Portrayal

We are delighted to publish this interesting article by our Tech Editor, Martin Duerr. This is a thorough article full of tips to help you capture professional portraiture with your smartphone. We have published some great articles by Duerr in the past, all featuring ways to help you improve your mobile photography – if you have missed those, please go here. I think you will enjoy this very much… 

“In the 1990’s it was unheard of to take mobile phone images, or even for the concept to exist.  Camera development is in part, driven by mobile photography. Last week Leica, the German lens and camera manufacturer, well known for their high-end products announced a collaboration with Huawei.

Compared to “traditional“ cameras (those with mirrors and without) phones have one huge drawback that especially affects portraiture photography. All phones use a fixed wide angle lens (with the iPhone the equivalent would be a 35mm lens on a full frame camera). While today there is a trend for photographers to shoot using 35 mm lenses … often it is too wide angled.

One last word before we discuss the basics: it is important to remember that the zoom on your iPhone is a digital zoom not an optical zoom. Therefore, you will see a deterioration in quality if you shoot using it”.