You can find other things on your phone too, like contacts, or emails. I find this search feature most useful for finding Apps. I want to open the Dropbox app, but hunt though I might, I just don’t see it.
Stop hunting, just use search!

We teach this topic as a 6 hour, hands-on Class
Here’s a short video made in one of those classes.

Members can download the class workbook for
Smartphone Photography from our
eBooks page.

Next time we’re teaching this class:
FMCA RV Rally in Chandler, AZ March 9, 2017
Escapee’s Club Escapade in Tucson, AZ March 17-18

When you take pictures with your smartphone, you are actually using an App. Every camera comes with a “native” app, but you can use others if you like. Just download another app.

MOST IMPORTANT!
Clean the lens! Get in a habit of every time you reach for your phone to take a picture – check the lens, if it’s dirty – clean it. Maybe give it a swipe even if it doesn’t look dirty. Microfiber cloth is good, but any t-shirt will do. Remember, there are two lenses – rear facing for normal photos and front-facing for selfies.

When you show your photos on a computer or TV screen, the only way to have it fill the screen is to have a horizontal (aka landscape) photo. It makes a huge difference.
Hold your phone horizontal unless there is a good reason to hold it vertical. Just like you would a regular camera.

2.Take a Selfie

3.Take a video

4.Flash On/Off/Auto

5.Take a Panorama

■iPhone special feature: Live Photo

To take a photo: (clean the lens!) open the camera app, frame your shot, tap the shutter button. the round white button on the screen. (you can also use the real buttons that are your volume controls)

Setting focus and exposure just by tapping the screen.

Flash is a lightning bolt icon on your screen. Tap it and you’ll see Auto  On  Off. We think you should leave it Off unless you really need it.

To take a selfie tap the button that switches to the front-facing lens.

To take a video, put the camera into Video mode. Right by the shutter button you will see the list of all the different modes. You can swipe right/left to see all the options, then tap on Video and you’ll see the shutter button turn into a Red round button. Tap it once to start video capture, tap it again to stop.

19:35  Panorama: Here’s the 1 minute video on that.

When you’re taking a photo with an iPhone 6s or above, you have the option to capture a “Live” photo. To do that, you tap the bullseye icon so it turns gold.

Tap it again to turn off the feature.
When viewing a live photo using the native Apple photos app, you press hard on the picture to see the 3 seconds of video.
When viewing a live photo using Google Photos, you view the video portion by tapping the play icon.

See our recent article:

• How to Capture a Frame of an iPhone Live Photo

To capture one frame of the live photo and save as a new still photo, use the App called  Lively. When you open it, you will see all the Live Photos in your camera roll and you have 3 options: Gif (for animation) Movie (to get those 3 seconds as a separate video) and Frame – to capture one frame of the video portion and save as a new still photo.

Select the frame you want and then tap Export Frame, then Save.

To take a photo: (clean the lens!) open the camera app, frame your shot, tap the shutter button. the round button with camera icon on the screen. (you can also use the real buttons that are your volume controls)

Setting focus just by tapping the screen. Some Androids will also set exposure when you Tap – my Samsung does not, just focus.

Zoom in by spreading your fingers.

Flash is in the settings – the gear icon. You’ll see lots of options here. Flash is one. Tap it and it cycles thru Auto  On  Off. We think you should leave it Off unless you really need it.

To take a selfie tap the button that switches to the front-facing lens.

Voice Control: on the Samsung, you have the option to speak “Shoot”, or “Smile”, or “Cheese” This is very handy when your arm is stretched out to take a selfie and you can’t reach with the other hand to tap the shutter button. Find the setting for Voice Control under the Gear icon for settings. Realize that there are more settings than you first see – scroll down to see more. Tap Voice Control to turn it on.

Panorama: on the Samsung, Panorama is found under Mode. Select Panorama and then tap the shutter button to begin capturing the panorama. Watch the photo build in the rectangle on screen. Note: you can also create a vertical panorama (waterfall?) by moving the camera up rather than sideways.

Watch the video for Samsung’s camera Panorama feature.

Video: oops, I forgot to show taking video during the show. On Samsung, when you tap the video icon, it starts capturing, then then tap another button to Stop, or you can pause during shooting.
Start video: Stop Video: Pause Video capture:

Photosphere – this is a built in feature of the Google Camera on a Google phone, like Jim’s Nexus 6. Here is the Photosphere Jim took. As you can see by my disembodied head – it takes some practice to get good at taking photospheres!

See the circular arrow in upper right that identifies this as a photosphere. Once you click on it to get full screen, you can then drag it around to see all 360. You do need to be using a viewer capable of displaying it – like Google Photos.

Video on creating a PhotosPhere

PhotoSpheres can be used in Google Maps Streetview. Learn more here.

Bill comments that PhotoSphere would be great underwater. Hey! Google’s already done that, take a look Streetview Great Barrier Reef. Scroll down and wait a bit for the 360 picture to load.

PhotoSpheres are also good for photographing homes for sale, or RVs! Or doing an inventory of your household belongings. You may know them as Virtual Tours – the Samsung camera has a 360 capability and that’s what it’s called, Virtual Tour. It works very similarly to the PhotoSphere.

iPhone: Valentine’s Day Photo Frames with stickers and pics
Android: Valentine’s Day Photo Frame

Aawwwww ….