Best lens kit for phone camera

September 18, 2019 5:08 PM

I need to step up my game in taking photographs with my phone. What is your favorite lens kits for phones and books on being a better photographer?

It is the 21st century and I realize that I do not really take good photos with my phone. First, what are my fellow mefites favorite/recommended lens kits for phones? Second, What are your recommended books on being a good photographer, in particular with the constraints of the phone camera?

I travel light, so nothing too heavy and I live like a grad student. What kind of photos? All kinds but I admit I have the quirk of photographing my hand puppets in awkward poses in famous places. Don't judge.

All suggestions welcome.

posted by jadepearl to Shopping (3 answers total)

My best tips for phone photography are to consciously think about light and framing, and to default to square aspect ratio. Learn how to use the tap-for-focal depth on your camera app and consider investing in a small tripod or mount. Roughly in that order. I’m also curious to hear about lens kits, but you can get a lot better without any new lenses too.
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:42 PM on September 18, 2019 [1 favorite]

It is the 21st century and I realize that I do not really take good photos with my phone.

Well does your phone take good photos? I have a Huawei with a stock Leica lens and it is the bomb. (My next phone will be the Pro Huawei, assuming I can still buy one.) I assume most phones have touch aperture control; do you use yours? I love me some blurry background!

Instagram filters are fine but I prefer a native app on my phone; I use A Color Story and the free filters alone are great.
posted by DarlingBri at 8:08 AM on September 19, 2019

The first step is making sure you have a good camera on the phone to begin with. I have a Galaxy 8 and I 'm pretty happy with it; by and large I feel like the Samsung phones are better than the iPhones but YMMV. If you don't like yours, maybe try a camera app before you sink a lot of money into a phone lens - I know a lot of people who swear by VSCO but there are a lot out there. Secondly, learn how to use it: a quick google for Take Better Pictures with your phone will give you lots of tips and tricks. My main tip would be never use the zoom - phone zooms are horrible, no matter what they say. Change the aspect ratio to square. Use the composition overlay that your phone camera almost certainly has - the rule of thirds or the golden spiral -either will give you an idea of what's going to look better. Don't just center things. Learn about light. You don't really need a book, I'd just read articles and then go take pictures. Now take more. And more. And more - the more pictures you take, the more you will learn about what works and what doesn't work for you. Also, what SaltySalticid says - a tripod will really help, especially if you're doing still life type stuff. Gorillapods are great for phones and very portable.

As far as post processing, while I have Photoshop and Lightroom and so on that I use for my "real" camera - on the phone I use Snapseed and I love it. It's got just about everything you might want for almost all editing purposes - I keep trying to use the Lightroom app because it's my go-to on the computer these days (I rarely bother with photoshop anymore, I mostly use it for design stuff) but I really prefer the Snapseed app.
posted by mygothlaundry at 1:25 PM on September 20, 2019