How to take portraits with a smartphone as well as a professional photographer: working life hacks from vivo
Miscellaneous / / October 23, 2023
Modern smartphones are not inferior to some cameras in terms of shooting quality. All thanks to ultra-sensitive cameras with optical image stabilization and professional settings. To prove this, the vivo brand, together with the portal VokrugSveta.ru, held a mobile photography competition “More than a Portrait” in September.
Absolutely anyone could participate in the competition—experience in filming did not matter. And to make it easy even for beginners to create cool shots, vivo asked professional photographers to give several master classes. Here, experts shared working life hacks that help make the shooting process comfortable and the result spectacular. You can try them on gadgets with any characteristics, but, of course, it will be easier to implement your plans with advanced devices. Vivo has released a new line of smartphones especially for mobile photographers vivo V29 Series. The camera system, smart Aura Lighting 2.0 and other tools in them allow you to create cool pictures, including studio-level portraits, without any extra effort.
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5 pro tips from vivo
Find out the hero of the shooting
Profession, interests, hobbies, favorite films and performers - ask the subject of the shoot in advance about various details from his life in order to create a full-fledged portrait in your head. This will help you understand how to better display the person’s personality in the photo. For example, a reading fan can be photographed sitting on an armchair with his favorite book, and a music lover can be captured while he is choosing vinyl records in a store.
You can continue the conversation during the shooting process: when a person talks about his favorite things or shares interesting stories from his life, this will make him feel calmer and more relaxed. As a result, the stiffness of movements and facial expressions, which often prevents you from getting a cool result, will disappear.
If the hero of the photo shoot is your good acquaintance, friend or relative, to relax before the start, you can invite him to take a few selfies. This way he will get used to his image in the frame and will be able to choose good angles in advance. With front camera vivo V29 Series creating cool selfies will be easy. It has a high resolution - 50 MP, plus there is autofocus, which will provide a clear image of the face in a portrait and add slight background blur. It’s also easy to take joint photos with the vivo V29 Series front camera: the camera zoom works both farther and closer - from 0.8 to 2.
Frame your shot using a grid
Not fishing or mosquito (although they can also be useful - to create a creative shadow). We are talking about the markup on the smartphone display. The grid divides the frame into thirds: this will help create a harmonious composition and place the subject of the portrait so that all attention is on him.
This tool will also help you get rid of popular mistakes like frames where the face is located strictly in the center. Such photographs are often associated with ID photos. It’s easy to correct the situation: just raise the camera so that the person’s eyes fall on the top grid markings or are slightly above it. By the way, vivo smartphones there is a “Portrait Composition” function: smart smartphone algorithms will analyze the frame and suggest where it would be better to place the hero.
Don't ignore other tools from the camera settings. For example, you can turn on the “bokeh” mode to blur the background and adjust the white balance - this way you will remove excess blue or yellow from the frame before post-processing. U vivo smartphones, among other things, there is a professional mode in which it is convenient to manually set focus and play with shutter speed - it helps avoid blurring in dynamic frames - and experiment with ISO to maintain picture quality in poor conditions illumination Plus in the camera vivo V29 Series There is a gallery of ready-made portrait modes - they will save you if you don’t have time to understand the parameters, but want to make the picture more atmospheric.
Follow the light
It is important both for maintaining the quality of the picture and for creating the mood of the frame. For example, hard key light can make a photo more dramatic and voluminous, while soft key light can add lightness and dreaminess. You can also create shadows with lighting, but it's best to do this carefully. Dark lines and silhouettes can either add personality to a portrait or ruin it - for example, if the shadow unsuccessfully emphasizes a person’s facial features or figure.
The temperature of the frame is also important. Cold lighting, like on a cloudy day, can make an image mysterious, while warm lighting, like during sunset, can make it peaceful. It’s easy to achieve the desired shade of a picture in smartphones vivo V29 Series Allows Aura lighting for portrait 2.0. In intelligent mode, it itself determines the set temperature in the frame and sets the optimal settings. For example, if you are taking a photo in a restaurant with yellow lamps, the backlight will add a little more warmth - making the picture brighter and emphasizing the softness. And if you photograph a person on a cloudy autumn evening, Aura will disappear into the cold light: it will return natural brightness without damaging the mystery of the frame.
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Choose a background and location to suit your mood
Think about what you want to say with the portrait, what mood you plan to convey through the frame. Based on this, choose a background for shooting. For example, a dense forest is suitable for calm photographs, a busy street for dynamic ones, and an abandoned building for rebellious ones. Location details will also be useful for building a composition. For example, the clear contours of a road or high-rise buildings can be used as lines directing attention to the subject of the portrait. A shot through a wrought-iron fence or tree branches will add depth and history to the photo.
Filming on “live” locations usually turns out more natural than in the studio. But they have their own dangers: if you collide with a passerby on the street or trip over a fallen branch in the forest, your smartphone can fly out of your hands and be damaged, and the perfect shot can fall into the abyss. To ensure that your gadget survives an accidental drop without damage, a case and a screen protector will come in handy. The new ones vivo V29 Series These accessories are already included in the package.
However, you can do without a cover. The smartphone body is made of photochromic glass with a velvety surface. Thanks to this solution, gadgets do not slip out of the palm of your hand, and it’s just beautiful. The V29 version has three colors: “red velvet”, “noble black” and “magic blue”, the V29e has two - “rose gold” and “mysterious forest”. Plus, the vivo V29 series is very thin - 7.46 millimeters and practically weightless - only 186 grams: your hands won’t get tired, even if the photo shoot lasts for several hours.
Add movement and emotion
They will make portraits more lively and interesting. You can try to evoke emotions through a conversation with the hero, and you can convey movements by filming a person in the process of some action. For example, while he is buying something at the market, walking along the road, talking or cooking. This approach to shooting, by the way, will help to avoid stiffness and contrived poses - the hero in the frame will look more natural.
But live shots have their pitfalls. For example, an element like a trash can that destroys the entire composition may accidentally enter the frame, a strand of hair may accidentally fall out of the hero’s hair, or a random shadow will fall on the face. Most of these issues can be corrected during post-processing. WITH vivo V29 Series Editing your photos will be easy: the 3D display with an AMOLED matrix, 1.5K resolution and 120 Hz refresh rate accurately conveys all image elements.
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How did the “More than a Portrait” competition end?
Participants in the “More than a Portrait” competition could use professional life hacks in four categories: “Creative!”, “Portrait with a ponytail,” “Written on the face,” and “Mood color.” A total of 6,846 applications were submitted to the competition. Based on the results of the audience vote, 20 portraits were shortlisted and reviewed by a professional jury.
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1st place in the “Creative!” category. Artyom Baraulya - “First Dreams”
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1st place in the “Portrait with a Ponytail” category. Sergey Krivushkin - “Where are the mushrooms”
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1st place in the “It’s written on the face” category. Fedor Evgrafov - “A Look into the Boundless World”
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1st place in the “Color of Mood” category. Natalia Tatonova - “The color of the mood is summer”
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1st place in the special nomination vivo. Alla Yakovenko - “Which of us is more beautiful”
As a result, 12 best photographs were selected - three in each category. In addition, experts selected three winners in the special vivo category. Mobile photographers who took first place received a smartphone vivo V27 with the “Aura” system for portraits. For second places they were awarded vivo V27e, and for the third - vivo Y36.
Advertising: vivo Mobile Communication Co., Ltd.