Explore Your Smartphone

The camera and apps on your smartphone can create amazing images

They say the only camera you need is the one you have with you – and often that’s your smartphone. How many times have you spent ages setting up and taking a shot with your expensive digital camera, tripod and filters, then quickly grabbed a snap with your smartphone to post on social media and thought, “I don’t know why I bother with all this kit, the phone does a better job!”

It’s true. The cameras in the latest smartphones, like the Apple iPhone 11, Samsung Galaxy S11, Huawei P30 Pro and Google Pixel 3 are amazing. Okay, their sensors may be small compared to those on a ‘proper’ digital camera, but image quality is stunning, their ability to control contrast and exposure is astounding, and you could easily make prints up to 16 x 20in and not realise the photographs had been taken with a phone. When did you last make a print bigger than that?

There’s also a plethora of apps you can download to your smartphone specifically for photography that enables you to create beautiful fine-art images. Some, like Hipstamatic, do all the editing for you, so you take a shot and seconds later it’s finished and ready to use – you simply choose a lens and film combination and start shooting. Others, such as Snapseed, VSCO and Enlight are designed for editing images you’ve already taken.