When taking pictures on mobile phones, the obstacle of the lack of adequate natural lighting may appear. Even the smartphones with the most powerful flash or the best lighting accessories can still be insufficient or the results may not match the vision the photographer had before the image was captured. And it is that if the lighting conditions are not optimal, the result in photography can be disastrous.
The three main types of lighting that exist are front, rear and side
Hence the need to have some tips such as the following to improve lighting and obtain the best results from mobile phone cameras.
Existing types of lighting
The first thing that should be clarified is that it has to do with the three main types of lighting, something essential and that will determine the result of the image. In such a way that the first advice would be to know these types of lighting. They are the following:
-Front lighting: The light source is positioned just in front of the subject to be captured. It is convenient to use it on days with cloudy skies or at times when the sun is about to rise or set.
-Rear lighting: One of its most frequent uses is for sunrises or sunsets, remaining behind the subject so that it appears as a shadowy silhouette. The incidence of this type of light on the edges of objects or subjects can be used to generate threads or flashes of light.
-Side lighting: It supposes that the light reaches only one of the sides of the subject object to be photographed, marking the contrast with the shadow in which the other part of it remains.
Tips for using lighting when taking photos
As for how to use lighting, this would be 10 of the most useful tips for general photographybut which is even more important in the case of photography with mobile phones for reasons as diverse as that it has been the camera that everyone has carried in their pocket for years.
-Stay in the shade: In outdoor spaces there is nothing like natural lighting, but it is better that the mobile remains in the shade or at least place a hand that casts a shadow on the lens to avoid reflections.
-Do not become the shadow: Especially in sunsets, the results can be wonderful, but since the light source is so low above the horizon, there is a risk that the photographer himself projects his shadows on the object or subject to be photographed. To avoid this, it is advisable to situate yourself in a position and/or choose a framing that breaks the light source-camera-subject axis by laterally moving the framing or the position of the photographer.
-Do not photograph people or objects that are in the shade: If they are in the shade, the lighting may be insufficient, especially if the mobile lens remains in sunlight.
-Do not use the flash: Provided that the lighting conditions are sufficient, it is better to deactivate the Flash since its flash can cause brightness in the image or distort the white balance, causing the colors to appear altered.
-Do not use the zoom: Using the zoom on mobile phones loses resolution, which can decrease image quality, but also when zooming increases the amount of white light that is captured, which unbalances the white balance And the image will be Captured in paler tones.
-Use a ring light: One of the most popular lighting accessories are ring lights, very popular among influencers and streamers as they allow the mobile to be placed inside a ring system of LEDs that provide magnificent lighting. Theory of the models allow you to choose both the intensity of the lighting and its tone, warmer or colder. Sometimes, for both people and objects, results can be improved by placing this ring of light at a 45° lateral angle with respect to the object to be photographed.
-Fix manual settings: Every mobile phone comes with its own image capture application with simple settings. Learning to configure them, you can improve the quality of the capture by varying parameters such as brightness, exposure time, aperture
-Install a third-party application: For more professional users or those looking for more demanding results, there is a wide range of applications from third-party developers that allow both iOS and Android to expand the configuration possibilities.
-Try with black and white photography: The absence of colors and the possibility of having white, black and an infinite range of grays can add definition and strength to images precisely by eliminating the “noise” of color. In addition, and given that what the camera sensors capture is the reflection of the light that comes from the surfaces, there are some colors that reflect the light of Banegas so different that when taking the photograph in black and white surprising results can be obtained.