Cellphone photography

Photos can be set-up, but I always found that great unstaged photos seemed to come the moment I did not have anything to snap a photo with!

This brings me to the point of this post, the cellphone .

Thanks to today’s busy world most of us now have this device on us at all times with it not being more than a couple of meters away from us at any given time!

Most of these phones can now also snap photos. The latest Nokia N8 due to be released soon in South Africa boasts a 12MP Carl Zeiss lens. Things are really getting shaken up in the mobile-phone photography world and more people are using this medium for social network sites .

Before digital took off a 4MP camera cost R8000; now entry level cellphones have a 3.2MP camera and cost less than this. My Nokia N97 has a 5MP Carl Zeiss lens and I love the photos it captures. Sure I would like more control over my picture taking and yes the flash on this phone is pretty crap but I still love the fact that should I see a great photo chance I will at least be able to capture it.

Below are a few pictures I took with my Nokia N97 cellphone. These pics were worked on slightly but mainly just levels and contrast.

Please view my mobile-phone photography portfolio here . All these pics are as I captured them with no work being done on them.

Some quick tips I can share are:

keep the sun behind you; mostly, not always
play with the phones camera settings eg. white balance, exposure, contrast etc.
keep the lens clean; dirt from your pocket or bag will quickly scratch your sweet spot
get a phone with a Carl Zeiss lens, as a photographer you know good glass counts for a lot

That being said, millions of people now have access to a camera to snap moments of their lives where before a digital camera may have been out of their budget.

I will keep taking pictures with my mobile-phone and I’m looking forward to Nokia’s new realease. Expect cellphone photography to grow further with the popularity of geo tagging and once the Apple iphone 4 is released in South Africa towards the end of the year as Iphone users are shown to be more artistic