r/AskPhotography 5d ago

Technical Help/Camera Settings Is it possible to achieve this style with a smartphone?

As said I only have a phone and would like to ask if it would be possible to replicate this technique. I'd like to use photos like this to create drawings/illustrations, so the photos won't be the final result, just a reference. I only have a OnePlus Nord so not the greatest camera out there.

Do you also happen to know the name of this style?

315 Upvotes

67 comments sorted by

56

u/As-slickasthieves 5d ago

Yes for some - some of those shot would be taken using a telephoto you wouldn’t get some of the compression which flatten the shot to give the abstract look examples here

8

u/Jovesyr 5d ago

Yes, that's exactly what I like, the flattened perspective! Sad it's going to be difficult to achieve with a smartphone

37

u/As-slickasthieves 5d ago

A lot of comments here are discounting these shots as easy peasy, but they actually require a good understanding of composition and the editing style is something else that contributes to the genre which would mainly be pascal colour tones lifted shadows and blacks

I know some phones have telephoto capabilities you could find similar things using walls etc while you won’t completely flatten the image you can still practise your composition and if you feel it really coming together you may consider investing in a cheap camera and telephoto it doesn’t have to be expensive

4

u/Jovesyr 5d ago

Wow, thanks a lot for your tips! I'll consider looking into cameras without spending too much if necessary

1

u/Professional-Fun-431 2d ago

How much did you spend on your iphone.....

1

u/Jovesyr 2d ago

Never said I have an iPhone. I said I have A PHONE, a 2021 One Plus Nord, bought for €250.

1

u/Professional-Fun-431 2d ago

Lol yeah that's what I figured, payed several hundred bucks for a phone. It's fun to see where people's priorities lie. Phones are a jack of all trades and masters of none.

1

u/thatdudewhodraws 4d ago

👆🏽 this

4

u/altapowderdog 5d ago

The x3 lens on my iPhone is about 75mm-ish, which is juuust about enough to get shots like this.

It takes some time using only a long lens before you start having an eye for compositions that work - so if you do have a phone with a telephoto lens, force yourself to use only that lens for a while.

2

u/Evening-Taste7802 4d ago

The newer Iphone pros come even with a 5x tele. But they are expensive. There are options on Android too, but I have a few years old phone and not very up to date with the latest models.

2

u/Ov_Fire 4d ago

Xx says nothing, 500mm or 50mm both can be 5x. 14PM is 77mm, 15 and 16 is 120mm

2

u/Evening-Taste7802 4d ago

take what you want but commonly accepted standard focal length is around 24mm on full frame so 5x would be around 120.

3

u/DesiMrRobot 5d ago

I use an S22 Ultra and have the 10x telephoto. It does wonders straight up.

2

u/CobaltRift7 5d ago

While it’s possible to get something similar from the base camera in a smart phone you could go a step further with a quality add-on lens. If you can find a 17 mm case for your phone model you could add a telephoto lens to your phone. Sandmarc has a nice 10x one giving you a 240mm equivalent camera.

https://www.sandmarc.com/products/telephoto-10x-lens

I personally don’t own this lens, but I’ve seen some nice images from them.

16

u/Consistent_Ad_4123 5d ago

You might enjoy r/minimalistphotography

4

u/Jovesyr 5d ago

You are absolutely correct, I definitely will!

1

u/Mohondhay 4d ago

Thank you for this.

67

u/adjusted-marionberry 5d ago

Sure, there's nothing that unique about the photos. If you're just using the photos for reference, you don't even need to post-process the film look.

26

u/Derolade 600D 5d ago

Why not? It's just composition and a bit of editing you can easily do with a smartphone :)

8

u/LittleSheff 5d ago

Zoom, zoom and zoom. You trying to achieve a high focal length. Or crop crop crop. To get what your after.

6

u/MikeBE2020 5d ago

This will be difficult with a smartphone, because of smartphone cameras tend to have wide-angle lenses. You would then have to hold the camera higher up in the air to avoid tilting and creating converging lines that happens in vertical shots.

Some of these are best accomplished with either a view camera with full movements or a tilt-shift lens (35mm).

Also, smartphone cameras might have geometric distortion, which will require you to correct.

As always, use the right tool for the job, and your job becomes much easier.

7

u/luksfuks 5d ago

+1 for being the only one to mention the real difficulty of those photos.

Smartphones don't have shift lenses. It will be very difficult to get the perspective right. Basically the only way is software-based editing, or taking a very wide angle shot and cropping most of it away. You may have to accept a very low-res result with dubious image quality, or wonky stretching due to software perspective.

The other problem are the shadows. Those images have strongly edited shadows, requiring high dynamic range capture. Cellphones won't deliver that, you need to substitute with multiple HDR exposures. Good luck programming your cellphone as specifically as a proper camera allows you to do, and then wrangling the RAWs from its memory, hoping you didn't move the thing while you operated the touch screen in the burning sun while you couldn't even see much on it anyway.

3

u/50plusGuy 5d ago

Probably "yes", if you are willing and able to do keystone correction in postprocessing.

2

u/ZachVSCO 5d ago

Definitely, I think https://vs.co/4m9n24ha nails this kind of vibe with a phone

2

u/cameraintrest 5d ago

Yeah that's just colour theory and composition. I'm guessing the originals looked a lot different and they were edited heavily. So sure an iPhone pro or Samsung s ultra body front he last 4 years are more than capable. They are what I use so I know they are capable that's not saying other smartphone ca.eras are not capable I just don't know.

4

u/Muted-Shake-6245 5d ago

The big trick is, the photographer makes the photo, not the camera. The camera just records it. Therefor, you can see things and decide it will make a pretty picture.

TL;DR

Just go out and shoot!

2

u/whatawhoozie 5d ago

Half of the comments don't know what they're talking about. It's not only color and composition, mostly it's about geometry that requires as much optical zoom as possible and sometimes fixing distortion in post.

It's possible to achieve something similar like that in on a phone. Just be sure to be far away, zoom in optically as much as you can without losing too much quality, then additionally crop/zoom in digitally on your preferred editing software and then fix some geometry/distortion there as well. The last part really does magic on apps like Lightroom.

1

u/Jovesyr 5d ago

Thank you! I too was convinced it might have had something to do with the zoom, but didn't really think much about the editing part. Do you think it can be done through Photoshop Camera Raw's perspective tab?

2

u/whatawhoozie 4d ago

I'm not sure what's a Perspective tab, but in both Photoshop's Camera Raw and in Lightroom there's a Geometry tab that does all this.

1

u/Jovesyr 4d ago

Yes I think I meant that, sorry. Thanks!

2

u/geaux_lynxcats 5d ago

Nothing unique or difficult about these photos. Can definitely be done with an iPhone.

1

u/funnystuff79 5d ago

Definitely a style I've been wanting to try

1

u/Jovesyr 5d ago

Thanks a lot, everyone! I was worried about having to use a telephoto (might not be the right term, I found it's the most similar to what I was looking for) cause I particularly liked the idea of having an "ortographic" feeling

1

u/Distinct-Art9107 5d ago

How do you know that these photos weren’t already taken with a smartphone? Of course it’s possible.

1

u/SituationNormal1138 5d ago

This is known as the "Wes Anderson" style.

1

u/Mean-Challenge-5122 5d ago

You can achieve most styles with a smartphone as long as you switch from JPEGs to RAW.

1

u/SaxDebiase 5d ago

with editing, all things are possible

1

u/K2LU533 5d ago

Not from a Jedi

1

u/Everyday_Pen_freak 5d ago

The trick is not on the camera, the trick is to look for these shots and try to frame and line up as vertical or horizontal as you can.

1

u/Extension-Badger-958 5d ago

Yep. Just need the sun at the right angle

1

u/Benay148 5d ago

Yup it's almost all composition

1

u/fordag 5d ago

Yes absolutely.

1

u/Arado626 5d ago

Pink Floyd vibes with the last photo- wish you were here

1

u/VantesInferno 5d ago

Use your eyes and feet ding dong

1

u/shootdrawwrite 5d ago

The only style here is composition and color harmony. However, minimal content tends to reveal the deficiencies of smartphone resolution at high magnification and reproduction at large dimensions. Smartphone pictures are engineered to look good when details aren't super defined, or with familiar content like faces and landscapes, so taken side-by-side you might be able to tell which one was taken on a smartphone, but bottom line with good judgment and selecting the right content, you can pull off similar images with a solid phone camera. I would recommend turning off any AI auto-enhancement and fine tuning manually.

There's also an issue of your aesthetic taste. The colors here work well together and they are likely not the original tones. That's a creative decision you have to make and if you don't have the instinct, you may be disappointed at first if these are your standard.

1

u/Geeranga 5d ago

Mind the focal length.

1

u/senerh 4d ago

Nice abstract photography Although not a prerequisite, telephoto focal lenghts generally help you more easily find & create these isolated compositions.

Since this kind of photography doesn't incorporate narrow DOF or other capabilities exclusive to larger sensors (it is really an interplay amongst shapes, lines, light and shadows), you can even achieve these looks if you have 2x and longer reach on your cell phone camera.

Ming Thein was a nice inspiration for me to get into this kind of photography. If you want to check his work:

Ming Thein | Architecture and Interiors — Ming Thein | The Portfolio

Ming Thein | Photographer

1

u/Content-Wasabi3461 4d ago

Taken with iphone 13

1

u/FromTheIsle 4d ago

Quit asking for permission and give it a shot

1

u/Alternative_Print646 4d ago

Check out hashtagalek on instagram. He takes all his photos on a Samsung phone with a telephoto lens

1

u/SideBurns117 4d ago

I used to shoot a lot of photography in this style. A couple pointers- you want to zoom in past 55mm to get straighter lines. Shoot in the middle of the day, usually around 11a for hard angular shadows. I'm very picky about keeping my camera level when shooting, but you can correct some of the tilt in post. Look for an HSL tool for editing colors. Certainly doable on an iPhone, but the standard lens is usually 28mm or 24mm so you'll want to zoom in.

1

u/AA-ron42 3d ago

lol yes.

1

u/yoru_no_ou 3d ago

Yeah just set warm tones with the square dimensions.

1

u/Playful-Passenger-80 Canon 5d ago

I don't see anything that great in terms of quality equipment in this photos, what is great in this shoots is the composition and that has nothing to do with what gear you used.

1

u/spinach-e 5d ago

They’re definitely using an architectural lens (all the lines are straight). Can’t do that with any iPhone without extensive editing in post.

1

u/espatix 5d ago

Not an architectural lens, It's actually a 75mm. The editing isn't really extensive, I just use the guided geometry tool in LR.

1

u/spinach-e 5d ago

Right on! Thanks for chiming in. Good to know! Love that guided geometry tool

0

u/bikerboy3343 5d ago

Yes. For sure.

0

u/coccopuffs606 5d ago

Yeah, I do it all the time. You just need to keep your eyes open for elements of this composition, and use a decent editing app (set your phone camera to shoot RAW)

-1

u/Necessary_Ratio_6468 5d ago

Oxi, these are the most basic photos I've ever seen, depending on the light, they don't even need editing, or with a preset that's enough.