I’ve been playing with phone camera photography for a few years now and wanted to share with you six tips that I found helpful for better phone camera photos. With the Motorolas, BlackBerrys and Nokia phones I have used, they now have 2-3 megapixel lens and photo image adjustments that rival most digital snapshot cameras manual modes.

With a few little adjustments to your phone camera prior to taking that quick snap, you can make your picture quality as good or better than a stand-alone digital camera.

1. Clean your lens – since phones are in your pocket or purse most of the time, the collect lint and dust around the lens. A quick blow of air over the lense will get most of the dust off, but use a cotton cloth to wipe off any other debris. I use my shirt quite often.
2. Add Memory and picture size resolution– most phones now have expandable memory slots for Micro SD cards which allow you to store more data for sharper larger photo sizes. Get yourself the maximum memory for your phone, 2GB is more than adequate. Then set your camera phone to store the any photos taken on the card and make sure the Resolution setting is at the highest since you have more memory.
3. Watch the light – depending on the lighting conditions of your photo scene, make sure you do a quick adjustment of your White Balance which allows you to choose from these typical options; incandescent, fluorescent, sunny, cloudy or night. The White Balance option is usually available under your options when in the photo taking mode.
4. Use two hands – when taking that photo, use both your hands to have a steady picture since aperture times on phone cameras are typically slower than a standard digital. This will give you a blurry free photo and a level horizon most of the time.
5. Don’t Zoom – if you want to shoot something far away and use the zoom mode on your phone camera, you lose the higher photo resolution. If you plan on viewing your photos on a PC, its better to keep your zoom at the widest and then crop your photos later on your PC photo editor. Just extend your arms out if you want to zoom or take a couple steps forward towards your subject.
6. Avoid glare – if your are taking photos outside or around bright lights, you can avoid some of the glare by tilting your phone camera slightly away from the sun/lights or use your hand as a hood to shield the lens from the extra light.

If you have any tips that work well for your phone camera, send them my way and I’ll include them next time.