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Invisiblesparkle
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Camera Phone Photography Tips * 1
    #15820884 - 02/16/12 09:19 PM (12 years, 1 month ago)

Looking at the submissions of photos for identification, I am surprised at how bad many are, considering the level of technology that our camera phones have. And most of us carry our phones all the time. So here goes:

1. Go to camera
2. Change the settings to macro
3. Point your camera 3 to 7 inches away from the subject
4. Half press and hold for 2 seconds
5. Shoot

I took these today. I always adjust my settings down to 1 mp, I feel that is enough, even if you zoom it. But the last photo I made is at 5 mp just to show what a camera phone can do. If you zoom it enough, you can even count the gills.
It won't win any photography contests but it is enough for documentation and it certainly will make our TIs' job easier.
I'm new to mushroom photography. But I've written several articles for international orchid magazines with photos using this technique. One even made it as cover for an American magazine. These are articles I would've been too lazy to write if I need to carry around a proper setup. Short of microscopy, orchids need as much detail as mushrooms for identification.



Edited by sparkle (04/05/12 07:10 PM)

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Invisibledomesticgnome

Registered: 04/22/11
Posts: 3,079
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Re: Camera Phone Photography Tips [Re: sparkle]
    #15820957 - 02/16/12 09:33 PM (12 years, 1 month ago)

Good idea for a post. All of my shots are done on my droid phone.



Not trying to toot my own horn, but that is a decent picture.
A few tips I can add is that most touch screen phones can be focused by tapping the screen on the object being captured. Since mushrooms are often small you may need to focus on an object that is the same distance as the point you want to focus on, such as the log or the ground that it is growing from. Also if that doesn't focus it perfectly you can often times slowly move the camera back or forth to bring the object into focus. Be careful not to move the camera too quickly or it may autofocus on whatever it wants to take a picture of.


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InvisibleRigVedaLXVII.Soma
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Re: Camera Phone Photography Tips [Re: domesticgnome]
    #15821033 - 02/16/12 09:48 PM (12 years, 1 month ago)

I like this thread. Definitely many should follow it who use a Phone as their camera. But unfortunately not everyone has these basic options. For example, I have an iPhone 3g. (They suck. And the Camera sucks more) If I tried to take a photo of a macrofungi it would be completely unidentifiable. For god sakes my phones camera didnt even have zoom function until the 25th update.... Of coarse its Digital zoom so it just pixelates the image beyond recognition.

Thats why I coughed up 100$ for a Sony Cyber-Shot from ebay with a respectable 16.2 megapixels and beautiful macro function.
That is the reason no one should go without a digital camera. I paid more than I needed for mine to get a little better features, but for god sakes you can spend 50$ online and get a digital camera with 12 megapixels or more.


But seriously Sparkle? Those first two images were at 1 megapixels? HOLY SHIT!
My shitphone, I mean iPhone is 2megapixel, and I cant get anything that clear. My shots come out sooo blurry! I wonder what I am missing here?

Oh wait, I have no options for my camera at all... :facepalm: Apple Fail.


Here is my Sony Cyber-Shot, and the photo is even reduced quality as I resized for quick uploading.


This is the best image I could get with my iPhone 3G.... I tried every distance, angle, lighting I could. This is the result....

I seriously dont even know why apple gave the iphone 3g a camera at all.. lol.


--------------------
"While clinging to the moronic belief that they constitute a "counterculture," they share our society's overriding urge for expediency. They make no attempt to learn about the organisms they eat and it always struck me as ironic that people with such a low level of consciousness should be seeking "higher consciousness." -David Arora

"Man is placed in the middle between two infinities - the infinitely great and the infinitely little - both of which are equally incomprehensible to him." -Pascal

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Edited by RigVedaLXVII.Soma (02/16/12 10:04 PM)

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Offlinesuchen
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Re: Camera Phone Photography Tips [Re: RigVedaLXVII.Soma]
    #15821097 - 02/16/12 09:59 PM (12 years, 1 month ago)

Sweet baby Jesus 16.2 megapixels?! That is far more than I could ever need. Do you make big blown-up posters of some of your photos? That would be badass :awesomenod: How is that camera in low-light places such as parties and at night?

For cell phone cameras I think the most useful thing I can say is that it is far more important to get the mushroom IN FOCUS than it is to get the phone up close to the mushroom. If the photo is blurry then just move the phone a few more inches away and try to focus again.


--------------------
Rod Tulloss said:

The bulb is the bulb.

The volva is the volva.

They have a very long term realtionship, but they’re “just friends.”

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Invisiblesparkle
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Re: Camera Phone Photography Tips [Re: RigVedaLXVII.Soma]
    #15821117 - 02/16/12 10:03 PM (12 years, 1 month ago)

Yup 1 mpix. I have an old sony ericson phone which i got free from the network. My old Sony ericson back in 2007 was just as clear. Here's another 1 mega pix version of the last photo. Still good enough to count the gills. You can zoom away to the size of your screen and it would still be clear.

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InvisibleRigVedaLXVII.Soma
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Re: Camera Phone Photography Tips [Re: suchen]
    #15821227 - 02/16/12 10:19 PM (12 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

suchen said:
Sweet baby Jesus 16.2 megapixels?! That is far more than I could ever need. Do you make big blown-up posters of some of your photos? That would be badass :awesomenod: How is that camera in low-light places such as parties and at night?

For cell phone cameras I think the most useful thing I can say is that it is far more important to get the mushroom IN FOCUS than it is to get the phone up close to the mushroom. If the photo is blurry then just move the phone a few more inches away and try to focus again.




Dude you will never believe. That is the main reason I bought it. It is like Night vision in the Dark!!! LOL no joke!
Check it out online Sony Cyber-shot DSC-WX9. Seriously you can get it for 100$ or less on the US eBay. Highly recommend it. All my photos on this forum are taken with this camera.

I have an 8 gb memory card in it, and if you use the highest resolution for your photos you can only hold like 400 photos.. Lol. Thats huge size. Where as you make them average size you can hold thousands.


and that is amazing sparkle. Seriously I am shocked at the quality of that, but then again Sony Ericson is known for their superior quality in phones. I just dont get why when I get 2 Megapixels on my iPhone, they come out looking like that eye sore above, and your 1MP photo looks comparable to my 16.2 MP digital camera.... Maybe Apple is just faking it, and really I just get .2MP

I do know that in the AppStore there is camera apps you can download, but trying to find something worthwile in the appstore is like trying to dig through a mountain of dung for a jewel to find it is really a piece of lead at the bottom.

But also remember that iPhone 3G is 4 generations behind the most recent. 3Gs has a 5MP, 4 has 6MP, and 4S has 12MP I believe.

IDK I guess the moral is, if you love mushroom photography, or really any photography at that, then dont even think about getting an apple product.
(Plus AT%&T charges me for unlimited internet bandwidth, but every month they limit my usage by 99% as the new rule is in affect a couple months ago. They told us, "We provide unlimited usage of bandwidth, but it never said how fast it would be..." So I get dial up speed now.  My phone is basically nothing more than a paper weight. I am about to tell them, "I said I would pay my bill, I never said how fast I would pay it.")

Back to phone camera quality.

People show your camera phone shots. See how good you can get with them! Sparkle's rules!


--------------------
"While clinging to the moronic belief that they constitute a "counterculture," they share our society's overriding urge for expediency. They make no attempt to learn about the organisms they eat and it always struck me as ironic that people with such a low level of consciousness should be seeking "higher consciousness." -David Arora

"Man is placed in the middle between two infinities - the infinitely great and the infinitely little - both of which are equally incomprehensible to him." -Pascal

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Invisiblesparkle
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Re: Camera Phone Photography Tips [Re: suchen]
    #15821293 - 02/16/12 10:29 PM (12 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

suchen said:

For cell phone cameras I think the most useful thing I can say is that it is far more important to get the mushroom IN FOCUS than it is to get the phone up close to the mushroom. If the photo is blurry then just move the phone a few more inches away and try to focus again.




I beg to differ Suchen. I'm not sure if Sony phones are different, but this is something I never do. For the macro mode, autofocus is far more reliable than manual focus. I don't even look if it's focused and sometimes I forget my glasses or its too bright for the lcd to show. Many times you probably need to lie down or dig a hole if you want to focus with your eyes. The important thing is to point the camera to the point that you want focused, half-press the shutter for 2-3 seconds (mine beeps) before you shoot. The half press is so, sooo important because it lets your camera focus for you. But even I forget this sometimes... I think this is what most people are doing wrong.
Half press, half press, half press and half press!

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Invisiblemetacohl
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Re: Camera Phone Photography Tips [Re: sparkle]
    #15821425 - 02/16/12 10:57 PM (12 years, 1 month ago)

Thank you sparkle for helping me to realize my phone has a Macro mode. I just wish I had read this earlier...  :facepalm3:


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It's only rocket science.

Edited by metacohl (02/16/12 10:58 PM)

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InvisibleRigVedaLXVII.Soma
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Re: Camera Phone Photography Tips [Re: metacohl]
    #15821448 - 02/16/12 11:03 PM (12 years, 1 month ago)

Show an example!
:picdidnthappen:


--------------------
"While clinging to the moronic belief that they constitute a "counterculture," they share our society's overriding urge for expediency. They make no attempt to learn about the organisms they eat and it always struck me as ironic that people with such a low level of consciousness should be seeking "higher consciousness." -David Arora

"Man is placed in the middle between two infinities - the infinitely great and the infinitely little - both of which are equally incomprehensible to him." -Pascal

MyPostImage Gallery  Trade List
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:peace: Solanaceae, Amanitaceae :peace:

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Invisibledomesticgnome

Registered: 04/22/11
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Re: Camera Phone Photography Tips [Re: RigVedaLXVII.Soma]
    #15821567 - 02/16/12 11:39 PM (12 years, 1 month ago)

Here's a few of mine that I already had uploaded.





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Invisiblesparkle
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Re: Camera Phone Photography Tips [Re: RigVedaLXVII.Soma]
    #15821613 - 02/16/12 11:51 PM (12 years, 1 month ago)

Great idea, RigV.
Maybe it'll teach people how to use their camera phones. It will certainly inspire me to take better, less lazy shots. If the purpose is just for documentation, I really do not see the need to buy a camera when a phone will do. More handy too.
I dont know about apple but Sony is the one for me in terms of photography.

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Invisiblekoraks
Registered: 06/02/03
Posts: 26,697
Re: Camera Phone Photography Tips [Re: sparkle]
    #15822497 - 02/17/12 08:15 AM (12 years, 1 month ago)

All the megapixel talk is empty - megapixels don't really matter. Other factors such as the optical system have a far more profound influence on image quality. And if you shoot (almost) exclusively for the web, then you might as well forget about megapixels altogether, as 0.5MP is already sufficient for 99.9% of the web work.

sparkle, thanks for writing this tutorial; it proves that even a relatively simple/low-end tool can produce decent results if it's used wisely :thumbup:

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Offlinesuchen
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Re: Camera Phone Photography Tips [Re: koraks]
    #15822552 - 02/17/12 08:44 AM (12 years, 1 month ago)

I was speaking for people who don't have macro mode on their phones. Not everyone can afford a smart phone with data plan after all.


--------------------
Rod Tulloss said:

The bulb is the bulb.

The volva is the volva.

They have a very long term realtionship, but they’re “just friends.”

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OfflineSonny Cheeba
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Re: Camera Phone Photography Tips [Re: suchen]
    #15822689 - 02/17/12 09:48 AM (12 years, 1 month ago)

great thread! if only those who have emergency ID requests would read this first. now we just need one for webcams haha.

i use my phone often just because i'm always on the lookout but not always on the hunt i guess because i don't pack a camera.

it has decent results. thanks to this i realized how to quickly adjust the settings on it, and that it has a macro mode... too bad it's still very vulnerable to shake.

these were all taken with my Auto setting




camera shake issues...



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welcome to the office of dr. octagon

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Invisibleriverdweller
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Re: Camera Phone Photography Tips [Re: Sonny Cheeba]
    #15822799 - 02/17/12 10:27 AM (12 years, 1 month ago)

My son's phone has HD and 3d and a kick stand...

I should borrow it sometime and try 3d out but I doubt I could wrestle it from him.


--------------------
I'm still here  :wink:

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Invisiblesparkle
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Re: Camera Phone Photography Tips [Re: riverdweller]
    #15823275 - 02/17/12 12:52 PM (12 years, 1 month ago)

Suchen, the cheapest of camera phones today have the macro mode. My free phone 4-5 years ago had it. But I bet most people do not know it exists.  Which is such a shame specially for mycology where the importance of detail is life and death.
Instead they buy a camera or long for a camera when the phone in their pockets can do what they want.

Koraks, that is correct, all this big MPix trend is insane. If I can set it to less than 1MP, I would use that.

DomesticG,  good detail specially on picture 2.

SonnyC, I think you shot picture number 2 with your phone almost on the ground, if so this is an example of an instance where auto is your only option.
In the matter of shaking, this is the other function of the half press. The half press not only allows the camera to focus but it freezes the frame so you can shake away but the image is frozen already so it doesn't matter. Not all phones have the half press function but most do but again most people do not know what its for. It eliminates playing around with speed settings plus you don't need a tripod.

I encourage everyone to look for the macro mode at least. For detail, macro is the only way to go. The best pics would be shot about 5 -6 inches away. But if you really want to show detail, take it 3" away then blow it up on your screen. You'll see details in your mushroom you don't know existed. Please try it, it's fun.

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OfflineMushyMatt
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Re: Camera Phone Photography Tips [Re: sparkle]
    #15824899 - 02/17/12 07:27 PM (12 years, 1 month ago)

Here are some pictures I have taken with my Evo 4G. 8MP camera, I am not using the stock camera app.








--------------------
Reborn - 6/08/13

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Invisiblesparkle
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Re: Camera Phone Photography Tips [Re: MushyMatt]
    #15826543 - 02/18/12 02:56 AM (12 years, 1 month ago)

Nice mushrooms.

Now maybe lets try photographing the gills just to practice the macro mode. About 4" away, point. Half press and shoot. Should come out like this:




Remember that at 1 mp, the gills should be clear even if you blow it up to a small plate size.
Soooo...

Show me your gills so we can practice your macro skills!:smile:

Edited by sparkle (02/18/12 03:46 AM)

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InvisibleRigVedaLXVII.Soma
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Re: Camera Phone Photography Tips [Re: sparkle]
    #15826708 - 02/18/12 05:05 AM (12 years, 1 month ago)

I discovered a magic trick to make my phone not so much a piece of junk anymore!!





I just held two different small magnifying glasses in front of the camera. Kinda fish eye like, but makes it usuable!


This is seriously the only thing I can get without the lens in front of it...


Pretty handy. Analogue macro. Macro for those without macro options.


--------------------
"While clinging to the moronic belief that they constitute a "counterculture," they share our society's overriding urge for expediency. They make no attempt to learn about the organisms they eat and it always struck me as ironic that people with such a low level of consciousness should be seeking "higher consciousness." -David Arora

"Man is placed in the middle between two infinities - the infinitely great and the infinitely little - both of which are equally incomprehensible to him." -Pascal

MyPostImage Gallery  Trade List
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:peace: Solanaceae, Amanitaceae :peace:

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OfflineOreganic
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Re: Camera Phone Photography Tips [Re: RigVedaLXVII.Soma]
    #15826779 - 02/18/12 06:27 AM (12 years, 1 month ago)

Even if you have a crappy cell phone, you can enhance the pictures quite a good bit with a bit of post-editing in photoshop or a similar program.. Fot a while I had to resort to my cheap Nokia phone which has barely the most minimal of features - but I could come out with some decent final product by tweaking the contrast, hue/saturation, and occasionally the "sharpen" feature.

Here are a few of those:





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__________________________________
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