We might be talking about phone photography but it’s still photography. Give your phone the same respect you would give a normal DSLR camera.
1 – Get closer
Get as close as you can. You might be surprised by your phone’s macro capabilities.

2 – Lower the exposure
When you’re taking photos with your phone it will usually be over-exposed. Lower the exposure just a little bit. It can make for a much better image.


3 – Zoom in. Slightly
Zooming in just a little bit can help to flatten the photo by fixing some of the distortion of the lens. I find zooming in between 1.5x or 2x to work best.

4 – Use HDR wisely
HDR can be beneficial when you want to capture an entire landscape with all its detail. It can also make a great dramatic photo, such as the one below.

There will be times when you don’t want to use HDR. Such as when capturing a sunset or sunrise. With the photo below I wanted to focus mainly on the clouds and the color of the sky. The foreground was just a boring empty field and wouldn’t have added anything to the photo. So instead of using HDR mode, I used normal mode, lowered the exposure quite a bit in order to get the full color of the sky, and as a bonus the trees made for a great silhouette.

5 – Auto vs Manual Mode
The advantage of using manual mode is being able to control the camera settings yourself.
Using the images below as an example. The photo on the left was taken with auto mode. As you can see the image is soft and not as sharp compared to the one on the right. This is because of the high ISO. Because there wasn’t much natural light, the phone increased the ISO to make the sensor more sensitive to light and increased the shutter speed to get the sharpest photo possible. But the photo isn’t sharp because of the high ISO.
The photo on the right was taken in manual mode. I decreased the ISO to the lowest setting, then slowly decreased my shutter speed until the vine was exposed correctly.


If you found this helpful, here are 10 more phone photography tips.
Learn about using manual mode for phone photography.
Want to learn how to edit your photos with your phone?
Confused by some photography terminology? Here’s a list of photography jargon.
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Thank you for this post. I own a Samsung Galaxy S21 ultra which has an amazing camera. I am going to Iceland in February and I will use these tips to try and improve the photos I take.
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Have a wonderful journey! If you’re on Instagram, feel free to tag me. I’d like to see how your photos turn out! 🙂
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This is highly expository
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I’m glad you found it helpful 🙂
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I take a lot of pics using only my phone. These tips will come in very handy👍🏾.
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Good luck and have fun! 🙂
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Enjoyed reading some of your blog. I wonder if you have any advise on shooting sunsets. The sun always bleaches out a picture where with film photography, you get that nice clean circle that we all see of the sun. of course, depending on your settings.
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Lower your exposure by increasing your shutter speed 🙂
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Wow @wanderingambivert, thank you for such great insights on Phone Photography. I need to learn more so will check out the other blogs you did around the subject. Very useful information indeed 💯👌👌👌
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I’m glad you found it helpful!
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Tips very helpfull and interesting
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I’m glad you found them helpful 🙂
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thanks for these tips i am using a samsung phone myself and did not even know a manual mode existed :’)
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Well now you do! Good luck and have fun! 🙂
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thanks for the tips–very useful
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It’s a pleasure! I’m glad you found them useful 🙂
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This was a timely article for me to find. I have been frustrated taking good pictures on my phone. When I got to #2 I didn’t know how to make that adjustment so started poking around in settings. I found a bunch of useful stuff there. Thank you for sharing this information.
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I’m so glad I was able to help you to spark your curiosity to learn more about phone photography 🙂
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Interesting tips! I wonder how to lower the ISO on an iPhone 10…?
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There are quite a few premium photography apps in the app store 🙂
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