My GPS Camera Phone

While I’ve had some success in the past with taking camera phone photos of the moon, it doesn’t mean I really knew what I was doing. Hard to believe, I know. This time around, however, I think I can say with a slight bit of conviction that the best time to shoot the moon is dusk on a semi-clear evening while the sky is still blue. Having a polarizing filter, as seen in Dan’s example, would eliminate the glow around the moon, but we’re talking about a camera phone here. Instead of agonizing over the inability to get a “perfect” photo, work with what you have and be positive about the potential results.

It goes without saying that a little bit of Photoshop surgery is still going to be required to remove the dreaded camera phone jpeg artifacts that will likely arise from this low-light photo. A little application of the “Reduce Noise” filter and the image is less pixellated, resulting in a smoother blue sky.

I think that the biggest point to remember is to not move. It’s a no-brainer, but seriously, don’t move. If you have to freehand the shot, exhale before the snap and relax. If at all possible, brace yourself against something solid to reduce body movement. In a best case, try to use something as a camera mount, like a wall, fence, car, newspaper stand or anything else. Motion is not the enemy, but it certainly doesn’t help us in this scenario.

Just remember to keep trying and to keep a positive attitude on your results. There’s no film to develop, so delete the bad photos and try again! Before you realize it, you will have captured your subject. Happy shooting!

This photo was apparently stuck in limbo, with the message to my phone downloaded, but not the image. When I checked incoming messages yesterday, to my surprise, I found this great photo of a palm tree (in our front yard, maybe, but something tells me that it isn’t).

In previous shots using the Casio G’Zone, the center of the image tends to be discolored, especially when shooting earthy colors. It looks like Nancy nailed the perfect shot to cancel out this discoloration, using a light background and an earthy foreground. There’s no cropping on this photo either. It’s directly out of the camera phone. Personally, I love it. How about you?

Photo credit: Nancy

What we’ve got here is…a bunch of clouds! Yes, no fooling around this week. However, it is two cloud photos merged together with hue and saturation adjusted to make it more blue. Other than that, it’s nothing much really.

Just when you thought it was safe to guess correctly, I pull fast one. Actually, I had no idea that some of you would think I was trying to fool you with this photo. However, Dan’s second guess of waves breaking was correct as well because my initial intent was to do that, but it turned out to be a big blue mush instead.

So technically, Dan is correct twice.

As a result of his dual correctness, I feel obliged to offer him something more than a link. So here’s something better: two links. So please stop by dcrblogs.com and gain some wisdom on making your blog better. Here’s two recent posts I like:

Money for (Almost) Nothing
Mindful Monday: The Value of eBooks

Congrats, Dan.

Now that leaves me with the problem of everyone else. Since I suck this week, you all win, but everyone pretty much guessed the right thing anyway. So, in no particular order:

smarmoofus, dcr, CatSynth, Raven, Pamela, Jan, Rizza, Francine, Kelly, Michelle Gartner, Vixen, Chica and Bill (not Jill).

Thanks for commenting everyone! See you next week!