Hey Y'all ! Hope your week was a good one. Me? Busy, Busy ,Busy. This week I want to talk about something that is easy and quick to do. It won't cost a dime extra and it will make your photography experience easier. It's to incorporate your mobile device into your photography workflow. We all have them now some sort of mobile device that we have with us all of the time. Now a days the camera's on them are pretty good and the programs in them are much more advanced than what is in your big boy or girl camera. But most of us just lug them around and check the weather or emails and don't use them as a added resource . I am guilty of that myself. So in this blog I want to talk about the ways we can incorporate the mobile device into your photography workflow.

Used to reference things. Using your phone to look things up is a great way to start to incorporate it into Tybee Island Pier Sunrise your photography. There are many apps that can be very helpful to your photography. One of them is "Photo Pills" This app is a very good app and can do lots of stuff from letting you know when and where the sun will rise. When and where the moon will rise and what position the milky way will be in the sky.  It will help you with long exposure with calculators that will help you figure out how long of a shutter speed to use when doing long exposures like when using a natural density filter. Another app that everyone uses is Google . It can tell you all sorts of information like where the nearest restaurant is or information abut where you are that could influence a photograph. Of course there are weather apps that can help with when its going to rain or if its going to be cloudy all day. So you can see that using it as a reference tool is very handy and you may be already doing that as well.

Hunting Island Beach Use as a framing tool. If you are doing landscape , architecture or any photography where you have time to really work on the framing using your cell phone to get to the right angle quickly and take test shots is a great way to use your phone. Say you went to an area that you haven't been before and you were doing a landscape. Before setting up your tripod and camera up and moving it to many places to see if the perspective is the right one use your mobile device and the camera on it and try out different places until you have found the best spot and then set up your tripod and camera. This could save time and potentially get you to a spot quicker and maybe one you haven't even thought of before.

Use as a second camera. The camera's on your mobile devices have become so good you could used them as a second camera. For example on a nature recent trip I had a long zoom hooked to my camera but I was using my phone for the wider shots. Phones take great panorama shots of scenes and can be used for wide angle shots. When doing street photography have your main lens on your camera say maybe a 50mm but when something wide comes up instead of using your main camera and changing lenses just pull your phone out and take the shot. On a recent trip to Savannah and Charleston my photo buddies were doing this and getting great shots with their phones. They got such good shots with their mobile devices when I got home I had to upgrade mine to a newer model . 

Used as a video camera .  If you're interested in video this is a great way to start. The video on these devices are fantastic. I have a small youtube channel with mainly hiking and photography videos but when I was starting out I used my cell phone as a video recorder and it worked great. So if you want to try your hand at video blogging this is a great way to start. I watch many thru-hike videos of people hiking the Appalachian trail or the Pacific Crest Trail and they use their phones and it looks really good. So if your out and about and want to take a short video of a town or park or yourself using your mobile device is a great way to go.

We all have these devices and like our cameras we don't use them to the fullest extent that we could. Listen you've already paid for the phone. Use it more than to check Facebook or your email. Incorporate it in to your photography work flow. So until next week pull out that mobile device and get outside and shoot!