By popular request, here are my tips on shooting better videos on your smartphone. If you've been to an event, whipped out your phone and been disappointed later by blurry, jerky, muffled, badly lit footage, then these tips are for you! From light to movement to mundane practicalities, it's all covered below.
Taking a photo of that family member, friend or scene is the obvious function of your smartphone camera. But a little lateral thinking sees quite a few extra uses for this equipment - your phone camera isn't just for Christmas (and holidays), you know. See if any of these examples ring true in your experience... Can anyone remember life before we all had cameras with us 24/7? Me neither!
Unless you've (literally) had your head under a rock for the last 3 years, you'll have noticed that 'thin' is 'in' in the phone world. The thinner the better and the lighter the better - the aim seems to be to create a phone that's nearly all screen and never mind its other attributes. Playing devil's advocate, I present five reasons why thinner is not necessarily better.
Following on from comments in this week's Insight podcast, I thought it might be useful to work through some of the most common 'mistakes' beginners make when snapping away with a camera phone. These apply specifically here to Nokia's devices, which tend to have cameras of reasonable (and sometimes excellent) quality, but also more generically to those from other manufacturers to greater or lesser degrees. If you're a beginner with camera phones then read on to see what you can do to improve your casual snaps.
Take a look at the slab of high tech in your hand. Are you struck by a sense of wonder that it's so compact and that it can do so much? I am. But then I'm old-school, coming from a generation for which things could do a whole lot less. For someone under (say) 20 years of age, there's a completely different attitude to technology in general and to mobile technology in particular. Is losing one's sense of wonder at how things work necessarily a problem? Or could a new attitude to technology promote higher standards of expected quality and reliability from manufacturers?
