12 Quick Tips to record quality videos using Smartphone

We’re in 2017, Now smartphone cost as much as an entry-level DSLR. Smartphones camera have improved a lot in recent years. You’ve good smartphones camera around you – in fact, they’re everywhere. Using mobile phones for video recording have several advantages :

1. Mobile phones are part of our lives and we carry them to everywhere we go. So You don’t have to take to camera gear everywhere instead you can use your smartphones to create video content anytime.
2. Many apps are available for both iOS (Apple) and Android (Google) mobile devices that extend the functionality of the video camera, provide sophisticated editing and digital effects capabilities
3. With phones becoming more capable, video entrepreneurs are opting for that much more affordable device, too.

1- Lighting is very Important

As you know Smartphone camera have smaller images sensors and lenses so light has a huge impact on the video quality. It’s advised to shoot the video in brightly lit areas. This will help you to avoid unnecessary shadow and grainy areas in your video. Try not to point your camera to the bright light source, it will cause lens flare and overexposed footage. Lighting must be stable and steady; the image sensors of mobile cameras are not too much sense to quick light changes. Try to play with the backlighting and white balance settings if the light is still not enough for quality videography. Make sure to focus the most important aspect of the video, the automatic exposure control will have an easier time making small adjustments if lighting condition begins to change.

Tip: If you press to hold the focus square/circle in your camera app, it will lock the AE/AF to that specific object.

2- Stay Close to your Object

Stay close to the object, it will help you to record better audio as well as there will be less noise and better focus in your video. Try to avoid using digital zoom as much as you can. If you have dual camera setup in your phone like in iPhone 8+ and Samsung Note 8, You can use a telescopic lens to get more details in your shot.

3- Always Use Landscape and Avoid Portrait Orientation

Most of the people hold their phones vertically while shooting the videos. Say no to portrait orientation, no matter what, always use landscape orientation as it looks better, and somehow professional, on all platforms as we have wider displays everywhere.
If you want people to be able to watch your video at full size on a monitor or TV screen, keep your smartphone horizontal when you are recording. Shooting a video clip with your phone upright doesn’t seem like an issue at the time because you’re watching it on a device with a vertical screen, but as soon as you want to play the video anywhere else, your clip will be fighting for space with two black bars on either side of the screen.

4- Use Tripod to avoid unnecessary Motion and Blurry Frames

While you record video with your smartphone or other cameras, don’t handle or shake your mobile device a lot; it will only make the audio quality, as well as the video quality, worse. Unnecessary handling of the mobile, while you are recording, will cause a lot of unwanted noise. For better audio quality use a tripod to keep your smartphone or external microphone or digital recorder steady and free from unwanted handling or vibration while you are shooting video.
Here are some of the tripods you can get on Amazon.

5- Keep it Near Source

Keeping the microphone you are using to record as close to the audio’s source as possible is, perhaps, the most important tip for getting better audio for your videos I can give you. Distance creates problems for both video and audio. While shooting far away from your audio source, you will record more ambient or unwanted noise and the audio levels of the sound you do want, begin to drop dramatically after it leaves the source. So, if you are shooting an interview, it is better to keep your audio recording device close to your subject to keep their voice focused, clear and audible.

6- Use Flash or External Light when required

Smartphones, you see, come equipped with LED lights that are too bright and can easily skew the color temperature of photos. Also, the video will often time still come out poorly lit in the end. If you want to record a photo at night, you’ll have to find another light source.
Get creative with available lights such as a neon sign or jukebox. They can add a little bit of needed glow while also jazzing up your video with color. If you record on your desk mostly, Try to place a Backlit Keyboard in the background to give a beautiful blurry effect.

7- Use Computer or Mobile Apps for video improvement and additional Stabilization

The camera app on your smartphone may do a good job but there’s more to video recording than what most of them have to offer! Some third party apps are very intuitive with great features for those new to developing video content while some others unlock professional-like features. While you will find some pretty good free apps, investing in a couple of apps that cost a little bit of money can pay huge dividends.

8- Be prepared for the right moment

Before you begin recording your videos, make sure that you have all of the gear, props, scripts, actors and shooting locations ready to go. Additionally, make sure your phone is charged and that you have enough storage space (available memory) to store the footage – high definition (HD) video files can get large and will drain a battery quickly.
Try to take multiple shots from different angles if you have plenty of storage and battery. Don’t forget to use a decent stabilization gear.

9- Use an external Audio recording device

There are some great external microphones available for your mobile device. You will use this external microphone as a replacement for your internal smartphone microphone while shooting your video with your cellular smartphone or mobile device’s camera. If you use an external microphone or handy digital recorder while recording your video footage, you will be able to get an excellent audio quality for your recording if you keep the rest of our tips in mind. Many of these external mics are more directional and designed to cancel out ambient or unwanted sound while you are recording.
Here are some of the mics you can get on Amazon.

10- Edit your audio and add background music if required

If you have already recorded very nice video, but the audio is less than ideal, it is a good idea for you to edit your video with a better audio track. For the new audio track, use a high quality audio recording device to ensure that you get an excellent result for your recording. If you cannot replace dialogue consider adding a voiceover or soundtrack; music, sound effects, and ambient noise might all be a good replacement. Then, you can use your favorite video editing tool to simply remove the camera’s recorded audio with the better audio track. This can solve your poor audio problem quickly and effectively.

11- Avoid Backlighting

There’s something else you should keep in mind when thinking about flash and lighting in general: avoiding backlit-settings.
You may be able to see people and their faces when they’re backlit, but your smartphone camera usually can’t and will output footage with a bright light haloing a dark figure. That figure will also have no visible features, meaning you just missed whatever it was you were trying to capture.
To avoid this situation, try configuring a basic light setup. Those of you who are recording on the fly can also improve a backlit situation by moving to one side or another. Although some stock camera apps try to reduce the effects of backlighting, you should try reducing the effects on your end as well.

12- Mix it up

Although a video made up of a single clip might show what you intended, a video made up of many shorter clips often makes a more interesting watch, and you can pick out some smaller details, not just the overall scene.
Whatever your subject, think about what other shots you can get to complement your master shot, and add to the story. It can be as simple as shooting your subject both from close up and further away or getting someone to repeat a performance (like a cartwheel) a few times so you can capture it from a variety of angles. You’ll end up with better video as you’ll find better angles to shoot from.

You can use multiple lights to overcome the low light situations. If you’re recording in door keep your device plugged in and when you’re on an adventure, try to keep some power bank with you.

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10 Quick Tips to take better Photos

10 Quick Tips to take better Photos

Digital photography has gone wild from last 2 to 3 years due to the innovation in smartphones cameras. Now almost every smartphone has a camera that can take pretty decent photos. More people are taking more photos than ever before, and they’re sharing them online with friends and family to show love and affection. It’s easy to place the blame on the camera (or your smartphone) if your images aren’t as nice as some others you see online, but by following a few guidelines you can improve the quality of your snapshots—without spending $1000 for a new camera. Keep these 10 easy tips in mind next time you head out to capture the world around you. And if you have any tips that have helped you take better pictures, please share them in the comments section.

1. Get Basic frame right.

The most important and first thing while taking a photograph is its composition an framing —the position of different elements in a frame.The easiest way is to keep your concerned object right in the center while not missing the other surrounding details. Basically, you’ll want to break your frame into nine squares of roughly equal size. Try and align the subject of your photo along these lines and intersections and imagine the main image divided over these nine boxes. Many cameras have a rule of thirds grid overlay that you can activate when shooting.

2. Adjust Exposure Compensation.

As long as you aren’t shooting in full manual mode, your digital camera is making decisions that determine the exposure of a photo—in Simple words, how light or dark the shot appears. Generally speaking, a camera looks at a scene and tries to determine the appropriate exposure based on the correct lighting of a gray card, which is why there are special scene modes for snow—without them, the camera would try to make the white snow gray.

If a photo is too light or dark you can either navigate through different scene modes that are available in modern point-and-shoot cameras or simply dial in a bit of exposure compensation. Many cameras have a physical button or dial for this, identified by a +/- symbol. If your photo is too dark, move the scale up above zero; if too light, move it down a bit. You can also change the exposure later using any software. Now even smartphones have some apps that can alter the exposure settings.

Adobe Lightroom is the recommended app if you don’t have a manual mode for capturing photos on your phone.

3. Choose the Right Mode.

Your camera is likely to have plenty of shooting modes, ranging from fully automatic operation to very specific scene modes. If you’re shooting fast action you can put the camera into Shutter Priority (“S”) mode and increase the speed at which a photo is taken—setting it to 1/125 second or faster will help to freeze action, and for really quick subjects (like the hummingbird below), use as short a speed as possible to freeze motion. You can capture bright streaks of the tails and headlights of cars using low shutter speed.

In lower light you can use Aperture Priority (“A”) mode to make sure as much light is entering the lens as possible, or if you’re shooting landscapes on a tripod you can close the lens’s iris to increase depth of field, keeping everything in sharp focus from the foreground to the horizon. If you’re a D-SLR shooter, you’re more likely to use the A or S modes, while point-and-shoot cameras will often feature more specific modes that cater to activities like sports, low-light use, or landscape shooting.

4. Think About Lighting.

Pay attention to how much light you have and where it’s coming from when taking your photos. If you’re shooting outdoors, be careful not to take photos of a person when the sun is at their back. If you’re grabbing a photo in front of a monument or landmark and don’t have the flexibility to adjust your position you can use the camera’s flash to fill in shadows. You may have to manually activate the flash, as there’s a good chance that the camera will think that it’s unnecessary on a bright day.

5. Use Your Flash Wisely.

Many a photo has been foiled by a flash firing too close to a subject. If your friends and family look like Casper the Friendly Ghost when you photograph them, chances are that you’re too close when snapping your photos. Back up a bit and zoom in to get the proper framing, If you need to activate the flash. In case things are still too bright—or too dark—check and see if flash compensation is an option. Many cameras allow you to adjust the power of the flash, which can help to add better balance to your flash-assisted photos. Adding just a little bit of light makes it possible to fill in shadows, resulting in a more natural-looking photo. Try to avoid flash as much as you can, without flash photos have natural colors. You’ve to keep a close eye on the colors while taking photos with flash.

6. Add a Flash Diffuser.

If dialing down flash power isn’t an option, you can also add a diffuser to help spread the light out. Smaller flashes aren’t able

If dialing down flash power isn’t an option, you can also add a diffuser to help spread the light out. Smaller flashes aren’t able to spread light across a large surface area, giving your subjects a deer-in-the-headlights look. Point-and-shoot users can tape a bit of wax paper over the flash to soften its output.

7. Watch Your White Balance.

Your camera will try and set white balance automatically based on the type of light in which you’re shooting. Different light casts different types of color—sunlight is very blue, tungsten lighting is yellow, and fluorescent is a bit green. In many cases, the camera will automatically detect what type of lighting you’re under and adjust the color in photos so that they look natural. If you’re shooting under mixed lighting, or if the camera is just having a hard time figuring things out, you can set the white balance manually. On most point and shoots you’ll have to dive into the shooting menu to adjust this, but many D-SLRs have a dedicated White Balance button, often labeled “WB.” You can correct color in iPhoto or Picasa later on, but you’ll get better-looking photos if you get the white balance right in the first place.

8. Use a Tripod or Monopod.

Sometimes, the best way to get your shot perfect is to take some extra time. Using a tripod will allow you to set up framing, and can come in handy, along with your camera’s self-timer. You can get away with an inexpensive tripod if you’re a point-and-shoot user, although spending a bit more on a brand will result in much less frustration than with the bargain brands that you’ll find at the local five and dime. D-SLR users should definitely put care into selecting a tripod, sturdy enough to hold the camera are paramount.

If you’re more of a run-and-gun shooter, a monopod—which is just like it sounds, a tripod with two of its legs missing—will help you stabilize your shots. Great for use at zoos and sporting events, a monopod is supplemented by your two legs in order to add stability to your camera.

9. Be Selective.

With the evolution of camera technology, now you can capture thousands of photos on a single memory card. But it’s not a wise act to upload all photos to the social media. You should spend some time going through your photos to eliminate redundant shots. Also, discard photos that may be out of focus or poorly composed. It’s better to post a few great photos than some good photos hiding among hundreds of not-so-good ones.

10. Don’t Forget to Post-Process.

Consider using a program like Photoshop or Lightroom to organize your photos. Either will allow you to crop, color-correct, adjust exposure, remove red-eye, and perform other basic editing tasks. Performing some very basic editing on a photo can help improve its quality drastically. Cropping a bit can help with composition, and you can also rotate a photo so that horizon lines are straight. Getting your photos right in-camera is the larger goal, but there’s no harm in a bit of retouching.

White Flowers

Wooden Bench

TPLink WN725

Keran, Azad Kashmir

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12 Quick Tips to record quality videos