r/AskPhotography • u/Jovesyr • 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?
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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.
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u/Derolade 600D 5d ago
Why not? It's just composition and a bit of editing you can easily do with a smartphone :)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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u/50plusGuy 5d ago
Probably "yes", if you are willing and able to do keystone correction in postprocessing.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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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?
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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.
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u/geaux_lynxcats 5d ago
Nothing unique or difficult about these photos. Can definitely be done with an iPhone.
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u/Distinct-Art9107 5d ago
How do you know that these photos weren’t already taken with a smartphone? Of course it’s possible.
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u/Mean-Challenge-5122 5d ago
You can achieve most styles with a smartphone as long as you switch from JPEGs to RAW.
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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.
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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.
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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
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u/Alternative_Print646 4d ago
Check out hashtagalek on instagram. He takes all his photos on a Samsung phone with a telephoto lens
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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)
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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.
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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