As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Holidays or special occasions often drive us to take out our phones to capture precious moments and all the celebrations and fireworks that come along with them.
It's especially something that has gained significant value in our post-pandemic world. And if you want to take the best pictures on your Samsung Galaxy camera and want your memories to stand out as we head into the new year, we have a few tips that can help!
Use Pro mode
You can go outside and create some cool shots with long exposure for pictures of fireworks or general night photography. Long exposure is a photography style that takes advantage of a slow shutter speed. By slowing down the shutter speed you can blur moving objects such as cars or fireworks to create unique-looking photos.
Here's a tip on how to use Pro mode for such pictures (this works on devices that have a full-featured Pro mode, which is most mid-range and flagship Galaxy smartphones launched in the last year or two):
- Set your phone on a tripod (I'm using the Ulanzi ST-02S Aluminum tripod, but there are many options out there!).
- Open the Camera app and switch to Pro mode.
- First set the ISO all the way up to max to brighten up the scene so you see all the surroundings at night and can easier compose your shot (this is a temporary step).
- Lock focus on the subject by holding your finger on your subject on the phone's display.
- Bring the ISO back down to minimum (which is 50 on most devices).
- Set shutter speed to 4 or 8 seconds depending on how dark it is.
- Set the self timer to 5 or 10 seconds so you can safely tap the shutter button to initiate taking the picture while preventing any blur or shake.
Use the S Pen if you have it to adjust settings or trigger the shutter
Samsung's Galaxy Note smartphones and the Galaxy S21 Ultra and Galaxy Z Fold 3 all support the S Pen stylus, and you can use it to make night photography significantly easier. Some specific areas in which the stylus can be of use is during the winter time so you don't have to remove your glove to operate the camera or to use it as a remote shutter button so you can set your phone down and initiate pictures or videos from afar.
Use editing apps
One of my go-to editing apps is Adobe Lightroom. Apps like these give you a lot of control over your photo. They can be used to edit both JPEG and RAW files (your Samsung Galaxy smartphone can shoot pictures in RAW mode in Pro mode). As an example, Lightroom Mobile has many, many presets to choose from and you can even download presets from other people for free. What you shot is not necessarily what you have to share on social media and with your friends and family, so put editing apps to good use!
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