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Buy a phone that is easy
to use. You should be able to shoot, add text or a voice message and send.
Check with customer care of your cellular service provider whether network supports sending and receiving picture messages. Find out the price-per-picture. How much does it cost to send and receive picture messages? Some operators offer unlimited picture messages sent for a monthly price other may charge per message. Also find out about the additional charges if any. Can same message be sent to multiple people without being charged each time? Enquire as it is network dependent. |
| How to get good pictures:
Keep your lens clean. Camera phone lenses are quite small so any grease or dirt will affect the clarity of your photo. Soft lens cloths can be purchased from opticians and camera shops. Buy a case to protect your phone when its in your pocket or in your bag. |
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Memories:
Storage capacity need
to be checked before buying. Memories on most phones fill up quickly, so
it is also important to transfer the images you would like to store
in your computer as quickly as possible to keep the memory of phone available
for future shooting.
If your camera phone doesnt
have infra red or Bluetooth, you can always send the photos to your email
address using MMS, then delete the photos from your phone. This will ensure
that you always have enough space free for other pictures.
Lighting:
Camera phone gives better
images when the subject is well lit. Some camera phones do have a built
in flash, so use it if you arent in a well-lit situation.
Strong back lighting has
a tendency to trick the camera phone into underexposing the subject. For
best results stand with the light behind you and not the subject.
Composition:
Framing your Shot - The
most important thing is to fill the frame with your subject as much as
possible, especially with portraits. Images taken on a camera phone are
small, so if you want to get a better result then crop your subject as
tight as you possibly can.
Get close - Most
camera phones don't have telephoto lenses so if you take a photo of a person
or building that's far away, the main subject will be tiny. For most photos
you'll get a much better shot by filling your phone's screen with a close
up of the subject. But beware getting too close may result in distortion
like an extra large nose etc. Some of the camera phones offer a macro facility,
which ensures sharpness when capturing close ups.
Some more useful suggestions:
Send your picture from
a good cellular coverage area. If you're transmitting a photo in an area
where the cellular signal is weak, it could take longer to send the photo
than when you're in a strong signal area. If you're paying for airtime
to send a photo, it could make a difference in the price. Although photos
generally are transmitted in under a minute, if it goes over 60 seconds,
you will pay for another minute.
Enter a title for each photo. If you're not used to entering text on a keypad, it can be a frustrating and slow process. But don't skip this step or you'll have to click on each photo to determine if you wanted to see 005 or 012. Title the photos before you send/save them or wait until you go home and enter names for a bunch of them.
Understand file quality settings.Cameras phones often have three quality setting: Low, Medium and High. Snap the same photo at all the different resolutions and look at the size and quality on your phone and your computer screen to determine which resolution you prefer to use. It's easy to change the resolution, but you'll probably set it at one resolution and not change it often.
Create "quick phrases." Most cellular phones with messaging capabilities enable you to create and store phrases that may be used for the subject or text of your messages. If you know you're going to be taking photos at, for example, Taj Mahal, create a phrase that reads, "Taj Mahal - 9-9-04" and store it in your phone. That way you won't have to enter the same phrase for each photo.
Optical zoom is considered better than digital zoom if you have a choice. Digital zooms employ software to increase a photo's size but they also decrease the quality by merely "blowing up" a segment of the picture. Even people with multi-megapixel digital cameras typically use the optical zoom, not the digital one. Although feel free to check out digtal zoom yourself.
Explore the white balance. The "white balance" feature, changes the photo color based upon the lighting conditions: Sunny, cloudy, dark, etc. There's also an "auto" feature that works fine most of the time. But if you have time and you don't like the way the photo looks on your LCD, change the white balance to see if it makes a difference.
Turn on the lights indoors. If you're shooting indoors, it's easy to get more light by raising the shades and/or shining a light on the subject of the photo. The type of light, by the way, could change the white balance from, for example, indoors to tungsten. Most camera phones today do not include a built in flash and, even if they do, the flash isn't very powerful.
You can assign photos to names in your address book. Your phone includes "text" caller ID (where the name of the person calling is displayed), but it also probably has "photo" ID where a photo or graphic pops up when a person calls. It's more than just fun; it's useful if you can't match a name with a face.
Send photos and graphics to your phone. Your phone should be able to accept photos and graphics sent via e-mail. If you want to link a photo of a friend to his/her phone number but haven't snapped a photo from your phone, you could send a photo that's stored on your desktop or laptop computer. But make sure the photo's file size is small. If the photo is too large, your cellular operator's system might reject it.
You also should be able to use photos and graphics sent to your phone as wallpaper and screensavers.
Many camera phones offer special effects, such as changing a color photo to black and white or sepia, as well as adding colorful borders and frames around the photo.
Keep track of your battery. Camera phones use lots of power. With their internal and external color screens, animations, polyphonic ringtones and other fun and useful features, these phones drain your battery much more quickly than less feature-rich phones. If you take lots of photos during the day, make sure to keep track of your battery level and recharge it frequently. You may also keep an extra battery with you.
Hope these tips would be useful. Happy shooting!