If you’re hanging out in blogger circles, there’s a good chance you’ve met one of THOSE bloggers – you know the ones. 

They think the only images worth capturing are captured in RAW. They’re all about the lenses, and the sensor, and the pro-grade editing software. 

Don’t get me wrong – those things are GREAT, but they’re not always available to you – and it’s perfectly possible to make decent quality video on your smartphone, with a bit of careful preparation, good light, and simple editing. 

Here are our top tips: 

1. Turn your phone round. That’s all. TURN IT SIDEWAYS before you start to shoot. 
2. The very quickest way to get terrible quality footage on a mobile phone is to shoot with crappy light. Always shoot in natural daylight if at all possible, and consider investing in a small, portable light such as this one if you’re shooting on the move. 
3. Think about how you’ll keep your smartphone stable – this portable tripod from Joby is a great bet – you can set your phone up on a table, counter, or even wrap it around a pole – wherever you pop it, you know it’s going to stay still while you’re shooting. Perfect! 
4. Fancy editing is vastly over-rated – the simplest edits are usually the best. If you’re using an iPhone then iMovie and Pinnacle are both affordable, simple ways to edit footage. Or simply use Google’s Photos app to create quick video montages – film lots of short clips, then use the ‘movie’ feature in Google Photos to simply edit together those short clips into a single video (you can include up to 50 clips). It couldn’t be easier!
5. Oh, and while we’re talking editing, don’t zoom on a smartphone – most phones can’t actually ‘zoom’, they just crop the image. You want to get closer? Move your feet. 
6. Get creative with time – time-lapse photography is ideally suited for food photography. Time-lapse simply means frames of film are captured more slowly than that used to watch the sequence – when you watch the footage back, time appears to be moving faster. If you’re on an iPhone there are now multiple time-lapse capture apps, Hyperlapse in particular is great, and offers in-built stabilisation that should give you great quality footage.
7. If you’re recording sound, then don’t rely on your phone’s in-built microphone – you can buy clip-on lapel mikes for less than £10 from Amazon-  just remember to avoid touching or tapping the microphone or placing it on a tablecloth where it might pick up friction noise.

Image[Shutterstock]