[Photography] A Guide to Smartphone Landscape Photography (+ 13 Tips)

The post A Guide to Smartphone Landscape Photography (+ 13 Tips) appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Rick Ohnsman.

Gone are the days when you needed a high-end camera to capture breathtaking landscapes. With today’s smartphones, capturing beautiful vistas is literally at your fingertips. You can take out your phone and snap away, knowing that you’re creating images worth sharing.

Sure, smartphone cameras have their drawbacks, such as smaller sensors and reduced control – but even with these disadvantages, mobile phones are more than capable of capturing breathtaking scenic shots. I often use my phone when out shooting, and I recommend you do the same.

And at the end of the day, as the saying goes: the best camera is the one you have with you. The high-end DSLR or mirrorless camera you might own is totally worthless if it’s sitting in your car, your hotel room, or your home when a great photo opportunity presents itself.

Ready to learn how to make stunning smartphone landscape photography? Let’s dive right in.

13 tips for stunning smartphone landscape photography

Landscape photography – whether captured with a smartphone or a flagship mirrorless camera – requires patience, careful choice of settings, observance of the light, and more. In this section, I share a handful of tips and tricks to improve your results.

1. Make photographs, don’t take snapshots

I’ve photographed this windmill before, so upon witnessing the sunset while driving home, I raced for the spot with the only camera I had with me: my smartphone.

To be a better photographer, you must move beyond the idea that you “take” a photo. Ansel Adams said it succinctly: “You don’t take a photograph, you make it.”

What’s the difference? The idea is that you think about what you’re trying to communicate with your photo, then do everything you can to include that, and only that, in your shot. Another way to put it: Snapshots are taken by people who just point and click. Photographs are made by artists who give thought to the image they are creating.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what instrument you use, smartphone or high-end digital camera. What counts is the thought you put into your work. You generally won’t need to make a landscape photograph in a hurry, so slow down and think about what you’re doing.

If you only take one tip from this article, make sure it’s this one. Your smartphone landscape photography will be far ahead of the rest of the happy snappers who just point and shoot.

2. Carefully choose a composition

Getting down in the wheat field with the stalks just inches from the smartphone lens gave an immersive feel to this image. Smartphone optics are good for this kind of thing!

Composition is king in photography, no matter your camera.

So study compositional techniques such as the rule of thirds. Use the thirds grid on your smartphone to assist you. Do “border patrol” of your shot, looking for distracting elements around the edges of the frame.

Consider whether you should use portrait (vertical) or landscape (horizontal) mode for the shot. Just because you typically hold your phone vertically doesn’t mean you should always take photos that way. In fact, most landscape images benefit from a landscape mode composition. (Guess that’s why they call it that, huh?)

Composition is still king in smartphone landscape photography. Note how the horizon is on the top third line and the barn sits at the power-point intersection of the right third line: the rule of thirds at work.

Of course, sometimes portrait mode is better suited for a shot. Thanks to their small sensors and wide lenses, smartphones feature excellent depth of field, which can make for beautiful near/far images (with everything sharp from foreground to horizon).

To emphasize the height of the cliffs and the stretch of the coastline, I decided that portrait mode was the proper orientation for this shot.

Note that creating such an expansive depth of field would require an ultra-narrow aperture – or even a focus stack – on a DSLR. But on a smartphone camera, it requires nothing extra.

With a 1.78mm lens, even an f-stop of f/1.9 gives a huge depth of field, spanning from inches away from the lens to infinity.

3. Seek the light

Since we have our smartphones with us most of the time, we can make photos whenever we like. But images in midday sun usually won’t look great no matter what camera you use. Nice light is always going to make for a better photo.

So if you can do your smartphone landscape photography in the early morning or late evening – the “magic hours” – you’ll almost always end up with more dramatic images.

This location at a local park is nothing special during the day. With a night sunset, however, it makes for great silhouettes. Seek the light!

Modern smartphone cameras have also become much better at low-light shooting, so don’t overlook the possibility of night photos.

4. Take control of your smartphone settings

Beginning photographers, even with higher-end cameras, often stick to the simplicity of automatic modes and let the camera determine the focus, aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and white balance.

Yet while early smartphone cameras offered no option for manual control, many modern smartphone cameras now offer full manual control over settings. You can also find apps that expand your camera control, such as ProCam X for Android devices Camera+ for iPhones.

By taking control of your camera settings, you can create better landscape photos – so make sure to explore these options, even if you currently feel more comfortable with your smartphone’s Auto mode.

5. Use all available lenses

My smartphone has two cameras, one with a wider angle of view than the other. Some newer smartphones now have four cameras on the back, a response to the lack of interchangeable lenses.

It used to be that a distinct advantage of standard cameras over smartphone cameras was lens interchangeability. A smartphone had one lens with a fixed focal length, no optical zoom, and a set aperture.

But look at the back of a modern smartphone, and you’ll see multiple cameras. An iPhone 14 Pro Max features three cameras, and that’s not including a fourth option that’s produced through clever use of the main camera sensor. There’s also the selfie-cam on the front, but that’s not one you’re likely to use for landscape photography.

Go wide and go vertical, a great way to emphasize these towering redwoods.

If you have additional lenses, take advantage of them! On the other hand, don’t use digital zoom. Sure, it might seem easy to “zoom” into a composition with a simple touch of the screen, but you’re actually just cropping the image and losing resolution in the process.

I’d also discourage clip-on lenses for smartphones. These are always fiddly to work with, and in my experience, they almost never produce quality images. Save your money. If you need a more versatile lens than your smartphone but still want something pocketable, check out some of the great point-and-shoot cameras that have superzooms and good specs.

6. Grab a smartphone tripod

I shoot from a tripod about 85% of the time. However, I often see other landscape photographers happily working away with no tripod in sight.

Yes, lens and IBIS (in-body image stabilization) has brought us a long way, and if the light permits, a fast shutter speed might negate the advantage of a tripod. But I’ve got to say it: A tripod does have a place in smartphone landscape photography. When the light is low and your shutter speed gets longer, being able to keep the camera still is the difference between a fuzzy shot and a tack-sharp shot. Add the ability to take really long exposures (yes, many smartphone cameras can do this!), and a tripod can sometimes make a lot of sense.

You need three legs to make this shot. A four-second exposure requires the steadiness of a tripod and manual control of your smartphone camera.

There is one good thing, however: you don’t need a big tripod for your tiny smartphone. Pocketable tripods can do the trick; couple one with a Bluetooth remote trigger, and you can capture multi-second exposures. Joby, the company that invented the GorillaPod, is a good place to look.

By the way, if you’re going to be using your standard tripod with your smartphone, a smartphone adapter is a good addition to your bag.

7. Work in HDR

HDR mode is a staple in modern smartphones, and it’s especially useful for landscape photography. What HDR does is simple yet effective: it takes multiple photos at varying exposure levels and blends them into a single, well-exposed image.

In most landscape scenarios, this means capturing the bright sky, the darker terrain, and everything in between without losing detail. You won’t end up with blown-out skies or overly dark shadows. It’s like having your cake and eating it too (photographically speaking).

I’d driven past this location many times and had already visualized the image in my head. So one day, I just had to stop, pull out my smartphone, and record the photo.

HDR is generally an automated feature, making it easy to use even if you’re a complete beginner. Make sure the mode is activated, then let your smartphone capture several shots for blending. (It’s often so fast you won’t even notice!)

But what if your phone’s built-in HDR mode isn’t cutting it for you? No worries – you have options. For instance, you can work with a different camera app, or you can manually capture several photos at different exposures, then blend them together using an editing app on your phone.

The goal is to create a balanced image that includes nice detail (and minimal noise) from corner to corner. In landscape photography, HDR techniques can make an enormous difference!

8. Got a backup? Make one!

With standard cameras, we typically have image files stored on a card in the camera. Remove that card, copy the files to the computer, and make a backup – that’s the standard workflow.

Shooting with a smartphone, however, the images are stored in internal memory and sometimes on a micro SD card in the phone. You can connect your phone to your computer or plug in the micro SD card, but who does that? Most people just let the images stay on their phone. Which is fine, until your phone crashes, the storage is corrupted, or you break or lose your phone.

Now, what if your images were backed up to the cloud – as soon as you shot them? Not only would you have a backup, you’d have the images in a place where they could be easily shared to social media, emailed, whatever you prefer. There are many apps that will do this, but as an Android user, I look no further than Google Photos. iPhone users can also use Google Photos, but might instead opt for iCloud.

I don’t like carrying my regular camera on a dirt bike ride, but my smartphone camera? Yup, it’s the one that’s always with me. As long as I’m in range of a cell tower, my photos are immediately backed up as soon as I shoot them.

Whatever option you choose, the idea is to have an app that immediately and automatically syncs your smartphone images to the cloud for safe backup.

9. Use GPS data to track your photo locations

Almost all smartphones will embed the GPS coordinates of a photo in the EXIF data. Bring up a photo, and in many apps, you will be able to see exactly when and where that photo was made. Some apps will also present pins on a map showing where a collection of photos was shot. If you decide you want to go back to that spot, it’s easy to find it again.

They call this beautiful spot on the Oregon coast “Secret Beach,” but even though it’s not signed, enough people have posted GPS-tagged images of it online that it’s not much of a secret anymore.

There is a downside to photos being tagged with GPS data. If you post a GPS-tagged image on social media, viewers can determine exactly where the photo was taken. This has caused an ethical dilemma for landscape photographers. Places that used to be known only to a few are now known widely. Photographers seeing a great photo online often think, “I want to go to that spot, too!” The problem is that beautiful places are being overrun, trampled down, littered, and even vandalized by unscrupulous people. Some places are now closed off because they were “loved to death” by the crowds who discovered them online.

So as an ethical landscape photographer, you may wish to consider stripping off the GPS data from your images before posting. It may not be necessary for the most well-known spots, as people already know where those are. But if you find a really great waterfall way up a mountain trail, consider keeping it a secret. Not only will you have an exclusive shot, but you’ll prevent hordes of people from descending upon it.

Take a look at a GPS-tagged photo with Google Maps or Lightroom, and you can see right where the photo was taken. The Portland Head lighthouse isn’t much of a secret, but think twice before posting GPS-tagged photos.

10. Try shooting in RAW

Many newer smartphone cameras can now shoot in RAW format. My current LG V30 does this, and I have successfully brought its DNGs into Lightroom for editing.

That said, I often find that the additional work this requires (plus the huge file sizes and the drawback of not having an easily uploadable JPEG) makes RAW smartphone shooting too much of a hassle. AIso, I’m usually hard-pressed to edit a RAW file into a better image than a JPEG.

Many smartphones excel at macro shots. I could have shot this in a RAW format, but I doubt I could’ve processed it any better than this JPEG. If the smartphone can do a better job, why go to the extra work of shooting RAW? (Note: I did edit the JPEG with Snapseed.)

If your smartphone can shoot in RAW, give it a test and see what you think. I typically advocate shooting in RAW, but if the end result isn’t any better, it may not be worth it for you.

11. Capture some panoramas

Here’s a shot using the sweep panorama feature within my smartphone that automatically stitches the images together.

So you’ve found an awe-inspiring vista, but even with your smartphone’s widest lens, you can’t seem to fit the entire scene into one shot. Don’t fret; most smartphones have a built-in panorama mode, and it can be incredibly effective when you want to capture wide, sprawling landscapes.

You’ll generally find the panorama mode in the camera app, sometimes indicated by an icon resembling a mountain range. Once you’ve activate the panorama capability, it’s all about stability. Hold your phone carefully, then tap the shutter button and carefully pan your phone from one side to the other. Usually, your phone will guide you with on-screen directions to ensure you’re maintaining a level image. When you’re done, you’ll have the entire scene captured in a single image.

Now, if you’re aiming for an even more detailed panorama, you do have another option: rather than relying solely on your phone’s panorama mode, take multiple overlapping photos of the scene manually. (These should be regular photos, not photos shot in panorama mode.)

Then upload them to an app designed to stitch photos together into a panorama. The results can be stunningly detailed and are often superior to what you can achieve with your phone’s built-in feature.

Want a really big pano with your smartphone? Shoot a series of vertical shots (maybe 20 or so) and let a smartphone app like Bimostitch assemble them. The finished image of this 180-degree panorama is 6227×2753 pixels.

12. Edit your smartphone landscape shots

Some photographers believe you should get your image right in-camera so you don’t have to edit. They don’t like to edit their images, ever.

I disagree.

Whether captured with a regular camera or a smartphone, almost any shot can be made better with some editing. You will often want to crop, adjust exposure, and perhaps go even further. Fortunately, there are excellent editing apps for smartphones, and they’re often free.

My absolute favorite is Snapseed. It’s available for both Android and iPhone and is completely free. It’s very easy to learn, has a nice array of tools, and it is rare that any smartphone image I consider a keeper does not get the Snapseed treatment.

You’re not done until you edit! The top shot is straight out of the smartphone camera. The bottom version is edited with Snapseed. You can almost always improve a photo with a little editing.

There are many other great smartphone editing apps, though. Adobe Lightroom has a mobile version that is very good. Some may argue that the whole idea of smartphone photography is “quick and easy photography” and therefore balk at editing. I get it, but I still think that almost any image can be improved with some fine-tuning.

13. Previsualize with your smartphone camera

When out on a dedicated landscape photo outing, I almost always have my smartphone in my pocket and my DSLR and equipment in a backpack. Often, I will use the smartphone as a tool to previsualize and help compose a shot. I’ll make some photos, consider my vantage point, and then determine if I even want to set up my tripod and bring out my other gear. This has several advantages.

These bristlecone pines in the White Mountains of California are the oldest living things on earth (over 5,000 years old!). I wasn’t going to forget my DSLR when I went to shoot them, but I first did these previsualization shots with my smartphone.

If the shot doesn’t have merit, I will move on, not even going to the trouble of bringing out my DSLR. On the other hand, if it is a good shot, I will have captured GPS data, plus I’ll have a smartphone image that will be uploaded to the cloud.

And here’s the kicker: Occasionally, my smartphone shot will be better than what I later shoot with my main camera. There have been times when, with changing light, the first capture is best. Sometimes the smartphone camera will process the image as a JPEG and achieve better results than I get when editing the RAW file from my main camera. There have also been times when I didn’t bother to shoot a DSLR photo – the smartphone shot was all I took – and was later happy I did because it turned out great.

We left the cameras in the car and hiked down to the shore of Mono Lake to check out the tufa formations. Good thing I had my smartphone camera, as this rain squall passed over the island in the distance. By the time I got back with my DSLR, the shot was gone.

The pros and cons of smartphone landscape photography

Smartphone cameras have become more sophisticated than ever, making them increasingly viable options for capturing landscape photography. But as with any tool, they have their strengths and weaknesses. Let’s explore the good and the bad so you can make the most informed decisions before investing in – or avoiding – certain gear.

Pro: Immediate accessibility

This truly is “drive-by shooting,” as I snapped it out the car window while racing down the road. My DSLR was still stashed in my backpack.

One of the most compelling advantages of a smartphone is its accessibility. You carry it everywhere you go – so whether you’re on a morning walk or on a weekend getaway, your smartphone is always within arm’s reach.

This immediate availability allows you to capture those unplanned, magical moments. A golden sunset or an unexpected rainbow can appear in an instant. With your smartphone, you don’t have to regret leaving your DSLR at home, and you can capture the magic then and there.

Pro: Portability

DSLRs and mirrorless cameras are great, but they’re not exactly pocket-friendly. Your smartphone, however, slides effortlessly into your pocket or bag, making it the ultimate travel companion.

Imagine climbing a mountain or trekking through a forest. The last thing you want is a heavy camera bag weighing you down. With a smartphone, you can hike more freely and still capture the natural beauty surrounding you.

Pro: Computational abilities

Your smartphone isn’t just a camera; it’s a mini-computer with advanced software. Features like HDR and depth mapping offer you technical advantages that even some dedicated cameras lack.

As discussed above, HDR helps balance out shadows and highlights, producing images that closely resemble what your eyes see, and it involves significant file processing. And depth mapping technology allows your phone to create a more realistic background blur. Sure, many landscape photographers prefer to keep the entire shot sharp – but a nice depth of field effect can draw attention to foreground subjects such as flowers or wildlife.

Pro: An all-in-one workflow

Another game-changing benefit of smartphones is the all-in-one workflow. You shoot, edit, and share – all without leaving your device.

Various editing apps let you tweak your landscape shots to perfection right after capturing them, and many of them are well-made and free. Once you’ve edited a batch of shots, you can share them on social media and/or send the files to friends and family, all in a matter of seconds.

This streamlined workflow not only saves time but also keeps the creative process flowing. You can visualize, execute, and share your artistic vision almost instantaneously.

Con: Limited focal length

One drawback to using smartphones for landscape photography? The limited focal length range. While many smartphones come with several lenses, they can’t compete with the extensive lens lineups offered by dedicated camera manufacturers.

It’s not a huge deal if you always like to capture wide-angle shots, but if you ever want to capture distant details, like the snow-covered peaks of a mountain range, the focal-length limitations start to become evident. And while lots of smartphone cameras offer a digital zoom feature, it almost always leads to a loss of image quality, making the picture appear grainy or pixelated.

Con: Smaller sensors

Sensors in smartphones are getting better, but they’re still pretty disappointing compared to what you’ll find in a dedicated camera, in large part due to their size. Smartphone imaging sensors are very small – it’s part of what makes smartphones so portable – and a smaller sensor tends to produce images that are noisier, particularly in low-light situations.

You can get around this by using a tripod and manually setting the ISO to a low value, but it’s certainly an obstracle to be aware of.

Con: Softer lenses

As you start to develop a landscape portfolio, you may decide to print your images. That’s when another con of smartphone cameras becomes apparent: reduced sharpness in larger prints.

When you blow up a photo for printing, every little flaw becomes magnified. The optics of smartphone lenses, while impressive, often don’t stand up to close scrutiny in larger formats. Your image may appear sharp on the phone screen – but when printed, you might notice a lack of fine detail that a dedicated camera lens would have captured.

Con: Lack of control

One thing that seasoned photographers appreciate about DSLRs and mirrorless cameras is the control they offer. From manually adjusting focus to adjusting the aperture settings, these cameras provide more hands-on control over the final image.

While many smartphones offer “pro” or “manual” modes that provide some level of customization, these options are often not as comprehensive as those on a dedicated camera, so you might find yourself a bit handcuffed when trying to achieve a specific look or feel in challenging shooting conditions.

So can you really capture high-quality landscape photos using a smartphone?

My current Android smartphone (an LG V30 H931) may not have the best camera, but it’s often the best camera I have with me, and that’s what counts. All the photos in this article are smartphone images, often made on my V30.

More than a few times, I’ve chatted with talented photographers who scoff at the idea of serious photography with a smartphone. Knowing I shoot both phone and dedicated camera images, they sometimes admire an image I’ve made, but then ask, “Did you take that with your real camera?”

My “real camera?” Why do some think a smartphone camera isn’t real, or that a person that shoots with one isn’t a real photographer?

I would argue that if you make a nice landscape image, it doesn’t matter what you use to make it. Hopefully, the images throughout this article prove that a smartphone is more than capable of producing great shots – and that with the right approach, smartphone landscape photography can be both beautiful and compelling.

And when it comes down to it, most modern smartphone cameras have far better specs than DSLRs from a decade ago. Sure, certain factors favor DSLRs, such as the greater control, the ability to use interchangeable lenses, and the larger sensor size. But the idea that you can’t make great images with a smartphone camera? Hogwash, I say!

Smartphone landscape photography tips: final words

I’d never tell you to sell your dedicated camera and shoot only with a smartphone. As a dedicated photography tool, your DSLR or mirrorless camera should generally be capable of making superior images, especially if you’ll be printing large. But smartphone cameras get better with every generation, and it’s evident that the camera in your pocket is more than capable of capturing the grandeur of the natural world.

Sure, a smartphone won’t replace a professional camera in all aspects. But it offers a compelling, immediate, and highly portable alternative. So embrace the limitations and the perks alike. Every tool has its quirks and features; it’s really just about knowing how to make them work for you.

And as always, practice makes perfect. So head out into the wide world, smartphone in hand – and capture some awe-inspiring landscape shots of your own!

Smartphone landscape photography FAQ

Is my smartphone camera adequate for doing quality landscape photography?

Most likely. Some believe a smartphone is not a “real camera,” but modern smartphone cameras are now more sophisticated than the DSLRs of just a few years ago. Unless your intent is to make large prints, your smartphone images will be more than adequate for most purposes.

What is the most important thing to remember in smartphone landscape photography?

The answer is the same for any kind of photography, regardless of what kind of camera you use: composition is king. Take the time to frame up your image using the standard rules of good composition, and your shots will automatically be better than those of the “happy snappers” who just point and shoot.

What should I do to take my smartphone landscape photography up a notch?

Learn to use the manual controls of your smartphone camera. These may be built in, or you may need an app, but just as serious photographers using standard cameras learn to work in manual modes, you should learn to do the same with your smartphone camera.

What else can I do to make better smartphone landscape photos?

Edit your images. Many smartphone photographers think they’re done when they click the shutter, but almost any photograph can be improved with some editing. For smartphone photography, Snapseed is a great place to start.

The post A Guide to Smartphone Landscape Photography (+ 13 Tips) appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Rick Ohnsman.

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