Dynamic Wide Angle Phone Photography

I am sharing two photographs I took of autumnal trees in this post. Both are nicely framed and have nice colours and nice detail. One is relatively flat though, and the other is dynamic. Why?

Photography is about emotion. It’s about light, framing, composition, perspective, colour, implied stillness or movement and more. Artistically and intelligently incorporating these elements into your photographs helps to make them eye-catching and attractive.

One thing that mobile phones have brought into play is ready availability of wide angle lenses. This introduces a different perspective to what many of us have been used to with point and shoot cameras and even mid-level SLR or mirrorless cameras that come with a lens or two. Most phones under three years old also have a good ‘macro’ capability, meaning they can focus well on close objects. This comes in handy when people want to photograph documents, flowers, assorted household objects and other things they want in detail.

Much as most people with a mobile who enjoy using the phone camera have found out how to use macro mode, only a handful consider how to use it creatively. For example, most people fail to consider the juxtaposition between very close and more distant objects. If you are reading this on your mobile phone, you probably have the very tool in your hand that lets you play around with that!

The photographs in this post were taken on a mid-range Mororola Razor 20 phone. I could have used my comparably expensive full frame Pentax DSLR with one of my wide-angle lenses, but that would defeat the purpose of this post! The point is to demonstrate you have the capability to take pleasing pictures on your phone. They may not be good enough for nice prints because of lack of detail, raw image distortion, dynamic range limitations, low light limitations and other reasons why many of us professional photographers spend $10k plus on our kit, but if you want a nice print, you can buy one of mine. If you want some fun on your phone and images you can show family and friends, your phone is your friend!

The first photograph here was taken in Hobart and is in wide angle mode to capture the entire beautifully bright foliage of the tree.

The second photo used macro mode. I got close to an object of interest: the autumn leaves on a tree. The leaves really stand out beautifully! Not only did I capture the tree though: I captured the hills in the distance too!

Can you perceive a substantial difference in dynamics? The one of the tree canopy is a nice snap of lovely autumn foliage. The macro one would be a close up version, but the hills in the distance give it a real dynamic!