Back in the early aughts, there was a nagging fear in the
zeitgeist that a coming "phone cam" tsunami would wipe away what
tattered shreds of civility we had left. As it turns out, those alarmist calls
were some what prescient—at least in the sense of how everything would soon
change.
That's not to say that what came afterwards was necessarily
worse. Sure, there have been incidences of our mobile "cams" leading
to gross invasions of privacy, but overall I would argue that camera phones
have improved our lives.
Thanks to our mobile gadgets, we all have the power to
capture, share, and access images and video from around the world
instantaneously. It has changed the way we express ourselves (memes and the
rise of #selfie culture), eat (it's not a meal unless it's been on Instagram),
and even the way we make with the nookie (there indeed is an art to sexting).
Right now, people are walking around with super powerful
digital cameras in their pockets, allowing them to beam their POV to the rest
of the world instantaneously—all super hivemind style, language barriers be
damned. That's kind of amazing if you think about it.
For its part, the public has enthusiastically shrugged off
any privacy concerns it may have once had and learned to embrace mobile
photography. And gadget makers have responded with better and ever more capable
digital cameras. Chances are, you're not even taking advantage of all the cool
things your phone's camera can do. Check out our slideshow for 14 truly amazing
(as well as a few ridiculous) smartphone camera tricks.
Phones Can See Infrared
If you "shoot" an infrared beam directly into your
phone's camera, the otherwise invisible light renders as a purplish beam in the
phone's display. There are not many practical applications here, except perhaps
allowing you to confirm if your TV's remote control is indeed running low on
batteries.
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This happens because most digital camera sensors have the
ability to pick up frequencies of light invisible to the human eye. But
sometimes they will (imprecisely) translate these frequencies into the
display's image. We were able to recreate this "glitch" on a variety
of modern Android devices (the Galaxy S5 and S6, Moto X, One M9, and Nexus 7)
and even on one old-school Samsung flip phone. However, we were not able to see
the beam of light render on an iPhone 6 or iPad Air 2. This is probably because
these devices have superior "IR Cut Filters," which theoretically
make for better photos. (Though, don't despair Apple fans, we were able to see
the beam of light on a MacBook Air).
Your Phone Plays Nicely with Telescopes
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It's a simple, but useful little trick that people may not
know. Just stick your phone's lens right up to the telescope and you'll be able
to capture the magnified image on the other side. The above photo was taken by
my phone through a telescope during my honeymoon in Costa Rica. I think there
was supposed to be a bird or something, but it was a jerk and flew away before
I took the shot. Works with binoculars, too!
Cheap Phone Sensors Can Be Cool
If you've ever tried capturing a fast-moving object on your
phone's camera, you might have noticed it doesn't look quite right. The reason
is that most consumer smartphone cameras utilize CMOS sensors, which capture
images in a line-by-line sequence (AKA a "rolling shutter") as
opposed to a more expensive CCD image sensor which captures all the action at
once (AKA a "global shutter"). When capturing a still image, there
isn't much of a discernable difference. But if something is moving quickly, the
picture may appear warped as the object(s) may have moved by the time the next
line has rendered, thus causing warping (sometimes known as
"jellocam").
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Your Volume Button Will Snap a Picture
Taking selfies is serious business. But it doesn't have to
be a difficult one. It's surprising how many people don't realize that you can
just hit either volume button (on most phone models—both iOS and Android) to
snap a picture. You don't have to hit the virtual button that's on your screen.
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This works one both the front- and back-facing cameras, but it's particular
handy when shooting a selfie. If you didn't know this before, you will never go
back to shooting by tapping the screen. We were able to confirm this feature on
various iPhones and several Android models.
Scan and Digitize Old Negatives
Let's start off by saying that this isn't the best way to do
this. PCMag's resident photography expert, Jim Fisher, recommends a Lomography
or Plustek OpticFilm scanner if you want to digitally capture your old
negatives the right way.
BUT, if you want a quick and dirty way to digitize (or
just view) your old film negatives, you can use your camera's negative effect
(as seen above) or take advantage of some of the many specialized apps like the
HELMUT Film Scanner (available for Android).
You Can Use Your Panorama Shot While in Transit
Some have taken to calling this camera hack a"PanoDriveBy." Most modern smartphones come with some sort of stock
"panorama" function that allows you to capture big wide vistas by
stitching together various images as you tilt or move your camera (there are
also plenty of third-party apps that do the same). While these are designed to
be used by one person standing in one place, you can also make them work while
in transit—just hold it steady and point it out the window.
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The stitching can
sometimes be a little iffy (as you see above in my example from using the stock
panorama app on my Galaxy S5 during a train ride along the Hudson river), but
that can add a cool effect in and of itself.
Make Multiple Yous, No Photoshop Required
Speaking of the panorama effect, you can also use it to make
clones of yourself! From a visual effect point of view. Just have someone do a
slow pan across a field of vision (<--- important).
while you run behind them
after they shoot you and back to the other side of the frame. Then repeat.
Your Phone Can Read Barcodes
And QR codes, too. All the major app stores have plenty of
free barcode readers that can handle this function. Here are two really helpful
reasons why this is cool:
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1) you can scan the barcode on most packages that
enter the USPS, UPS, and FedEx ecosystems and automatically. transfer that info
to your device .
and 2) you can get more information on just about any
product—apps like the eBay-owned RedLaser will then check if a better deal is
available elsewhere.
Your Phone's Camera Lets You Know EVERYTHING
Your phone's camera isn't only able to see more than your
eyes, it's able to know more than your brain—with the help of some apps and a
data connection. Apps like Google Goggles, or the Amazon-powered Flow can
recognize objects, places, and even text (the former to get more data about you
to sell to Google's advertisers, the latter to prompt you to buy things on
Amazon). Google's Translate app can even recognize and translate written
language—that means you can read ev-er-y language in the world now!
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This omniscient tech has even been utilized by organizational apps like Evernote, which utilize OCR (optical character recognition) software to turn printed text (including handwriting) into digital (and therefore searchable) characters. Software like WhatTheFont will even be able to tell you what font something is written just by looking at a picture of it.
Your Phone's Camera Can See Your Blood Pulsing Through Your
Skin!
There are lots of great fitness trackers out there, and many
phones are beginning to incorporate trackers directly into the hardware. But
say you don't happen to own a tracker and you want to check your pulse rate,
what are you supposed to do? Put two fingers on your neck and look at the clock
like some Victorian-era bloodletter? Fortunately, you don't have to!
The developers behind apps like Instant Heart Rate
(available for iOS, Android, and Windows) claim they can read your heart rate
through your device's camera. Just place your finger in front of the camera and
the app monitors the slight changes in skin color as blood pumps through your
finger and then calculates your pulse. If holding your finger against your
phone's camera seems like too much work, the Cardiio (iOS) app claims it can
use your phone's camera to read your pulse just by monitoring the minute
changes of color in your face!
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Big fat note: we haven't reviewed any of these apps
ourselves to test the truthiness of their claims, so please don't consider
these endorsements. However, there seem to be a lot of happy reviewers on the
app pages, so do what you will with that information.
Place a 'Derriere' in Any Image
It's known as a #Knucklebutt (or, at least that's what I
called it when this idea (which I stole from actor Paul Rudd) briefly became a
lite meme five years ago. Mobile technology has finally given humanity the
power to bring their butts everywhere—kinda.
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If you bend your finger over your
smartphone camera's tiny lens, you can create a somewhat convincing pair of
cherubic buttocks hovering delicately over any subject. The trick is to have
some backlighting to illuminate the "butt" and find the finger fold
that is most butt-like in appearance (all hands are different). Delight your
friends, family, and co-workers by putting them under a giant butt. You're
welcome.
If you ever see someone on the TV or the computer and you want to convey how smart they are to your social media circles, you can visually expand their brain through a little trick of perspective.
Holding the camera up to the screen and point downward.Then everyone will know how special their brain is. #Boom. Big head. No Photoshop required.
Pinhole Effect
With only a little piece of cardboard and a thumbtack, you
can add a nice framing effect to your photos by holding the camera up to the
hole.
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You can achieve different visual effects by playing with the size of the
hole and using different materials.
Go Retro Like a Boss
You don't need Instagram to make a Polaroid effect. You can
do it with a piece of white cardboard.
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Just cut out a frame, but just remember
to make one side of the frame thicker than the others to get that old school
feel. Also, try making objects come out and through the frame for an added
effect.
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