How to Take Great Pictures with Your Cell Phone Camera

When I got my new cell phone from Verizon last Spring, I only required two minor features. Ideally, the cell would a) send calls, and b) receive calls. I purchased the most basic model the store carried, a Motorola e815, and got way more features than I knew existed. In fact, I couldn't have gotten a less "tripped out" phone if I wanted.

My new "basic" cell phone is 50% bigger than my old (and of course by "old" I mean the one I got two years ago), yet trusty and reliable cell that fit nicely in my smaller purses.

One of the features that accounts for the increase in phone size is the now ubiquitous cell phone camera. I already have a digital camera, do I really need one built into my cell phone? Well, if you've gotten a cell phone in the past year, you'll be hard pressed to find a model without one. So...eventually I tried out the camera features.

The verdict:

a) Some of the best pictures I've taken were from my cell phone camera.

b) Some of the worst pictures I've taken were from my cell phone camera.

With that resoundingly decisive pronouncement, here are a couple of things you can do to get more good pictures than bad pictures. Hey, if it's going to take up more room in your purse/pocket, you might as well be snap-happy.

1) Don't worry too much about MegaPixels. At this point, it's not going to make a huge difference in the quality of your pictures if your cell phone camera is 1.0 MegaPixels or 1.8, or anything in between, less, or more. If you were buying a regular digital camera, it would be a consideration, and perhaps as technology gets better it will make more of an impact, but you're not exactly ever going to be shooting an Ansel Adams-quality picture with any cell camera right now. You're better off trying to control other factors. Along that line, a digital zoom feature can be nice, but it also increases the possibility that your picture will be grainy.