5 Must-have accessories for Mobile Photography/Videography
I am someone who spends a huge amount of time shooting with my mobile. I have written multiple blogs on shooting landscape/macro photography with mobile as well as best practices.
You can refer to my articles on Photography in the following link.
Over a period of time using different accessories, I decided to stick with a few accessories that I use most often. When I say, accessories it doesn't mean just physical gears but also apps. So, it is more of things that are critical for me than labeling "accessories".
Camera App:
What do you mean "camera App"?
Well, I use the OnePlus device and I used to work exclusively on its native camera App to photography and videography. But, I was never happy with the low light performance of OnePlus, because of its noise handling. Seeing how Google uses software processing in pixel devices, I decided to try GoogleCam on the OnePlus device. There is no official GoogleCam app for OnePlus devices. So, I downloaded a ported APK from Xda developers.
Trust me, I have not regretted the decision. Google camera with OnePlus's hardware delivers some amazing low light photographs.
Not just with low light even on bright days, the color quality the googlecam delivers is much superior. Googlecam's backend software handles the shadows and highlights so well, you can blindly point and shot.
So, now you see why the camera App plays a significant part in my blog. You can install GoogleCam from PlayStore and try comparing it with your native app. Based on performance pick a camera app and get familiar. This will always be my step 1, get familiar with whatever the app you work with, you don't want to lose moments, trying to figure out how to capture.
Camera Lens
Initially, I used camera lenses for macro photography. I used different brands of camera lenses and stuck with Aukey lenses and Miniso Mobile lenses, as they give great details on macro photography. I have avoided using wide-angle lenses on mobile because of the softness on the edges.
Mobile Lens I use: https://amzn.to/2NQrVTp
But recently I found a better purpose for the wide-angle lens. VIDEOGRAPHY.
Yes, adding a wide-angle lens to your mobile gives a background blur that brings more detail from the subjects. I was surprised to see how the blur/softness I claimed as a drawback in photography became a strong point in videography.
Editing app
Neither any app nor lens can bring the beauty of nature as you saw it. There comes an editing app to bring the colors and details as you prefer. I use two different apps to edit 1. Lightroom Mobile 2. Snapseed.
However, over the period of fell in love with Snapseed. Two distinct features on snapseed that made me stick with this app.
Snapeseed Link: Here
Ability to edit with layers: Every edit you make is saved as layers so you can always go back at any point of time and readjust/remove the edits.
Apply to mask at each layer: This outweighs the previous one. Snapseed not only offers to make edits at a very minute level but also the ability to apply a mask, so the edit applies to only a portion of the image.
Tripod
A mini tripod is a must for mobile photographers. Mobile is used by many because of its affordability, accessibility and also how flexible it is to use. Buy handholding the mobile for longer time or to hold it at lower positions will come at compromise in image and video quality. I use a mini Gorillapod which helps me set my camera up at any place as well was mount my gimbal.
Mobile Tripod: https://amzn.to/2KoGwmB
A tripod comes in handy especially when I record my youtube videos or shooting time-lapses on mobile.
Gimbal:
This accessory is optional if you are just into photography, but a must-have if you do videos. I use DJI OSMO mobile 3 for my videos. The stabilization it provides is beyond you can achieve in post-processing. Since we are shooting with mobile, we can't afford to lose any more data when stabilizing a shaky video.
And Osmo Mobile 3 comes with another much helpful feature, which convinced me to go for this specific model was the "active tracking" feature. Active tracking is a feature meant to focus lock and track the subject in motion. And trust me, it does work amazingly well. How you can use this feature is left for your imagination. For eg, you can get focus lock-on an immovable subject and create amazing panning videos. You can use this feature to track flowers or moving subjects event in windy conditions etc and create amazing videos.
DJI OSMO mobile 3: https://amzn.to/33Qo0LP
Watch my video here on this specific feature on osmo mobile 3:
Did I miss anything very critical or Do you use any app/gear that makes your life easy? Please drop a comment below. I will add it to the blog.
