Most of us never swipe away from Auto mode on our phone cameras.
That’s definitely the quickest way to snap a photo, but you can get great shots with advanced camera modes.
Phones like the Motorola Signature feature multiple high quality lenses and sensors, and even mid range models like the Motorola Edge 70 have a stunning main camera.
Let’s check out how to get the most out of your phone camera. All images following in this article were shot with the Motorola Signature.
Portrait Mode
Portrait mode is the easiest way to take a great shot of your family, friends, and pets, or even objects where you want the item isolated from the background.
Portrait mode on phones with multiple lenses usually gives you access to telephoto lens lengths to make framing easier and provide better depth.
Longer focal length results in a thinner depth of field, meaning the subject stays in focus but everything else is pleasingly blurry.
85mm equivalent lengths are great for portraits of people, while 50mm is a classic, versatile choice for a variety of subjects. 35mm and shorter are great for faster moving subjects or getting more of the scene in focus.
Some phones have a post processing setting that lets you adjust bokeh after taking the shot. This can help you blur the background or bring back a bit of background context after the fact, helping you stay in the moment while shooting.
The Motorola Signature and Edge 70 feature a choice of equivalent focal lengths that give you great flexibility in Portrait Mode. The Edge 70 features 24mm, 35mm, and 50mm focal lengths, with the Signature adding an 85mm equivalent that’s ideal for flattering human portraits.
Filters & Styles
The Motorola camera app includes Natural and Signature colour styles to choose from. Natural provides a more realistic result, while Signature boosts colour and contrast to enhance photos and make them pop on social media.
Signature works great for landscapes and architecture, but falls apart a bit if you’re looking for realistic skin tones and colours.
Scene detection modes help you get automatically enhanced images when the camera detects subjects like food, landscape, portraits, animals, sports and more. You can either accept these enhancements or swipe them away to keep control.
Additional filters in the photo mode help you achieve unique photographic styles. A few favourites of mine on the Motorola phones are Tokyo Warm for a nostalgic, film-like look and New York Retro for a moody result with boosted greens.
Pro Mode
If you know how to use Pro Mode, it’s great for achieving total creative control over your photographs.
Pro Mode bypasses automatic digital processing, handing back controls over white balance, ISO, shutter speed, and focus. By setting one or more of these, you can get reliable results from photowalks and help to keep your images consistent across a set.
Auto settings can sometimes lets you down in low-light indoor shots where it tries to overcompensate for a dark scene. Shadows are over-boosted and the mood of the shot is lost. Pro mode can help by allowing you to fix the ISO and white balance.
It’s great for fast-moving subjects too, since you can boost shutter speed to freeze motion.
If you’re looking to achieve an artistic result, you can use Pro Mode to achieve light trails with a long exposure or tight manual focus on particular parts of a subject in macro.
Some main settings I love to keep fixed in Pro Mode are white balance to keep a set of photos looking even from frame to frame. Setting shutter speed to around 1/250 or faster helps me to freeze motion and prevent blur from shaky hands.
Phone Camera Photography
Auto is great for happy snaps and capturing moments as quickly as possible, but if you’ve got a minute to frame up and focus in, today’s phones like the Motorola Signature are very capable cameras that can give you excellent results for posting and printing alike.
Next time you’ve got a moment to capture in front of you, try swiping through the different camera modes to see what you can achieve.
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