9 Clever Smartphone Photography Hacks

Looking for some smartphone photography hacks to up your content creation game? Look no further: here are nine quick mobile photography tips and tricks to wow your friends and make even serious photographers jealous.

Hacks For Mobile Photographers

So, point and shooting isn’t cutting it for you anymore? I get that because I’ve been there. You get to a point where you want to take your phone photos to the next level but you don’t have fancy lenses or a drone. Don’t worry – here are 9 mobile photography hacks that you’ll be able to pull off with things you have laying around the house.

1. Balloons Instead of Drones

One of the best mobile photography tricks is to introduce a drone into your content. Drones are a badass tool for the modern photographer. While pictures from an elevated vantage point have long been some of the most striking, the ease and accessibility of real aerial photography has influenced a renaissance of 21st-century photography.

Want to learn about the best smartphone controlled drones anyway? Click here!

There are a few problems with drones, though. They’re expensive as hell. They’re kind of hard to operate with destroying them. And, worst of all, it’s usually illegal to fly them in pretty much any place you would want to fly a drone.

But you know what the FAA doesn’t regulate? Balloons.

It sounds dumb, but hear me out.

You can use a bunch of party balloons with helium, or one weather balloon (which they sell on Amazon). Some tips for making this happen include:

1. Secure your phone to the balloon excessively (eliminates camera shake and peace of mind simultaneously)
2. Set your phone to take 5-10 second timelapses
3. Try sport or burst mode
4. Make sure to position your phone at a downward angle
5. Be wary of leading lines when choosing where to launch your smartphone balloon drone
6. Hold onto the string of the balloon for dear life

2. Use Dark Material to Set Exposure

Playing with exposure isn’t something amateur photographers will probably mess around with, but it’s a useful technique once you have a handle on things.

While you can undoubtedly adjust ISO in your phone’s “Pro Mode,” you can do a quick-and-dirty exposure hack with any dark material.

Take your material, a piece of paper or dark clothing work tremendously, and put it in front of the camera. Allow the phone to automatically adjust – wait a few seconds or tap the screen – then remove it and snap the picture.

You’ll likely get a slightly different effect than merely manipulating settings, so experiment with it!

3. Learn How to Use Manual/Pro Mode

Maybe not a “hack” in the traditional sense, but it certainly has the potential to take your good photos and make them better.

The software that governs modern smartphones’ automatic pictures setting is pretty advanced. It’s quite adept at adjusting to the conditions of a shot and producing a good photograph. For most people, it’s more than adequate.

But we’re photographers here, and standard photos are never the goal – great photos only.

Accessing the mode might take a bit of looking around. For most phones, you just have to swipe left or right when the camera is up. You can also download a phone camera app that gives you the capability to shoot in manual mode.

Now that you’re in, you have full access to almost all of the settings you would have on a traditional camera. While you won’t have a shutter button like on a traditional camera, enjoy playing around with shutter speed, ISO, and aperture. Don’t forget that you can also disable auto-focus and manually focus on specific elements!

4. Use Polarized Sunglasses for a Polarized Filter

You might have done this one already if you were trying to be artsy for Instagram, but it’s a legitimate technique.

Camera photographers often carry around polarized filters to place over their lens (or is it lense?). They serve to darken bright skies, reduce glares, or manage reflections. It’s a pretty valuable tool, especially if you’re shooting during the sunny part of the day. Here’s our take on lens filters specifically for smartphone photos.

And, yeah, you could place a regular camera filter in front of your phone for the same effect. But who wants to carry those around? They’re fragile and often a hassle.

Chances are you’ve got your shades on you, though. If they’re polarized, you can use them just like a camera filter!

That’s what smartphone photography is all about – convenience!

5. Use a Plastic Sandwich Bag to Create Natural Haze

Are you feeling particularly artsy? Somebody needs a portrait, and sepia tone just isn’t good enough for them?

1. Tear a hole in the bottom of a transparent plastic bag
2. Place it around your lens such that it appears around the edges of your image
3. Secure the bag with tape if need be

It has a soft-focus effect on both the camera and the eyes. Since the mobile phone camera can’t resolve the image to any clarity through the bag, it’ll automatically focus on the center. Likewise, the eyes get drawn to whatever the blur doesn’t obscure.

It’s a natural vignette that uses the background colors!

Take it a step further and try out other materials. Different kinds of plastic bags have different thicknesses, and so will create different effects. Different colors of plastic can also create some drastically different results. Changing how much of the plastic covers the lens will change the depth of field and the focus on the subject.

6. Make a DIY Smartphone Macro Lens

Macro photography produces some of the coolest phone images. Rarely, people slow down enough to inspect things that close.

Want to learn everything there is to know about smartphone macro photography? Of course you do.

And, typically, macro photography with a smartphone camera requires a unique lens that can do a shallow depth of field with excellent clarity and high magnification. Those can be expensive!

Here’s a fun smartphone hack described by Photoblog.com. You can disassemble an old laser pointer and use the focusing lens as a makeshift macro lens for your smartphone!

Laser pointers aren’t generally too hard to come by. You’ve probably got one in your junk drawer. 

But if you want to try this trick on the go, well, here’s a smartphone hack for your smartphone hacks – you can accomplish a very similar effect with water.

It’s kind of tricky to get right, but if you put a small drop (not a full drop) of water on the center of your smartphone camera lens, it will stay there when you pick up your phone to take a picture.

Now, don’t expect it to work 100% of the time (and don’t expect it to look professional), but it’s a real thing. The water will form a lens with a shallow depth (literally) and magnify it.

A neat smartphone party trick, at least!

If you’re interested in doing macro photography that’s a little more precise but costs less than a decent dinner out, then check out our write up on Magniband – the revolutionary mobile macro photography gadget.

7. Create Lens Flares with a Reflective Object

Lens flare is the bane of every photographer’s existence. It can be especially tough on smartphone photographers because they don’t have lens hoods.

(Apparently, that’s not true, but it might be better if they didn’t exist).

Many of us go to great lengths to avoid the sun, but someone with a particularly discerning third eye might see the value they can add to a shot. It’s not easy to integrate lens flares in a way that enhances the photo, but it can be done.

8. Make a Pinhole Camera for your Smartphone

Pinhole cameras aren’t just a fun project for kids. They can make a unique effect that a filter could never emulate.

The cool thing is they’re super easy to make. Just grab a piece of paper or cardboard, poke a small hole with the tip of a pen or a paperclip, then put it on top of your lens.

You should have almost the entire scene you would have without the pinhole camera. If not, make the hole a bit bigger.

It’ll probably be a bit grainier, and you might have a slight vignette around the edges. The result is an authentic vintage look. Take that, Instagram filters.

Here’s a free, super-secret hack for pinhole cameras. Try solargraphy or a long exposure of the movement of the sun. Pinhole cameras make this easy because they inherently reduce the amount of light that makes it to the sensor so that you have an ideal lighting situation. You can also track the movement of the sun across a scene, not just the sky.

9. Binoculars as a Zoom Lens

Sure, you could buy a zoom lens for your smartphone. There are some nice ones, but there are also a lot of junky ones.

Why not play it safe and use the same zoom lens your grandparents used? A set of binoculars, not that technologically advanced digital zoom stuff.

If you don’t have one, ask that weird friend that watches birds. They’ve got a bunch. Probably even monoculars too.

Anyway, using a binocular as a zoom lens works precisely the way you think it does. Put the binoculars in front of the lens and snap away. Make sure you adjust the focus on the binoculars, or else the picture will never be in focus!

Additional Phone Photography Hacks?

What are some of your favorite smartphone photography hacks? Let us know in the comments! There’s no wrong answers here – maybe someone will provide some insight on how to pull your idea off.