Unlock the hidden potential of your phone camera

This article originally featured in Cheshire Life magazine October 2023.

Capturing life’s precious moments in stunning detail has never been easier, with the staggeringly good cameras on smartphones. However, many of us just point and click, hoping for the best, and we are often frustrated with the results. Join professional photographer Jane Burkinshaw as she reveals four must-know tips that will unlock the hidden potential of your phone’s camera.

Tap to focus

It’s so easy to take photographs with a phone. In fact, it’s perhaps too easy and we’ve become point and shoot shutter bugs, firing at will and cluttering up our photo galleries. One of these top tips should be to slow down, and adopting this technique to focus will help you do that. Instead of pointing the camera and pressing the shutter button, first tap on the main subject on the screen. On most phones a yellow square appears that confirms the camera has focused. Now click the shutter button and you can be certain that the image is in focus in exactly the right spot.

Tapping on the subject is particularly important for close-up shots, as the camera lens blurs the background, and you want to get the right part in focus.

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