How to unleash your camera phone’s full potential

About 10 years ago, no professional photographer would have probably thought that a camera phone could replace a professional DSLR in quality and usability.

Camera phones were far too basic in features and it lacked the imaging power compared to DSLRs. But with the most recent technologies in phone photography, I would say it is now very possible or even true that camera phones are slowly replacing those heavy and bulky cameras.

Shot with my mid-range smartphone and processed in Adobe Lightroom

I have been a photographer by profession and I also have been teaching photography in several universities in the country for the past 11 years. My DSLR was my main tool, but that changed last year when I bought a midrange phone and used its RAW feature for shooting.

For this article, we’ll check out some ways to maximize your phone’s camera settings and turn ordinary snaps to upload-worthy photographs.

Flexible settings

If you ask any photographer, a DSLR is the ideal tool for different reasons. First is for its full manual control, next is its capability to interchange lenses, and third is its RAW shooting format.

Pro mode is pretty common for smartphones these days

So how can phones replace DSLRs? A lot of smartphones today — even budget phones — have DSLR-like full manual control in Pro mode that lets you control ISO, White Balance, Focus, Metering, and Shutter Speed from up to 30 seconds – 1/4000 of a second.

You also have several focal length options that vary from ultra-wide, bokeh (prime lens), macro, and a telephoto (zoom) lens. You can pick and choose from these lenses depending on what the situation calls for.

If you find yourself traveling in a foreign land and you want to capture the landscape, an ultra-wide-angle lens would prove useful. If you want to focus on one subject up close, go for macro. When you need to zoom in on something, the telephoto would prevent loss of detail, and so on.

A sample of a phone’s multi-camera setup

Remember, knowing specifically which and when to use your camera phone’s features is one of the ingredients to achieving a great shot.

Although important, those are a bit given. But a feature most people are not aware of is that a lot of mid-range and most (if not all) flagship phones now have RAW format!

RAW format

So what is RAW format? A quick Google search tells us it’s basically an unprocessed and uncompressed data of a photo that can be compared to the unprocessed film negative. If your phone supports this, it can be found on the settings page when you open your camera app.

For the sake of comparison, a normal JPEG (common method of lossy compression for digital images) photo has 8-bit of data per pixel or 256 shades of color. Meanwhile, RAW contains 12-14 bit per pixel or 4,096 shades of color and makes up to 68.7 billion colors.

In other words, shooting in RAW offers a tremendous amount of exposure and color detail greatly beneficial for tweaking its settings on a photo-editing software. Color correcting and color grading a RAW file will not reduce the quality of a photo — something that JPEG formats are notorious for doing.

Here are a couple of samples I shot on RAW vs after editing them:

Dynamic Range

When shooting landscape, you probably experienced ending up frustrated when you see the skies just blown-out and simply plain white, while shadows are totally dark with no details.

This is where dynamic range (or contrast ratio) will come into play. Most camera phones now have an HDR (High Dynamic Range) feature that uses AI to pull out details from contrasting parts of the photo.

But did you know shooting in RAW format will naturally capture details in both the light and dark areas of up to roughly 12 stops of exposure? And with the use of RAW processing apps like Adobe Lightroom, Snapseed, and VSCO, you now have the ability to pull out those details directly from your phone.

This will give you the power to create stunning landscape photos full of detail and color. This is not the same story when you shoot in 8-bit HDR JPEGS as attempting to pull out details from a jpeg will end up messing up your color and texture.

Know when to use RAW format

RAW format is not recommended in every single photo you take with your phone. You have to keep in mind that the RAW format will eat up a lot of your precious memory as a single photo can use up to 50mb depending on the pixel count of your phone’s cameras.

RAW format also requires processing. You cannot simply just shoot and upload. It is only recommended to use this format if you plan to correct exposure, correct color, and color grade on photo-editing apps like mentioned earlier.

Protip: Landscape and travel photography is where you will find this most useful!

Conclusion

Now that these features are available on a phone using just one hand, I found myself using it for a number of my shoots.

Yes, a DSLR is still more powerful given its sensor size and a dedicated lens still produces better photos. But in some scenarios, it is simply a huge convenience to carry your photography tools in such a small package that fits in your pocket.

Plus it’s a convenient alternative to shoot in places where DSLRs require permits to use. The quality is already there and it continues to improve with every succeeding model. With these in mind, I truly am excited about the future of phone photography.

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4 things the 2022 Honda HR-V delivers as a daily vehicle

08/24/2022

The 2022 Honda HR-V is the company’s third-generation model in the series. As such, it now comes with a new design, loads of new tech and safety features, and a choice of a turbo engine running under the hood.

We’ve had the chance to spend time with this compact crossover (top-of-the-line Turbo variant) during its Philippine launch, and you can watch our video on it below. We talked about the updates for its design, its key features, and our initial impressions of its performance.

But for this article, we’ll concentrate more on how it performed on a daily basis, and what elements and aspects stood out as our vehicle in and out of the city.

Aesthetics 

We’d like to think that while the aesthetics department might not directly affect the performance of a vehicle, it does affect overall consumer experience. As drivers, there’s that sense of pride when you personally love how your vehicle looks.

And that same pride is felt when driving the HR-V. As established in our video, the exterior is now a lot sportier than previous generations. Its new grille and fresh pair of headlights make the front facia look sleeker now.

I also like the small detail it has on the lower part of its front grille — resembling a heartbeat that more or less suggests excitement. It does make things a bit more interesting and nicely adds flair to the exterior. Yup, I’m a sucker for small details that enhance overall aesthetics.

Just like before, the rear door handles are still located at the vehicle’s C-pillar to achieve that two-door illusion. Meanwhile, its new sloping roofline is meant to make it look more like it has a coupe design.

The elevated door panels give the vehicle a more upright stance together with its 17-inch alloy wheels. After bringing it around for days, you’ll realize that it adds that proud feeling that you’re driving a vehicle that in itself looks proud — backing up my earlier point on aesthetics.

Finally, the thing that struck me the most at the rear is its full-width LED taillight since it just begs to be noticed both during daytime and especially at night. It serves a double purpose for safety and style.

Comfort and ergonomics

Comfort factor and the way the layout of its interior is arranged also play a big part, especially during long drives. And the HR-V didn’t disappoint in this aspect.

Its seats are situated high up so it’s easier to see the surroundings of the car as the driver. Taller drivers might just find their heads closer to the ceiling.

Apart from that, the seats are comfortable even when driving out of the city for hours. Fatigue has been kept to a minimum and thanks to its nicely laid out buttons and knobs, attention to ergonomics is very apparent.

I appreciate that its 8-inch infotainment touchscreen comes with a couple of physical buttons for volume and menu navigation.

I’ve always believed that navigating solely on a touchscreen will demand you to take your eyes off the road and the presence of tactile buttons helps avoid this.

Meanwhile for the passengers at the back, there’s ample space for head and leg room and is complete with AC vents and USB chargers if you need to top up your devices while on a road trip.

For hauling your things, trunk space is also adequate and the rear seats can even fold in a 60/40 partition so you can load extra lengthy cargo.

Honda Sensing

Honda has been focusing a lot of its research and technology on improving its safety features. And with the latest Honda Sensing technology that’s present in the HR-V, you get an array of safety features for your everyday drives.

You get Adaptive Cruise Control, Low Speed Follow, Lane Keep Assist, Collision Mitigation Braking, Road Departure Mitigation, Lead Car Departure Notification, and Auto High Beam.

From those, its Adaptive Cruise Control with Low Speed Follow has been really useful for long highway drives. Although it still requires you to pay attention on the road, you can relax more and enjoy the scenery while the vehicle safely maintains its speed.

Its Lead Car Departure Notification is also surprisingly helpful for those times you’re at a traffic light and didn’t notice the light turn green. A soft warning tone is heard as a reminder that the vehicle ahead of you already moved. Pretty nifty feature.

Vikka actually made a dedicated video on Honda Sensing on the Honda Civic and you can watch more about it in the video above.

It also comes with a total of four airbags.

Lastly, although not a part of Honda’s safety tech, Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are both present here so they provide a seamless transition of porting over driving essentials like Waze or Spotify to the vehicle’s infotainment system — something that I believe should be standard in today’s modern vehicles.

Driving performance

For the HR-V, there are two engines available — there’s the naturally aspirated 1.5-liter VTEC engine and there’s also the 1.5-liter turbocharged VTEC engine that we have here. It outputs 175hp and 240Nm of torque and delivers power to the front wheels using a continuously variable transmission.

Needless to say, power is present whether you’re picking up speed on the highway or needing to overtake with precision. Handling is light and easily follows your lead and the vehicle feels balanced overall.

Suspension is generally soft and comfortable while remaining composed at all times and it’s got different driving modes that you can switch between depending on your current driving needs.

Driving the HR-V feels like you’re driving a vehicle with a smaller body. It doesn’t feel chunky and is very lightweight and agile enough to get out of its current spot effortlessly. This makes for a relaxed driving experience on long roads, and not as taxing when you’re stuck in traffic.

Pricing and final thoughts

The 2022 Honda HR-V starts at PhP 1,250,000 for the base S model while the V Turbo variant retails at PhP 1,598,000.

While there may be more affordable offerings available in the market today, what Honda is selling here is a complete package that comes with an exciting and confident exterior, ergonomic and comfortable interior, a suite of features and Honda’s safety tech, and an agile performance with comfortable ride experience.

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