Is there any way to make my phone camera not smooth out my skin?

Its important to know what actually makes the phone camera smoothed-out your skin before we know how to not to do it.

The smoothness in the skin is nothing but lack of details in the photograph. These lack of details are caused due to two reasons:

• Small and less powerful camera sensor
• Improper lighting

The phone camera has a small sensor which is not capable of capturing the complete details of your skin and extremities like the pupil structure etc. And hence out of these two reasons, you can't do anything for the first reason, as you can't change the sensor unless and until you change your phone.

The type of lighting matters a lot when subject details in the photo are matter of concern and it's the only thing that you can play with when you are constrained by the phone camera and desire to get details in your photo. When the subject is properly exposed to good quality of lighting, then the phone camera automatically shoots at lower ISO as per its pre-programed algorithms. And when the ISO is low while shooting the photo the details in the photos are bound to be much more than shooting at higher ISO.

Here I have uploaded and image that I had shot, to exemplify what the Details in photo actually mean. This photo was shot in the natural light, on a cloudy day, giving abundant diffused light. Also, this is not shot by a mobile phone, but my Nikon D810 camera while has one of the most powerful sensors in the world. But still my point is, the photo can be studied and the texture of the skin, especially the details in the eyes are so evident due to proper lighting and lower ISO. The second image shows the zoomed version of this photo where the details of the pupil can be seen along with the skin texture.

So if you intend to get the skin texture please keep these points in your mind before clicking.

Photography is an art of Making a photo, so enjoy it while paying minute attention to the details.

Happy clicking!

What is better, to zoom in and then click a photo OR click a photo and then crop it?

It’s always better to do the things right while shooting itself, rather than struggling in post-processing.

To answer your question straight away, it’s always better to Zoom-in while clicking the photos. Advantages of Zooming-in while clicking are better close-ups, ultimate blurring, pleasing Bokeh, sharp image and a final good resolution photo. Which will never be achieved through cropping the photos from a previously clicked image.
 
Technically, let me explain the difference between the two things. Assume that I am using a decent 10 megapixel (MP) camera. When we zoom-in while clicking the photo (I assume its optical zooming, I will explain this in the later part), what we eventually do is, capture the desired (zoomed) image on the sensor, utilizing the full potential of the sensor to see the ‘Zoomed’ vision. We let the light fall on the whole 10MP sensor. Whereas, when we click a photo, and later on crop it, what we eventually do is, we underutilise our sensor capabilities at the cost of image quality. Even though we have a potential 10MP sensor, the moment we crop the photo it’s like using that small portion of a sensor. The cropped images will be of smaller size, and of lower quality than the one which is originally zoomed-in while clicking.
 
Other part of the story, if you possess the full-frame camera body of 24 to 36 MP, the cropped photo will also be of superior quality and pretty good enough to print an enlarged copy of it.
 
Apart from this clarification regarding optical zooming, if you tend to use the Digital-zooming-in, then it’s the same process as of cropping. Digital-zooming is never encouraged if you care for the image quality. Optical zooming is achieved through the specially designed lenses and which offers effectively better quality.
 
Hope this helps in your future decision while cropping a photo.
Happy Clicking...!

Propelling Hopes

What photography is to me? This intriguing question keeps haunting me repeatedly. Not being the main streamlined photographer, puts an artistic pressure to match the levels that the photo geniuses have already achieved and keep achieving. Trying to utilize meager time won’t make me a great photographer is the self-evident fact. But bowed down by this fact and not choosing to take the camera in hand only because I won’t be able to be a great photographer is being foolish. Reviewing my past work and comparing it to the present, gives me inner satisfaction and an a sense of elation. Gives me the much needed strength to keep performing persistently. And the solitaire hope that one day my work will be acknowledged word wide...!