As someone who loves exploring as much as they do photography, I have recently learned that unless you have special equipment or special access to some places, bringing your expensive, bulky DSLR along with you might not make the most sense.
And this also applies to editing. On my laptop, I use Adobe Lightroom to religiously to organize, edit and store my photos. I discovered they had an app for my phone that I could upload and edit the photos from either my camera roll or my actual camera via bluetooth when I’m on the go. These things alone changed the game for me — thank you, Adobe.
But if I did not have my camera, I had to take pictures with my iPhone (which are good enough), but I felt like I was at the mercy of the few editing controls Apple gave me. I knew some tricks for AE/AF lock and changing the exposure, but it was not the same as my DSLR.
Then I learned Lightroom Mobile (iOS, Google Play) has options to let you take pictures within the app with the same controls as a DSLR. You can control aperture, shutter speed, ISO, white balance — it does it all.
Settings in the overflow menu in Lightroom Mobile.
Depending on which model phone you have, it also allows you to control the lens. It has wide-angle, ultra wide and telephoto. Then it has the basics like aspect ratio, timer, grid, highlight clipping and live presets (these are found in the overflow menu).
It also has a fun option for HDR (high dynamic range), iPhones introduced HDR into their camera settings as well but neither are exactly HDR, but it does help when you have two different exposure levels in the photo like a bright sky but a dark landscape.
HDR settings
If you are familiar with DSLR settings and practice, it should only take a few times shooting with the app to get the hang of it.
If you aren’t familiar with DSLR shooting, this app could also help you learn and become familiar with camera settings and controls before you invest in a DSLR. It is free to download for iPad, iPhone or Android!
