Shooting on the move

The arrival of a new baby usually means gigabytes of photos, especially in today’s very digital age. But not everyone can have the luxury of getting one of those digital SLRs that give photos a more professional look. Not everyone knows how to work one too (who has the time to read the manual or learn a new skill with a new baby?).

This, however, doesn’t mean you can’t shoot well with what you have. Good photos are mostly about making use of your surroundings. For this entry, we’ll talk about using the easiest and fastest tool you have: the camera phone.

You carry it around with you most of the time because it’s light, it’s your phone, probably your calendar too and it allows easy access to everything. Plus, you can easily send photo messages to friends and family, updating them of your little person’s growth and progress. If you have one of those top end camera phones, then even better.

Here are some tips on shooting with a mobile phone:

1. Check your camera phone’s settings and capacity. Some camera phones these days have up to five megapixels or even more. Some have black and white settings, fine/super fine, sepia mode, macro etc. Experiment with each setting and see what happens to it. You can always delete it if you don’t like the results. If your phone has ISO settings then even better. Mix and match – with flash, without flash – to see what works best. Set it to the finest resolution in case you get that perfect shot you want to print.

2. Use the available light around the room. Play with your bub near sources of light like windows or glass doors. Put his playing mat/bouncy chair near these places for best lights. The morning and afternoon sun gives a really good soft glow so try and catch that. If there’s very little light, adjust the setting to a higher ISO and no flash – if you want a softer effect. Camera phone flashes can be a bit too harsh but they are useful when you just want “in the moment” shots.

3. Experiment with angles. Try several ideas, it’s easy to see the effect anyway and you can easily delete the ones you don’t like. Try focusing on just the eyes, lips, hands, half a head or a weird pose. Try taking angles from the ground, up above, on the side etc. Anything goes, and you’ll probably end up with a really artsy shot.

4. Buy additional memory. Your phone will probably start getting full after several shots especially if you set it to take super fine photos or higher resolution images. Get a micro SD card or whatever memory card your mobile phone takes – ask sales people in stores if you’re not sure.

5. Avoid using the digital zoom. Mobile phone digital zooms are still very grainy so try to move forward instead of zooming.

Lastly, make sure you charge your phone a lot because with the extra photo taking comes extra battery chewing.