5 smartphone hacks for travel photography

Besides capturing your precious travel memories, travelling is also the perfect opportunity to improve your photography skills. You can shoot with your camera, but your smartphone is also perfectly capable of capturing stunning photos. We have listed a few simple tips for you to get the most out of your smartphone and shoot the coolest photos.

1. Clean your lens
2. Manually control your camera settings
3. Use the rule of thirds
4. Get creative with your perspective
5. Edit your photos

#1 Clean your lens

A dirty lens is often the reason for blurry or dull photos. Your smartphone and your lens will get into contact with dust and dirt while using it, but also when stashing it away in your bag or pocket. Since you often use your phone, it’s almost impossible to not have fingerprint stains on your lens.

Thankfully, it is very easy to get rid of it by simply cleaning your lens before you take a photo. You can clean your lens with a microfibre cloth or simply with your t-shirt.

#2 Manually control your camera settings

If you want to significantly improve your photo quality, it is a must to set your camera settings manually. Always remember that the camera you are shooting with is not the most important thing. It’s what you do with the tools you have available to you, such as your smartphone.

You can set your camera settings manually via an external camera app. However, you can also control your camera settings via the standard camera app of your phone. It is usually possible to set the focus, exposure and white balance. Easily set the focus manually by clicking on the screen. Swipe up or down to adjust the exposure of your photo. To improve your photo quality, set your resolution as high as possible to get the best results.

#3 Use the rule of thirds

When taking a picture, you probably automatically place your subject in the centre of the frame. If you want to make your picture stand out, it is important to take pay attention and take a closer look at the composition of your photo. Using the rule of thirds, will help you improve the composition of your pictures.

First up, you should turn on the grid in your phone’s camera settings to help you follow the rule of thirds. Now, as soon as you want to take a photo on your smartphone, three horizontal and three vertical lines will run on your camera screen. The rule of thirds states that you place your subject at one of the four intersection points for a better composition.

In addition, the grid is also an excellent tool for keeping the horizon of your picture straight. Moreover, turning on your grid is a great way to pay more attention to your composition and improve the quality of your pictures.

#4 Get creative with your perspective

Are you visiting a popular touristic destination this summer? Then it’s time to think outside of the box and get creative with your perspective. You will make more interesting, exciting but especially more original pictures. Before taking your photo, take a good look around you and try to find a surprising angle. Take your picture from higher up for example, to create a bird’s eye view perspective or go lower to make your subject appear larger and stand out even more.

As you can see in the photos of the Eiffel Tower below, the perspective makes a big difference to the outcome and look and feel of the photo. The photo on the left is nice, but unorginial and uninteresting compared to the picture on the right. The low perspective makes the Eiffel Tower look more imposing. The picture on the right is therefore more interesting to look at.

In addition to finding an original angle, try to create depth by placing something in the foreground, such as flowers, to make your photo more interesting and pleasing to look at.

#5 Edit your photos

Editing your photos gives you more control over the outcome of your pictures. You can adjust the exposure afterwards or increase the contrast for example to improve your photo and make it stand out even more.

In addition to improving your photos, you can distinguish yourself as a photographer by editing your photos. You can create a certain atmosphere or look and feel and eventually develop your own style.

Editing photos on your smartphone can be done via the standard editing options of your camera app, but you can also do this via free external apps such as Lightroom, Snapseed or VSCO for even more possibilities and control.

Questions?

You have hopefully gained more insights and inspiration to take the coolest travel photos. Looking for more tips and inspiration? Follow us on Instagram and TikTok for daily inspiration. Want to know more? Don’t hesitate to reach out, we are happy to help you!