7 Tips For #Snapping Better #Pictures With Your #Smartphone #HTCOneLifeSA

Hi Guys, 

Smartphones have democratized photography, giving everyone the opportunity to unlock their creativity. Though it’s easy to snap a picture, it takes some technical suss and imagination to create a photograph that will get your friends on Facebook and Instagram talking. 

The good news, however, is that nearly anyone can learn how to take great snaps, provided they learn some basic disciplines and practice them until they become second nature. And with camera technology in smartphones improving all the time, these devices help you to capture meaningful moments and beautiful images wherever you are. After all, the best camera is the one with you, which is most likely to be your phone. It's getting so difficult to carry the DSLRs these days when you have 13-16MPs capacity camera sitting right in your pockets. 

Here are some general tips from HTC for using your smartphone camera to capture better photos: 

1. Pay attention to your background

Don’t get so caught up in focusing on your subject that you pay no attention to the background. For example, you don’t want to include the pavement rubbish bins when you’re taking a photo of your friend. Rather move closer or ask the person you’re photographing to step to the side to exclude the unwanted detail from the frame. 

2. Choose a perspective

Take your photographs from unusual perspectives to create interesting effects. Shoot upwards from a low angle to make things look large, or take your shot from a higher angle make things look smaller or to capture a larger area of detail

3. Zoom with your feet

Zooming with your camera phone results in pixelation and increases sensitivity to camera shake, resulting in blurred imagery. Rather get closer to your subject for the perfect close-up.

4. Avoid camera shake

To lessen camera shake, be as still as possible while shooting: take a deep breath in, hold, snap, breathe out.

5. Avoid using your flash

Using flash can give your photos a sterile, over-lit look, which can be especially harsh on faces. If you must use flash, why not cover it with some tracing paper to soften the effect?

6. Learn which apps and filters you love

Experiment with filters apps like Instagram to create a style that you like. When people see a pic with a particular filter, they’ll recognise your style. Pro tip: The VSCO app provides filters that are emulations of popular film cameras. There are hundreds of combinations you can create with the number of filters provided. 

7. Use apps to enhance your photos

Great photos are made in the editing process. Pro photographers almost always touch up their photos to get the exact look and effect they want. An app like Snapseed offers you basic editing tools and some cool filters to get you started. It also offers some features for heavy-duty editing once you’re more experienced.

I know everyone is master in their own art and style of photography they do and post on social media. Do share your comments and let's learn together and improve on our skills of mobile photography. 

Cheers!!!

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Product Launch - Nokia Lumia 1020 - 26 Sep 2013

Hi Guys,

It has been a pleasure to get invited to a Product Launch of something as grand as Nokia Lumia 1020 www.nokia.com/in-en/phones/phone/lumia1020/‎. The venue chosen for the launch was Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Saket (www.KNMA.in) and this was the first time I was going to be there. With great hopes in my mind, I started my journey to reach the place by it's scheduled time of 12pm onwards. As I entered the venue, I found the place to be already filled with a lot of youngsters from various mobile .com sites and press reporters along with camera men. I met my contact and he welcomed me to the event and asked me to go ahead with some snacks for all invitees. After having tea and talking to The Hindu Cameraman, Nokia crew asked us to move towards the venue specially created for the launch.

The whole theme of the event was in Yellow color so there I got that Lumia in Yellow will be launched later or atleast it will have something in common.

The event starts with an welcome speech by Ms. Kaul from Nokia Lumia. 

She invited Mr. P. Balaji, Managing Director, Nokia India to take on the stage and introduce the product.

Checkout the O in WELCOME in the form of Camera Lens which remained the theme of the Nokia Lumia 1020 Product launch.

Some great facts presented to make a momentum to the amazing world of Lumia. 27mn Nokia Lumia handsets sold till now. Windows OS is India's second largest OS in mobile phone category.


A small audio video presentation brought about some amazing photographs of people with facts about mobile photography taking center stage in our lives.

 Everyone is a photographer now. From a VGA or 1.3 Megapixel camera person to huge Pureview 41 megapixels everyone wants to capture something or the other.

As we have eyes, these cameras have lenses which has the capacity to capture minute details which our eyes sometimes misses too. After three minutes of video, I was convinced that I too belong to the family of Mobile Photographers. Some 2bn photographs are capture everyday around the world using mobiles and 600mn are uploaded on the internet daily. AMAZING FACTS!

Nokia has over 450 Imaging patents with them starting from their first camera phone to Pureview. They has a long history of innovations with was the theme of the hall in which this presentation was going on with photographs of various sets like Nokia 7650, N95, N8 etc. It took Nokia 5 years to make Nokia 808 Pureview phone with 41 megapixel lens.

N8 has been my favourite camera phone as I got it for a month or two for testing purpose while I was in London. Really took amazing photographs using the same. But I told the team clearly to change it OS from Symbian to something else to make it a grand success.

 After this presentation, another audio-video introduced the new NOKIA LUMIA 1020 to Indian press and consumers.

Here is the phone in full glory.
P. Balaji along with Vipul Mehrotra, Director - Smart Devices, Nokia IMEA with hands full of Nokia Lumia 1020.

Some features of the Lumia 1020 presented

The main focus of the whole press meet remained it's mighty camera which is 41megapixels and took 1 year to develop GUI & the same for windows phone version from Pureview 808.

Many feature - Zoom Reinvented and Fine tuning of the camera setting with a single click was presented and demo was given live.

Every pixel in Lumia 1020 is made of 7 pixels so you can zoom in and out at ease.

 The phone comes with wireless charging shell, a tripod camera case with battery and wireless charging plate.

This was one feature which when demonstrated really left me saying WOW! 

The presentation concluded with the tag line  - THE BACK IS THE NEW FRONT

Now it was time to invite some celebrities and Nokia chose three from diverse fields. Here they are

J J Vallaya, Imtiaz Ali and Vikas Khanna. Nokia gave them a Lumia 1020 one week earlier and asked them to shot various images on themes given to them. They all find the camera very useful and the clarity of snaps while printing left them surprised. It was an eye opener for them to that smartphones too can take and beat DSLR in it's own game. A whole exhibition was scheduled for the images clicked by these celebrities by Nokia on 27 Sep at the art gallery.

J J Valaya talking about his other interest - Photography and upcoming Delhi Photo Fest starting today.

 Vikas Khanna was at his humorous best and really bring laughs to this otherwise serious presentation. He looked so humble and impressive. It was my first time watching these stars and I couldn't believe my luck as I saw 8 celebrities in two days from back to back events.

The event wrapped up with a lunch after the launch and a goodies bag for everyone invited for the launch. The phone was displayed to be tested by the guests. The goodies bag included a Nokia on rice keyring, Nokia Lumia 1020 diary and a pen stand from KNMA.in art gallery along with a book about various painters and artists with a brief summary about each of them.

I felt great after the event and participated in their twitter contests also so as to win a Lumia device myself or the any other of many Lumia series phone or goodies. Hoping and fingers crossed! 

More info can be found out at - www.nokia.com/in-en/‎  or twitter @NokiaIndia & @WindowsPhoneInd

Cheers!!!

Contact me for your product's review on twitter @araijain or @thelifesway or email - thelifesway@gmail.com