Tips & examples for close up photography using the Galaxy S2 Camera pt1

When taking extremely close up shots with the Galaxy S2 you will likely want to choose 'Macro' setting, or opt to manually focus. In my experience Macro works well, and requires you tap where on the screen you want superfine focus.

When taking outdoor shots in bright settings, it will help to select 'Outdoor Visibility' from the camera settings menu. 'Outdoor Visibility' will illuminate your screen to make it easier to see what you are shooting, though bare in mind that what you see on screen will not correspond to the luminance of the actual photograph taken. Below are some examples of close up shots I've taken using macro. These shots were not cropped and represent the original distance from the subject.

As you can see from the latter shots, even though I used 'macro' and pressed on screen the focal subject for focusing, the images are not as sharp as I would of liked. Instead the background seems to be sharper than the foreground subject. A recommendation in future would be to take the shot from slightly further back, so as to sharply focus the foreground subject, and crop the image in post-processing.

Some general close up photography advice would be firstly to use a white sheet or black sheet to increase or reduce illuminance on the subject.

Another trick I've heard of but have yet to try, is to choose a low ISO setting, and turn on the flash. This means that you can be left with sharper and more illuminating photos.

For each image below, you can click on them for full resolution:

Day shot - Macro - 'Mushroom'

Day shot - with Flash - 'Mushroom'

Day shot - Macro - 'Mushroom'

Day shot - with Flash - 'Mushroom'

Day shot - Macro - 'Daisies'

Day shot - Macro - 'Daisy'

Day shot - Macro - 'Daisy'