There's a Thing in my Pocket - Tips on Mobile Phone Photography

I'm going to be really frank here - serious DSLR photography is by no means a cheap hobby. The cost of DSLR bodies and good lenses are significant investments for almost everyone but professional photographers. It's especially painful if you're a student surviving on meagre allowances from parents.

Enter the cameraphones. Almost everyone has one these days, and they come in a humongously diverse array of (software) specifications. Whilst some cameraphones come with very attractive-looking in-camera processing (I'm a fan of the Sony Ericsson K850i's), the most important aspects of mobile phone photography revolve around two main factors - their small physical size, and small sensor size.

Swaying in the Wind

Because of their small physical size, the cameraphones are a lot more prone to the effects of shaky hands. This is why you should always use two hands to support your cameraphone.

Depth of What?

To keep their dimensions down, cameraphones utilise tiny image sensors - smaller than those in compact cameras! Small sensor sizes cause cameraphones to have a very deep depth of field - in other words, the background doesn't blur much, nor can you achieve those "bokehlicious" shots. Aesthetically speaking, this means that you get less subject isolation.

In this case, composition becomes even more important. Focus on the form of your subject. Does it have a distinctive shape? Are there lines in the frame that can help direct the viewer's attention to what you want to show?

Noise

Small sensor sizes also mean that cameraphones aren't usually terribly good at noise control - definitely not good for shooting in the dark. The LED or xenon flashes on cameraphones are also of limited use since they have too much of a tendency to washout your subjects.

That leaves only one option - clever post-processing. Try to process your cameraphone shots to emulate film such that the noise looks like film grain. Be liberal with tinting your photos! Or convert it to monochrome so that the noise actually adds to the overall quality of the image for a gritty feel. Here are some examples of the heavy processing I usually apply to photos from my Samsung INNOV8.

On another note, high-end cameraphones usually have more advanced algorithms that are actually quite effective at noise control. However, this usually happens at the expense of losing precious details in the shadow areas.

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For all their shortcomings, cameraphones have two huge advantages. The first of that is discreetness. By learning how to roughly compose your shots with the phone to your ear (like you're answering the phone), you can get street shots that are as interesting as those made by professional street photographers shooting their rangefinders from the hip.


The other advantage is the fact that you'll always have a camera in your pocket, ready to capture the magical moments right as they unfold before your eyes.

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I hope you've found this article useful - as usual, constructive comments will be much appreciated!

Counting Down to 2010 - Fireworks Photography

Happy new year folks!

I celebrated the new year through fireworks photography at the Marina Bay countdown. I would consider shooting fireworks to be of moderate difficulty, but there's some stuff I've learnt that I shall share to make the learning curve easier for those intending to shoot fireworks in the future.

Essential Equipment

Equipment isn't everything when it comes to photography, but in some instances, having the proper equipment is absolutely necessary. Fireworks photography is one of such instances. You'll need at least a good stable tripod and a cable or remote shutter release.

You'll need stable tripod because you'll be shooting in the low-light conditions of night. Trying to shoot without a tripod will result in blurry photos or squiggly light trails from the fireworks. Forget those cheaper, shaky tripods - the vibrations of the literally earth-shaking boom from some fireworks may be enough to affect your shots. Likewise, your tripod had must be capable of being solidly secured in position to avoid the same problems. The point is, use a tripod that is as stable as possible.

What I did was to borrow a really heavy-duty Manfrotto 055XPROB tripod with a rock-solid Manfrotto 486RC2 ball head.

Next, the cable/remote shutter release. You don't want to directly trigger the shutter release on your camera because that introduces more vibrations that you've tried so hard to cut out! Using timed shutter release isn't a viable option either because you'll probably miss the fireworks that you want to capture by the time the shutter actually flips. Furthermore, remote shutter releases can come really cheap - I spent S$10 on a great third party - Jue Ying RC-4 5-in-1 infrared remote shutter release. It can remotely control the shutter release on Pentax, Nikon, Canon and KM/Sony DSLRs (and some compacts, I think). Furthermore, I tested it to work even at a range of about 10 metres. Didn't regret not buying the original Nikon ML-L3 remote shutter release (which costs the same but was out of stock) at all.

The last (albeit really small) piece of equipment is a viewfinder cover. What this does is to block out stray light that may pass through the viewfinder to the sensor during the long exposure's you'll be doing for fireworks photography, ruining the accuracy of your exposure. Remember, if you can see through the lens via the viewfinder, conversely, light can travel via the opposite direction.

Whether you'll really need a viewfinder cover depends on quite a number of things. In theory, since you'll be taking pictures at night, the amount of stray light that reaches the sensor through the viewfinder is greatly reduced. However, in practice, if you're standing really near the fireworks display, light from the fireworks display itself may enter the viewfinder as stray light. If you're standing near to concert lights, you'll also get stray light entering through the viewfinder. Camera flashes from other photographers may become stray light to you as well.

So how about this - when in doubt, just use the viewfinder cover. If you're using the latest DSLRs, that wouldn't be a big issue since you can simply use Live View to compose your shots. That's what I did. Unfortunately for me, I forgot to bring my viewfinder cover along, and there was plenty of potential stray light where I was. I improvised by wrapping my camera strap around the viewfinder to cover it. Not too elegant, but it worked!

Doing Your Homework

You should have an idea of what kind of photo you intend to take. Think of it as a "pre-composition" in your mind. Do you want to freeze the sparks of each burst in mid-air, or do you want the fireworks display to do a light painting for you? It helps to look at works of other photographers first.

Knowing what kind of photo you want will help you in choosing the settings to use for each exposure. More on that later. Your pre-composition will also affect your choice of location, which I will touch on now.

You'll have to look at maps of the area of the fireworks display. Think about which spot you should go to for a shot that matches your pre-compostion as much as possible. Which landmarks do you want in your photo? Will crowds be expected?

For my case, there was certainly a crowd. Singapore does have the highest population density of any country anyway! When I arrived at 6pm, I could barely squeeze into the prime positions for photography - there was already an army of photographers armed with their tripods, ready for an event that will only take place a full 6 hours later! Lesson learnt - if crowds are expected, do go early, or be prepared to get really friendly with other photographers when trying to ask them to shift a little so you can squeeze in!

Your pre-composition will dictate your lens choice. You may need to use an ultra-wide angle lens if the wide end of your standard zoom isn't enough. You may also want to consider if lens distortion will significantly affect your photo - you'll may want to get a wide prime lens if it does.

On Location

First up - compose your image to try to fit your pre-composition. Since you're likely to be doing a landscape photo of sorts - do remember to check that your horizon is straight. The in-camera gridlines really help.

The settings you use depends on the look you're after. I set my camera to shutter priority mode, and metered for the brightest building on the skyline using centre-weighted metering.

If you want to more or less stop the fireworks in mid-air, use a shutter speed of 1 to 2 seconds. If you're after longer light trails, you may want to use up to 8 seconds.

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Of course, there's the element of luck involved in fireworks photography - whether the fireworks will appear the way as you envisioned, etc.

May 2010 be a good year for everyone!