You don’t have to do this but it is worth it if you can safely hang fishing string to hold up a gun in the air. As you can see in the photo above the gun is suspended by fishing string. Then I got a large roll of paper and hung it so the paper hangs down and curves over a folding table. I have the two soft lights as well as LED shop lights that I picked up from Costco. It is a pair of lights on stands with a cloth reflector and softbox cover to smooth out the lighting. In my garage, I have a make-shift photo stand setup made of very inexpensive components. “Soft Lights” is a simple two-light setup from Amazon. Here is the same gun moved a little bit to make better use of the overhead lights as well as two soft lights being used to even the light all around the gun. Next is the same gun in the same spot but without the camera flash. You can see it creates a hot spot of light in the center and is not flattering at all. In the first photo below I took a photo of my pistol 416 on the floor of my garage and used the onboard flashlight flash to illuminate the gun. Below are three pictures that were taken with the same iPhone. Whatever you do, don’t use the flashlight flash on your phone. Lighting is critical to taking a better gun photo. This can help you make certain details of your photo brighten up or if the image is blown out (meaning too bright) you can reduce the brightness this way. In the iPhone, when you lock AF/AE you can manually adjust the exposure which is actually brightness of the image. This is Auto Focus and Auto Exposure lock, meaning the focus and exposure is set until you click the screen again or change exposure. If you press the screen and hold for a couple of seconds, the iPhone will go into AF/AE Lock. However, if you move the camera, often the camera will resort back to autofocus. Poke the screen and the iPhone camera will focus on the area you poked on the screen. With that said, you can control the focus on your phone camera. I suspect Android phones have similar controls in the factory camera app. I only know how to use an iPhone and have used an iPhone for more than a decade so I apologize to those of you who have an Android phone. Focus and exposure, aka brightness, can be manipulated. While the smartphone is mostly automatic and nowhere close to full control like a proper DSLR or mirrorless camera you do have some control of the camera in your smartphone. Meanwhile, the factory-installed glass covering the lenses on my iPhone is super tough and has not gotten scratched no matter how many times I wipe it. While those cases are great at protecting your phone, the clear window is made of some form of plastic and those can get scratched easier. You might need to remove the case if you want to take better gun photos. For some of you, you might have a phone case that covers the lens. But let’s continue talking about your phone and its lens. We will go into more detail about how to make the gun photo above better. They are not great but you can see the difference between a clean lens and a dirty lens. There shouldn’t be any more grime when you are done. Wipe side to side as well as up and down. Sometimes you may need to rub the lens a couple of times and make sure you change the direction of your wipes as well. But it is super simple to wipe it clean with a corner of my shirt. Grime, oils, and dirt constantly coat this lens. It is bad because it gets dirty rather easily. Due to its design, the dual camera lenses are exposed. And the case I use is a SureFire phone case. It seems like such a simple thing but it makes a world of difference. One simple tip to taking better photos is having a clean lens. So let’s start by squeezing out the potential of your smartphone to take gun photos in your home. Since it is the year 2020, pretty much every kid, teenager, and adult has a smartphone with a built-in digital camera. In this Gun/Range Photography series, I will share some tips and tricks to help you take better pictures of your guns. The best way to do that is by taking pictures of firearms and posting them on social media. Part of the enjoyment is sharing it with other like-minded people who appreciate firearms.
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