phone photography of models

[bluedepot]

hi

is there any way of taking in focus pictures of models and layouts with a phone camera?  I mean a picture where the whole model and layout are in focus.  I have an android phone.

any tips welcome!

cheers


Tim

[Bealman]

I normally just point and shoot. But if you look at my pics, they're not exactly what you'd call good.

I'll be on the forum and suddenly get an idea, so run out to layout for quick picture to illustrate. The phone is good for that.

Although I am in awe of Roger's (Wrenton) camera settings and lighting, and moving backscenes to get the right shot and so on, lazybones here climbs behind the bit of the layout where I can actually do that, then hangs the phone over with his arm to get unusual shots.

The phone is good for that! 

[Paul-H]

Hi

Given that with most if not all Camera phones you have little or no control of the settings the only way to come close to what you want is to ensure you have enough light to force the camera to use a smaller aperture to give you as much depth of field as possible, with a fast enough shutter speed to ensure your image is shake free.

Mind you given the extreamly short focal length used on most of these camera depth of field should not be an issue, the Samsung S7 has a 4.2mm focal length lens which in theory should give sharpness from almost the front of the lens to infinity but with a an aperture  of f1.7 might be softer than expected unless it can stop down as well.

Don't know for sure how the cameras built into phones adjust for differing light, do the adjust their shutter speed and aperture like normal cameras or do they just adjust the censor's sensitivity (ISO) if its the latter you will never get enough depth of field for what you want to do.

[Caz]

For Android phones there is a free app called "Open Camera" which gives you manual control of most of the settings including a very good manual control of focus, hdr, bracketing, white balance in fact almost everything, great app.

[d-a-n]

Cameras on phones will have a minimum focusing distance which you can find by slowly moving the camera back from the object and tapping on the area you want it to focus on. Once it's able to focus, you've found the minimum focusing distance.
With the resolution of camera phones being what it is today, don't worry if it looks small on the screen - you can crop in later to remove any dead space and still have a reasonably sized image.
As standard, the camera works in full auto mode but you can give it a helping hand by providing more light on the subject. This will drop your ISO and give you a faster shutter speed (cleaner image, less/no blurring camera shake) but the camera won't stop down to a smaller aperture as most apertures on camera phones are fixed 'wide open'.
Having such small sensors means you still get a reasonable amount of depth of field, even considering the aperture is fixed wide open. Moving the camera away from the subject will increase your depth of field but will also require a closer crop...

[bluedepot]

cheers for the replies!

I think I will try taking picture from further away and cropping any dead space and also I've downloaded that free camera app to try out

hopefully I'll get better results and at least have more of the shot in focus

cheers


Tim

[zwilnik]

There are some cheap accessories you can invest in that will improve any shot (even with non phone cameras).

First is lighting. I got a couple of LED array video lights a few years ago when someone here noticed them cheap online but any extra lighting can make a huge difference.

Secondly is a stand. A cheap tripod (or even monopod) with a phone adaptor mount will stabilise your shot and help get it a lot more clear.

Thirdly, you can buy fairly cheap sets of clip on lenses for phone cameras. By any sort of standard they're fairly rubbish, but do give you a few options in terms of effects and focal range.