Top Tips: Smartphone Photography!

Ready to take phenomenal photos with your phone? Around DB photographer Andrew Spires, who uses his Huwei Pura70 Pro even for cover shoots, has the lowdown I had some friends in town so we took them out for dinner on D’Deck. As the sun was setting and we were entering ‘golden hour’ – where the sun creates that beautiful soft glow – we asked a passing waitress if they wouldn’t mind taking our photo. She looked terrified. The resulting photograph, on later inspection, was of the waitress’s face. Clearly panicked by taking strangers’ pictures, she’d inadvertently switched to the reverse camera and snapped her own beautiful profile. To avoid this fear and be a phenomenal phone photographer, follow my top tips to unlock your phone camera’s secret powers and build your confidence behind the lens. The first step is the easiest. Unless you’re after that 1970s snuff-movie look, clean your lens. A smudged lens can mean the difference between a hazy snapshot and a crisp, vibrant photo. Clean your lens before every shoot. A quick wipe with a microfibre cloth (I use my t-shirt) can make all the difference. Your phone’s flashlight should only ever be used to find your keys at night. Avoid using it to lighten your subject, as it will f latten your image and give it a creepy glare. You can switch it of f by clicking the flash icon. Click it of f and keep it of f. Instead, seek out ambient light sources: a desk lamp, s tring lights, or even the glow of another smar tphone screen can add moody and cinematic flair. The best way to combat blur is by keeping your phone completely still. Place your phone on a shelf or table propped up by a glass and use the phone’s timer function, available in the settings. That way you can click the shot and run into the picture. Most phones have a night mode which acts as a delayed shutter, allowing in more light, but again, you’ll need to balance your phone on a solid object to keep it still when using this function. If you’re still using wired headphones, you can press the volume button to activate the shutter. Finally, simply ask the people being photographed to stand or sit very still, and voila, crisp and clear shots, even in the corner of the pub! Grid it up. A well-composed photo doesn’t just capture a scene – it guides the viewer’s eye. One of the best lessons I was taught on photography is the ‘Rule of Thirds,’ a simple principle where you mentally divide your frame into a 3x3 grid. Luckily, your phone can do this for you. Click the settings icon and select the grid. Unlike the flash, you should always keep this on. Place your subject along these grid lines or at their intersections to create a more dynamic shot. Align your subject’s eyes with the top gridline, or a landscape where a solitary tree stands at the intersection of the right third of the grid lines. Avoid placing your subject right in the middle of the shot. Negative space is also worth considering. If you’re shooting a sky or sea, emphasise that expanse by placing another object, be it a boat or plane, right at the bottom or to the far edges of your frame – give your subject room to breathe. For high-contrast scenes like woods or clouds, you can enable HDR, or High Dynamic Range mode. Your phone will take multiple exposures to preserve detail in both highlights and shadows. You might want to turn this off after using it as the image files will be larger than usual and will take up valuable phone memory. If you’re shooting the kids playing with a ball or a black kite diving for its dinner, not only will you need great light, but you can maximise your chances of a great shot by using the burst mode, which will take a series of shots a second. You then simply go back through the images and delete any shots that don’t hit the mark. It’s a good idea to get into the habit of deleting poor images or someday you’ll go to take that once-in-a-lifetime selfie with Chris Martin and find your phone is out of memory. Get yourself, as well as your subject into position. Don’t shoot every picture standing up. Crouch down and shoot up at your subject. This works well when shooting reflections in puddles. You can also play around with reflections in windows, sunglasses, or even your subject’s eyeballs! Adding an object in the foreground of your shot can lead the viewer’s eye into the picture. The best technique for this is to use the phone’s autofocus function. Imagine you’re in a coffee shop and you want to capture your partner reading their book opposite you. As opposed to simply taking their picture, pop a coffee cup right up in the foreground, then place your phone upside down – the benefit of this being you’re putting the phone’s camera at its lowest point for a whole new exciting perspective. Now touch the screen so that the focus is only interested in your friend and blurs the coffee cup and foreground, then shoot. You now have a beautiful image and not a dull, listless picture of your mate. Share this on the socials and you’ll rack up the engagement. So you’ve taken some great shots. Now to the final stage, editing. Start with free apps like Lightroom Mobile for precision adjustments or Snapseed for healing away distractions like hanging cables or rubbish. Preset filters can add warmth or grit, but don’t overdo it. You’re not 10 – over-filtered photos look terrible. Be careful too with the vignette function. Less is more. When editing your snaps, follow this simple workflow: adjust exposure to balance light, tweak shadows and highlights to recover detail, nudge vibrancy (not saturation!) for natural colour pop, and finish with subtle sharpening. Remember, editing should enhance, not overpower. You’ll soon notice you develop your own signature look. Once you’ve mastered the basics, experiment wildly. Use apps like Slow Shutter Cam to blur rushing waterfalls or car headlights into streaks of colour. Have fun with it. Finally, it’s worth talking about which phone has the best camera. I use an Huwei Pura70 Pro. The camera is mind-bendingly good. The Samsung S25 Ultra also scores highly, along with the iPhone 16 Pro Max, although this is HK$4,000 more expensive than its competitors. Amazingly, the upcoming horror 28 Years Later was shot entirely on an iPhone 15, perhaps proving that we’re nearing the end of the DSLR! The convenience of having an almost professional quality camera in your pocket is something I don’t take for granted, although I still look back at photos I took on my iPhone 11 and realise it’s more about the quality of the composition and the thought that’s gone into the shot, than the tech used to capture it. 5 AFFORDABLE ACCESSORIES 1. Clip-on macro lenses: turn you into a close-up photo-taking machine, only useful if your phone’s zoom is any good. 2. Flexible mini tripod: steadies your phone for a crystal-clear shot, but a bit cumbersome to carry around. 3. Portable ring light: provides flattering light anywhere, but you’ll look like a loony. 4. Portable battery: handy if you’re out all day and not near a plug socket. Just remember to charge it and bring the correct cable. Not like me. 5. Lens cleaning pen: much better than your t-shirt.