Eight Tips for Shooting Great Videos with a Cell Phone Camera

It's pretty obvious that one of the reasons cell phone cameras are so popular is they're so convenient. Many people carry their phones everywhere. Few carry their cameras everywhere.

The same is true for video cameras. It's easy to shoot a quick video clip with your cell phone camera; it's not so easy to haul around tons of equipment.

But while cell phone camera technology is constantly improving, cell phone videos are often short, grainy and blurry, discouraging many people from using their "video" setting very often.

It doesn't have to be this way. Here are eight tips to shoot better cell phone videos.

Before you start shooting:

Make sure you're using the highest resolution.
Check your options or settings menu when you're in video camera mode. My Samsung Sync offers two choices: 176 pixels by 144 pixels, or 128 pixels by 96 pixels. Other phones give you a choice between 320-by-240, or 640-by-480. Pick the highest numbers your camera offers. Higher resolution videos eat up more memory, but it's worth it.

Make sure your phone is not set to end the clip automatically after a set period of time.
The Sync offers choices such as 10 seconds, 30 seconds or full memory. If your phone has a full memory option, or something that appears similar, pick that. It will keep the camera recording as long as you want or until the phone's memory fills up. You can always edit it down later.

Check the memory on your phone to make sure you have enough. If you need more, get more.
I had a Nokia 6102i that had a nice camera but had only a few megabytes of memory. I could only record a little more than a minute of video. Many newer phones today have much larger internal memory capacities and are expandable via MicroSD or other cards. If you're a serious cell phone video enthusiast, you can carry several cards and swap them out as needed. That means your phone memory is limited only by your budget and how many cards you can physically carry. If you're not sure whether your phone's memory is expandable, check your manual.