Windows Phone

Ok, so we’ve launched a competition to win a safari trip to Africa and all you have to do is submit a killer photo taken with your phone. As a bit of a helping hand for the amateur photographers amongst you, we’ve rounded up some great tips on how to take a good picture on your phone courtesy of wikiHow and this Posterous post.

1. Make sure your equipment is clean

Dust, lint and stray hairs can easily get attached to the lens of the camera on your phone, especially when it’s stored in your pocket or your bag. Give it a quick wipe with your glasses cloth, or failing that, your shirt.

2. Be aware of the limitations

Face it, the camera on your phone isn’t a £1000 SLR camera, and therefore won’t handle things like low light, bright hot spots or macro shots as well as a more expensive camera.

Low light is an obvious one. Avoid indoor and night shots unless they’re really well lit.

Bright spots in the background, like a light or the sun, will either under-expose the rest of the shot or completely blow out the shot.

Close-up shots are generally off limits with your phone. This is because the cameras within phones can only focus to a certain degree and have difficulty without external equipment. Luckily, that external equipment can be as simple as a magnifying glass or laser pointer, if you’ve been reading our latest blog posts.

3. It’s all about the settings

Make sure you’ve got your phone’s camera settings set to the highest quality possible. That way, when you take your fantastic shot you’ll find that you can use it for something other than a Twitter avatar.

Also, a lot of phones have white-balance settings, which are great for getting the light balance within shots perfect.

However, on the same ‘settings’ note, make sure you turn any external effects off. As much as you think sepia, black and white or negative looks cool, it’s much better to rely on the raw shot. If you do decide that you want a sepia effect or black and white, you can always do it with a bit of post-production editing (but this is not allowed in our competition, mind).

4. Frame your shot

First off, make sure everything you want is in the shot and ready to be photographed.

Secondly, remember the basic rules of composition with the rule of thirds. Image your screen is divided into three parts both horizontally and vertically. The four points where these lines meet are the perfect focal points for your image.

Thirdly, make sure your photo has a focus and that the background isn’t stealing it. Vibrant colours, dominating features, strong lines or general busyness can detract from the focus of the photo, so be aware when framing your shot

5. Forget everything we just said…

At the end of the day, if you are worrying too much about settings, composition and perfect lighting, you’ll miss the best things. Sometimes a spontaneous point and click gives you the best results and captures something magical.

So keep it all in mind, but don’t get hung up on the detail.

Now go and have fun! And don’t forget to enter ‘my kind of competition: snap’ before midnight on Thursday.