7 tips for snapping better pictures with your smartphone

Smartphones have democratised photography, giving everyone the opportunity to unlock their creativity.

Though it’s easy to snap a picture, it takes some technical suss and imagination to create a photograph that will get your friends on Facebook and Instagram talking.

The good news, however, is that nearly anyone can learn how to take great snaps, provided they learn some basic disciplines and practice them until they become second nature. And with camera technology in smartphones improving all the time, these devices help you to capture meaningful moments and beautiful images wherever you are. After all, the best camera is the one with you, which is most likely to be your phone.

Here are some general tips from HTC for using your smartphone camera to capture better photos:

1. Pay attention to your background

Don’t get so caught up in focusing on your subject that you pay no attention to the background. For example, you don’t want to include the pavement rubbish bins when you’re taking a photo of your friend. Rather move closer or ask the person you’re photographing to step to the side to exclude the unwanted detail from the frame.

2. Choose a perspective

Take your photographs from unusual perspectives to create interesting effects. Shoot upwards from a low angle to make things look large, or take your shot from a higher angle make things look smaller or to capture a larger area of detail

3. Zoom with your feet

Zooming with your camera phone results in pixelation and increases sensitivity to camera shake,

resulting in blurred imagery. Rather get closer to your subject for the perfect closeup.

4. Avoid camera shake

To lessen camera shake, be as still as possible while shooting: take a deep breath in, hold, snap,

breathe out.

5. Avoid using your flash

Using flash can give your photos a sterile, overlit look, which can be especially harsh on faces. If

you must use flash, why not cover it with some tracing paper to soften the effect?

6. Learn which apps and filters you love

Experiment with filters apps like Instagram to create a style that you like. When people see a pic

with a particular filter, they’ll recognise your style. Pro tip: The VSCO app provides filters that are

emulations of popular film cameras. There are hundreds of combinations you can create with the

number of filters provided.

7. Use apps to enhance your photos

Great photos are made in the editing process. Pro photographers almost always touch up their

photos to get the exact look and effect they want. An app like Snapseed offers you basic editing

tools and some cool filters to get you started. It also offers some features for heavyduty

editing once you’re more experienced.

For more info about the HTC Desire lines of smartphones visit www.htc.com

Blackberry PRIV now in South Africa

PRIV Delivers the Best of BlackBerry Privacy and Productivity to the largest App Eco‐system

BlackBerry Limited (NASDAQ: BBRY; TSX: BB), a global leader in secure mobile communications, recently launched PRIV™ by BlackBerry®, the first‐ever BlackBerry smartphone powered by Android in South Africa. PRIV is available in South Africa through MTN, Vodacom and Cell C.

Combining the best of BlackBerry’s productivity, security and privacy features with the wide world of Google Play™ store apps, PRIV is the epitome of form and function. It has been engineered with the world’s finest technology and packaged in an ultra‐thin device – including a dual‐curved screen, touch and physical keyboards, state‐of‐the‐art 18MP camera, and long‐lasting battery – with unique tools that allow users to manage and control their privacy.

A New Standard for the Slider Form Factor.

As part of BlackBerry’s cross‐platform strategy to provide a greater choice of secure solutions to its customers, users will see a seamless merging of key BlackBerry 10 productivity features like the BlackBerry Hub and BlackBerry Calendar into PRIV.

Additional key features include:

 Full Android App and Ecosystem Experience – PRIV brings incredible new features to the Android platform and gives users full access to over one million applications: whether it’s Instagram, Spotify, Uber or BBM®, you’ll find it on Google PlayTM.

 Best of Both Keyboards – offers the freedom to choose between a virtual keyboard or a physical keyboard for speed and accuracy.

 Tough and Beautiful Screen – A stunning 5.4‐inch immersive dual‐curve OLED display offers plenty of room to work or play with rich colors, deep black levels and less power consumption. At a resolution of 2560x1440, it sports an incredible pixel density of 540 PPI – 4x the amount of pixels of a standard HDTV.

Along the screen’s curved edge is the Productivity Tab that provides an “at a glance” view of the most pertinent info from BlackBerry Hub, Calendar, Task, and Contacts.

 Full‐day Battery Life – PRIV has a 3410 mAh battery with enough power to work up to 22.5 straight hours of mixed usage*.

 State‐of‐the‐Art Camera – Engineered to deliver professional looking photos with minimal effort, an 18MP camera, certified by Schneider‐Kreuznach®, integrates technologies commonly found in DSLR cameras.

 Powerful Performance and Expandable Storage – PRIV is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor, a premium‐tier chipset designed to offer consumers a superior and compelling user experience along with peace of mind with Qualcomm® SecureMSM™ technology and Qualcomm® Snapdragon StudioAccess™ content protection. Plus, with 32 GB of onboard storage and support for micro SD cards up to 2TB, the new PRIV gives users the flexibility to add affordable and hot‐swappable storage to download, install, capture and share as their needs evolve.

 BlackBerry® Natural Sound ‐ PRIV comes with powerful speakers and a three‐microphone system that delivers a high‐quality listening experience. BlackBerry® Natural Sound Technology is built in to adapt Wi‐Fi and cellular call sound depending upon phone position and background noise, automatically adjusting volume so users don’t have to.

 Android™ for Work – PRIV comes ready for work. Android for Work support allows for fast, simple and secure integration with the enterprise environment. Seamless integration with Google Play for Work enables easy access to IT‐managed apps.

A New Standard for Security and Privacy

PRIV was designed with security at its core, building on BlackBerry’s legacy of security and keeping private its customers’ data. Security highlights include:

 Advanced Privacy Controls: The exclusive DTEK™ by BlackBerry® app for Android™ monitors and reports on application access to the microphone, camera, location and personal information, enabling users to be confident that their personal data is being kept private. Users can know at a glance when their privacy could be at risk so they can take action to improve it.

 Secure Hardware: BlackBerry’s hardware root of trust, a unique manufacturing process, injects

cryptographic keys into the device hardware, providing a secure foundation for the entire platform.

 Verified Boot and Secure Bootchain: Keys have been embedded to verify every layer of the device from hardware to OS to applications in order to make sure they haven’t been tampered with.

Additionally, thousands of modifications were made to harden the Linux kernel with numerous patches and configuration changes to improve security.

 Fully supported on BlackBerry's EMM Solution: PRIV can be integrated with our leading EMM

solution, BES 12, which offers cross‐platform management of PRIV and other devices; providing a full end to end security solution and secure collaboration applications for business users like Secusuite for secure voice and WatchDox for secure file sharing.

While PRIV will provide a choice in operating system to new and existing customers, the company remains committed to the BlackBerry 10 operating system, and will continue to release platform updates focused on security and privacy enhancements.

For more info on PRIV, go to www.BlackBerry.com/PRIV

Follow all updates to PRIV on the Inside BlackBerry blog (blogs.BlackBerry.com).

* Based on mixed usage scenario. Many factors affect battery life, including network connectivity, application usage, feature configuration and battery age. Actual results may vary.