Photography tips and general advice?

[Aditya Phulwani]

Hello everyone,
So, ever since i got my hands on the 920, ive felt this sudden unexpected rise of interest in photography. not that i wanna take it up as a profession. But just like the feeling Im starting to get when i take a beautiful shot.
Quite frankly I really dont know much (actually nothing at all) about taking good pictures, light conditions, ISO, Exposure Value, white balance or any of that pro-camera stuff. All I really know is to press the shutter button when you see something picture-worthy. And its not giving me the results i'd like. And I know the camera is brilliant and Ive seen the kinda pictures people take with this phone.

So anyways, what I was hoping is, that some of you with a good know-how and advanced skills in photography or anyone who has any relative knowledge/information regarding taking good pictures, could just share some useful information for us n00bs. Would be great.

Any tips for beginners, explanation of different photography lingo and terms, general advice, anything at all.

Hopefully this could help quite a lot of people who are interested.

Thank you and Cheers!

PS: Mods if this thread belongs to another section of the forum, feel free to move it, more help from more people would be beneficial for everyone.

 

[Vaibhav Chauhan]

I'm no expert on photography but i do take decent pictures, since i don't own a 920 can't exactly tell you how. Maybe you will these articles helpful:
Nokia Lumia 920 Photo guide: How to make the most of your camera | Windows Phone Central
5 great Nokia Lumia 920 camera tips videos – Nokia Conversations : the official Nokia blog

 

[anon(5816156)]

Would give you some tips, which hopefully helps you.

ISO - The higher the ISO, the more light are allowed to the camera, which is brighter but also raise more noise. Higher ISO is usually suitable for low light photography.

Close Up - Close up or otherwise Macro (on Nokia Lumia) will allow you to shoot things even closer. However, it can't shoot everything less than 10cm (And in this case, 8cm on your 920). You can find this settings on Scenes mode

Exposure Value - Can hardly explain this but give it a try! You will soon understand it.


If you don't want blurring on pictures, make sure you have got plenty of light around you. Sure the 920 has OIS which eliminates blurs due to camera shakes. But it still can't remove motion blur (Moving objects), especially on night.
I also have a great app for you. Go buy the ProShot app, which costs $3, I suppose? But really. This app releases the camera potential. Best of all, this app can help you to focus manually. So that means you can focus less than 8cm with manual focus!
Best of all, spend your time to explore the camera settings. A great photographer comes from an experience and not these tips. Try shoot an object in different angles and see the differences!

Hopefully I can help you on this.

 

[melvintwj]

Would give you some tips, which hopefully helps you.

ISO - The higher the ISO, the more light are allowed to the camera, which is brighter but also raise more noise. Higher ISO is usually suitable for low light photography.

Close Up - Close up or otherwise Macro (on Nokia Lumia) will allow you to shoot things even closer. However, it can't shoot everything less than 10cm (And in this case, 8cm on your 920). You can find this settings on Scenes mode

Exposure Value - Can hardly explain this but give it a try! You will soon understand it.


If you don't want blurring on pictures, make sure you have got plenty of light around you. Sure the 920 has OIS which eliminates blurs due to camera shakes. But it still can't remove motion blur (Moving objects), especially on night.
I also have a great app for you. Go buy the ProShot app, which costs $3, I suppose? But really. This app releases the camera potential. Best of all, this app can help you to focus manually. So that means you can focus less than 8cm with manual focus!
Best of all, spend your time to explore the camera settings. A great photographer comes from an experience and not these tips. Try shoot an object in different angles and see the differences!

Hopefully I can help you on this.

ISO - Sensitivity to light, not the amount of light entering the lens. That's Exposure you're talking about. Higher ISO = higher sensitivity to light at the expense of quality. High ISO = brighter image with noise.

Close up - Macro shot, or in simple terms, taking a photo with the subject close to the camera. My tip for this is to half-press the camera button while focusing on something far away. That will cause the camera to kinda adjust to the minimum focal length, and then after the focus is set in, point your camera at the subject and slowly adjust your distance from the subject.

Exposure - Amount of light allowed to enter the lens. Higher exposure = more light entering.

ProShot app is good, but I'd recommend Clever Camera too! Both apps are more or less the same, but I think that the CC has a better interface for a camera app And these apps allow you to adjust your shutter speed too. Shutter speed refers to the amount of time the shutter is remained open when you take a photo. A longer time the shutter is opened, more light enters and gives you a brighter image

Best of my knowledge. Hope this helps!

 

[anon(5816156)]

ISO - Sensitivity to light, not the amount of light entering the lens. That's Exposure you're talking about. Higher ISO = higher sensitivity to light at the expense of quality. High ISO = brighter image with noise.

Close up - Macro shot, or in simple terms, taking a photo with the subject close to the camera. My tip for this is to half-press the camera button while focusing on something far away. That will cause the camera to kinda adjust to the minimum focal length, and then after the focus is set in, point your camera at the subject and slowly adjust your distance from the subject.

Exposure - Amount of light allowed to enter the lens. Higher exposure = more light entering.

ProShot app is good, but I'd recommend Clever Camera too! Both apps are more or less the same, but I think that the CC has a better interface for a camera app And these apps allow you to adjust your shutter speed too. Shutter speed refers to the amount of time the shutter is remained open when you take a photo. A longer time the shutter is opened, more light enters and gives you a brighter image

Best of my knowledge. Hope this helps!

Thanks for correcting me. I have always confused between exposure and ISO (Its definition, to be exact)
For close up, I suppose he knows the basic. But nevertheless, yeah.

And will try that Clever Camera too! Thanks anyway!

 

[rocketboy]

For general purpose photography I consider two things to be essential to getting a good shot.

1. Position your subject so that the light shines on your subject (more light the better). Good lighting is more than half the battle. Direct flash (as found on cell phones) is rarely a good substitute for good ambient light.

2. Hold your camera as steady as you can. The lower the light the steadier you need to be. The last point is a particular weaknesses of cell phones so you'll have to practice. It's difficult to be steady trying to keep your fingers out of the view of the lens, holding the camera far enough to see the screen, and maybe even tapping the screen at the last moment. I have the yellow gloss 920 which is particularly challenging because it's kind of slippery.

I'd add #2.5, which is less about the technical quality of the captured image (e.g. is it in focus, is it free from noise), but one of the things that separates the pros from mere mortals with a lot of tech is good composition.

Not to derail too much, but I've read that some people use tripods with the L920. What kind of mounting allows that?

 

[vlad0]

In most cases, place your object away from the center of the frame.. its very effective in macro/close up mode.

example: http://www.esato.com/phonephotos/cam/nokia/808_pureview/201302202339TR2N9r.jpg

Try not to split your frame with the horizon in two equal parts like in this example http://www.esato.com/phonephotos/cam/nokia/n8_00/2011121509222g6sN4.jpg and aim for something like this: http://www.esato.com/phonephotos/cam/nokia/808_pureview/201303172058dx3OgU.jpg

more foreground less sky, or more sky.. less foreground.

 

[Jaripi]

I have a good advice, upgrade your firmware .... it seems that a new 1232.5957.1308.00xx firmware is a clear improvement for camera software too (low light photos, sharpen day photos, etc.)

 

[tipu2185]

I hope there is a good compilation of photography tips and that thread is made sticky. It will help a lot of noob users.

 

[sjhippie]

The tech side will come with time and practice. The book I found most helpful in learning about the fundamentals of ISO etc is called "Understanding Exposure." Understanding Exposure: How to Shoot Great Photographs with a Film or Digital Camera (Updated Edition): Bryan Peterson: 9780817463007: Amazon.com: Books This single book helped me with soooo many aspects of my shooting. So much so that I ventured back into shooting film and I LOVE it.

Also, the most fundamental thing to learn that will immediately make your photos better is just taking a minute or two to think about composition. So many people these days just "point and shoot" like the commercials say. But if you take a moment to look at your framing, look for interesting lines, rule of thirds (link below) and color contrasts you will begin to take better photos almost immediately. The rule of thirds is probably the single most important thing you should read up on. Join Flickr and talk to people on there as well. I had fun taking photos but as I got composition down I felt my photos get better right away and that made me want to shoot even more. Good luck! Shoot me any questions you have if you want.
Rule of Thirds

 

[Aditya Phulwani]

Thank you so much for the tips everyone. Very Enlightening.

I've been playing around with the different camera settings in different conditions and seeing what works best. And I'm loving it.

The difference between ISO and Exposure Value have me confused. But I guess ill slowly get the hang of it. Gonna buy the ProShot or CleverCamera App soon and play around a little more.

Keep the tips rolling im sure this will help quite a lot of people

Cheers!

 

[Aditya Phulwani]

Also any advice on how to clean the camera lens? I don't really prefer to use a cover and my previous phone's (SG Note) lens had wayyy too many scratches after a couple of months and i dont want that happening to my 920.
Should i use a cover? Or would cleaning it be enough?

 

[anon(5816156)]

Also any advice on how to clean the camera lens? I don't really prefer to use a cover and my previous phone's (SG Note) lens had wayyy too many scratches after a couple of months and i dont want that happening to my 920.
Should i use a cover? Or would cleaning it be enough?

The official cover from Nokia should do the job. It's not that bulky and that does not cost much either. And the cover does also help to prevent scratches on its lens.

 

[vlad0]

That book sjhippie pointed out is a gem for anyone interested in photography.

Here is another one from me.. first off don't expect anything amazing from your phone when it comes to Dynamic Range Dynamic range - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The sensors they use are way too small to expect solid performance, so you just have to deal with it. Even the 808 with all of it's fancy oversampling algorithms can't compensate for good DR, it still uses small 1.4 micron pixels, and combining pixels only takes you so far.

When it comes to white balance/exposure I've been using this "trick" successfully for long time now.. I've been using my phone as a main camera for over 3 years.

Let's say you are shooting something, but your sky gets blown out (when all you see is white, no blue or clouds), and you still want to show some blue up there. That happens because your phone is trying to compensate for the foreground/subject, which is too dark.

So if you want to find a compromise between the two, rotate the phone up (toward the sky; on it's x axis), and you will see that it will start to compensate for the sky as well. Find the balance/compromise you are looking for, half press the shutter key which should lock the exposure/white balance values, and then bring the phone back down, re-compose your original frame, and then full press to take the picture.

Now, this will make your foreground darker, but sometimes you could find an acceptable balance... and no one likes a blown out sky ; )

That is a simple example, you can apply that in other scenarios as well..

 

[melvintwj]

^A really great tip! I'd give it a try next time for sure

 

[Aditya Phulwani]

Wow. Thanks for that Amazing tip. makes a lot of sense. And yes, i believe just as you do, that there isnt much to expect from a phone camera. But to we get the best out of what little we have is great.

 

[sjhippie]

Yeah, I bought this phone specifically because of the camera (and some looking back because of WP) and daily I'm amazed at how good it is. If you had told me 4-5yrs ago I would have the capabilities I have now....

Wow. Thanks for that Amazing tip. makes a lot of sense. And yes, i believe just as you do, that there isnt much to expect from a phone camera. But to we get the best out of what little we have is great.