Hey Everyone! I hope everyone is doing well. Me ? I'm great I just got back from a big (for me) Photography trip to South Dakota. This week I want to talk about using your phone as a gap lens. Todays smart phones have great camera's in them and to use them as gap or extra lenses in your kit can be very convenient . When you take a trip the last thing you want to do is carry everything you own. Being lightweight and nimble is a great advantage when on a trip. On this last trip to South Dakota I really only brought 2 lenses for most of my photography. A 20-70mm and a 100-400mm monster. I did not bring a wide angle lens or a macro lens and am glad I din't. My bag with the 100-400 was heavy enough I'm glad that I didn't bring any more lenses. Lugging a super heavy bag through airports is really a pain not to mention going through security.

A smart phone (I'm using an iPhone) is a great addition to your camera kit. For one thing it uses computational photography to capture the photo's that you take. Every time you take a shot your camera takes about 15 and blends them together with some magic sauce and produces really great photo's. They are great for really hard lighting situations because of this.  They are also great for panoramas stitching in all of the photo's in camera. Most new cameras will shoot in raw also so editing in post is a breeze. So what does my phone take the pace of when I travel?

Macro lens. I don't carry a macro lens anymore because my iPhone does it well enough for me when I'm on the go. The extra weight of a 105 f/2.8  macro lens is not missed when traveling through airports or just lugging around on my back with my other lenses. You always have your phone in your pocket and they just work.

Wide angle lens. I don't tend to carry anything wider than a 20mm lens anymore. Although 20 is pretty wide sometimes that 16mm or even wider works great to be able to get stuff into your frame. Being able to whip out my phone and go super wide is a great advantage over lugging another lens around. And the photo's come out great!

Another way I use my smart phone is to try to take a photo with it every location that I go . It's super easy to edit on the phone I can send the photo to Lightroom or to some other editing software that I have on my phone and can easily export to social media either facebook or to instagram. The quality of the photo's for social media is super and the shots really look good on these platforms.

Being able to use my phone in conjunction with my camera kit creates a lethal combo where I can get the shot that I want without carrying around a big kit. I often use when I'm doing Landscape or street/travel photography also. And not to mention the selfie! Getting shots of yourself in different locations is fun and sharing with family and friends they can tell a story in themselves.  Until Next week use your phone and Get out and Shoot!  

Hey if you want to check out my photography go to my instagram account Max Stansell Photography there are over 2000 posts there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link