don‘t

     The problem is that some do not blur it like the camera, they blur in a shape or certain proportion. It is very visible so it does not appear natural in the picture. Unless the background blur does blur the background well, do not use it. 

    The fake blur is visible in the area around the flower it does not reach.

    As you edit your photos, just make sure they do not seem edited. But if the elements you add are very visible, ensure they agree with the photo and do not look out of place. Remember, editing is all about playing around with the photo composition to create something epic And that’s how it is!

    ​BASIC PHONE PHOTO EDITING TOOLS

    Why do I say basic? All smartphones have galleries. I want to believe that anyone with a Smartphone, or any other phone for that matter that can store media files, has used or at least seen a gallery. For those who haven’t, well, it is where you can view media files, especially photos and videos.

    In another post, I said that it is ideal to edit photos instead of filtering while taking them. So yeah, in the gallery is where photos are edited. When you long press a photo, various options pop up, like delete, share, and edit is one of them. Okay, you probably knew that but I had to say it. So when you press edit you get a whole wide range of options. Most phones, especially the current android 6 marshmallow and above, now have a Google photos app.  As the most common photo app, I will mainly focus on it.
    Editing can be in various ways. The apps have the automatic editing or filter. This is where you just choose a certain filter and it automatically edits for you everything, colour, sharpness, contrast, all of it.

    There is however, manual editing, for lack of a better word. This is where you edit for yourself everything to the best of your liking. The basic areas of editing are mainly on the colour, light, pop and cropping.

    Light

    Some gallery apps allow overall editing of the light in the photo, to make it brighter or darker.

    • Others allow adjusting in different levels starting with exposure. You can either increase the exposure of a photo to make it brighter, or reduce it to make it darker as shown.

    • Contrast is the differences in light and dark used in photographs to create a special effect. It brings out the difference of one spot from another by either increasing colour concentration or reducing it in them.

    • Whites are the American parts of the photo, at least that’s what came to mind when I saw this. Okay, it the parts which are white or a brighter colour, they are either made a bit dull or brighter than they already are.

    • Highlights works with the light or bright parts of a photograph.

    • Shadows increase or reduces the shadows in the picture. It determines how dark or light a shadow is.

    • Blacks, well, is the opposite of whites, it darkens or brightens the blacks in the photo.

    • Vignette is an interesting editing feature as it helps focus the viewer’s eye to the main subject of the picture by darkening the photo from the edges.


    Colour

    It can also be edited in general without going into the fine details.

    If you want to adjust every feature of colour individually, then you go into the following.

    • Saturation in editing either increases the overall colour concentration or reduces it completely to an extreme of black and white.

    • Warmth is associated with the sun expressed with a yellow colour and coldness with snow which is mostly represented in blue. The same with photo editing, increasing warmth is when the picture becomes the sunny yellow and reducing is when the picture becomes cool blue.

    • You’ve seen cars with tinted windows? Well, photos can be tinted too! It is just basically making the photo have a shade of another colour and not being plain.

    • Skin tone reduces or increases the colour intensity of the skin of the subject of the photo.

    • Deep blue helps increase the colour intensity of the blue colour in the picture or making it fade.

    Crop

    Not the plants, this is an editing feature that allows one to remove unwanted bits or elements in a photo by cutting them out. It helps when the other option of taking a photo would have been to zoom, I stated in an earlier post as it does not degrade the photo quality as much.

    Red eye

    Red eyes in a photo are mainly caused by too much light or the use of the LED flash and most galleries allow them to be corrected while editing.

    Straighten, Flip and Rotate

    • This provides for making a picture upright at a certain angle if the elements or subject of the photo appeared slanted or to be leaning too much to one side. Sometimes a slanted photo creates an interesting photo and might not need correcting.

    • Flip is just used to make photo a mirror image of itself.

    • Rotate is used to rotate a photo at a 90degrees axis from its current position to the position of a person’s liking.

    Pop

    This is used to sharpen a photo. It brings out the details, or makes them pop or sharper. It could be good for photo which is a little blurry or of a poor quality phone camera.

    Face glow

    This is used to correct the face of the person in the photo by removing the pimples or rashes on the face and making it look a lot smoother, even tone and glowing.

    Editing is all about playing with the various editing features to create an interesting composition of your photo. Some of these we have used, others we only see, but can now understand their use. If there are other basic editing techniques and tools on your gallery that I haven’t mentioned, feel free to share. After all we are learning and sharing! Because that’s how it is!