I've been drooling to get a fancy DSLR for quite the time now but haven't really done any photography. So to justify my needs I decided to do something different today. I wanted to see how much can I push my phones Camera and does that classify as Photography, or in other words, is the word " Photography" just another Limitation set on pre-defined rules ?
The Local Park
I went to the park today to see if I could take any good shots using my phone camera. All the pictures you are about to see are from there, including the one above.
This was the first picture I took. It looked too plain and boring to me, so I turned on HDR mode and slapped a filter on there to see what happens.
Ok, it only took 2 seconds and some finger movements to go from boring to looking good.
Second picture and things were still looking boring to me, at this point I found out a neat option called "Selective Focus".
I decided to try unique angles and my personal perspective on things. And here's what happened.
The soft blur that the option gives is great. Al thought it cant match up to the bookeh effect that a proper lens creates, it still tries and creates somewhat unique shots.
Some edges get eaten off.
This is a bench covered with moss.
I decided to start taking pictures at a really close angle and things started looking a bit more creative from that point on.
So much so good
So what I made off this was that You can make some good shots by using a phone. I think that some of them can actually classify as semi-professional if someone is willing to use the "Pro" mode and play with shutter speeds iso settings and balances.
I was using the Auto mode and added filters to two pictures. i will let you guys figure out which ones have filters.
But is that all we can do?
Hell no ! Lets push this and fire up photoshop!
Also, Did I forget to mention that the pictures are actually 4K and steemit can't handle that high. This means that all the pictures you saw above are actually cropped in half by steemit which was and is a pain.
So here is a CROPPED low resolution version. The quality is crap but I want to show you guys something despite that.
This was my favorite picture, so I decided to edit it a bit in photoshop to see what we can get out of it.
Take 1:
![1 [www.imagesplitter.net].jpeg](https://images.hive.blog/768x0/https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1516743306/ehbfpfh4agype6eknvga.jpg)
Oh neat ! 15 minutes and we have a totally new composition :D
So I wanted to say that you can go above and beyond with a small and shitty camera. Al thought the galaxy S8 im using has a somewhat descent one if I am not wrong.
We live in such an age where there aren't any limitations when it boils down to photography. So needing an super expensive DSLR is somewhat subjective.
It really depends on what one wants to make out of his photos.
Take 2:
![2 [www.imagesplitter.net] (1).jpeg](https://images.hive.blog/768x0/https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1516743739/slzuq3csyobi3zse4uf2.jpg)
Hope you guys enjoyed this article, I decided to do something different today <3 Peace !
I try to keep my content as Original as possible, also I never use up voting automation. If you get an up vote from me, then I love what you do !
My first reaction was 'Oh no, he is going into photography' but happy to see it was a bit more than that :-) Well @Vangelov, i don't know in you world but in my surroundings, the Galaxy S8 is the best phone around so what you are doing here is not for the average phone, i think i want an S8 now :-)
Stuff in my country is relatively cheap for EU standards, I think the S8 is around 500 $. But for our standards that is quite a lot of money. So I guess it wouldn't cost you much to get one if you ever came to BG. A resell one would be even cheaper.
And if I ever pick up on photography it will be incorporated with some adventure articles or something.
One hit wonder picture posts will wreck my steemit future :D
Great pictures you have here. I love the one with the bench. It looks very massive with the stonepillar but is probably not that big.
One thing I'm missing with the smartphone camera is a decent zoom. The DSLR zoomlenses can do a little bit more but not that much.
I'd love to see a photoshop turorial. Recently I downloaded the free version CS2 and it is a bit complicated.
One question right away, can you do the same adjustments in the photoshop as in the lightroom?
Anyway thanks for the inspiring pictures and have a nice day!
Yeah, you can do the same stuff as in light room, light room is a more photo tuning orientated app, where Photoshop has more layer control, so you can create stuff from the scratch.
Thanks for popping a comment ^^ I will think of a photoshop tutorial in the future for sure <3
Ah that's nice to know:) I try to avoid this monthly paid system since I don't make money out of my photography. It was probably a bad idea to show my girlfriend the 7day test version, lol. It's really hard to convince her to other programms now:)
I'm slowly learning photoshop and I think overall it is the better programm to edit pictures.
No worries mate! I always enjoy your blogs. I'm probably missing out on some but the ones I could read are very well done.
Sweet, I will try to be the first one to appreciate it!
Cheers!
the pics looks beautiful! im not sure if we really NEED any bette quality than this!! ;-_))
Thanks Alex !
I have a Canon powershot and trayin really hard not to get a DSLR before I pushed the limits of my powershot. But I am nowhere near you, these are really great for a phone and great editing.
Thanks for the lovely comment <3 The power shot actually has some crazy zoom which can produce the same effects but more refined. You just have to shoot from a bit of a distance.
Love your photos seriously bro @vangelov
Thank you so much @orges1 <3
I enjoy the pictures. The best camera is the one that you have.
Pretty good quality. Nice shots, particularly the photoshopped ones. I'm torn between the Pixel 2 and S8.. Can't decide which one to go for..
Pixel 2 has the best camera so far, S8 has the good display :D its a 50 50 if you ask me.
Yeah, so I've heard. Leaning towards the Pixel 2.
Pretty amazing for just a phone like that! Can’t imagine what you could do with a DSLR.
Great photos. It's amazing what you can do with the latest phones. For my purposes a phone is the best camera because it's portable, small, I've got it with me all the time anyway, and I can download photos direct to the Internet. I've been using a galaxy S3 for a couple of years, which gives my pictures a certain psychedelic, pixellated appearance. Looking forward to inheriting an S6 quite soon, mainly because it has a much better camera. I never spend much money on the latest tech. It gets upgraded so quickly that it's possible to buy the best of two or three years ago for next to nothing. I'll be getting an S8 , I expect, in about 2020.