Samsung Galaxy S4 Camera Guide

If you are lucky enough to have gotten your hands on a brand new

Samsung Galaxy S4

, you're no doubt looking forward to making the most of its huge array of cutting-edge features - one of which is the excellent 13-megapixel camera.

Mobile snappers are getting more and more complicated - almost rivaling dedicated digital cameras, in fact - - so I've compiled this handy guide to help you get the most out of your swanky new smartphone.

Learn some photography basics

Most digital cameras come with automatic or system settings that can choose what it thinks is the best configuration for a given shot. Dedicated photographers will tell you that to get the best results, you need to be a little more hands-on. While cell phones can't hope to offer the same level of customization as your typical DSLR, they still come with a few manual tweaks that can drastically change the way your photos look.

In the case of the Galaxy S4, one of the most basic settings you can change is the ISO

ISO

, which determines the sensitivity of the camera sensor to light. This is set to automatic by default, but by playing around with the range you can get better control over how your photos look.

Shooting in direct sunlight is better with ISO 100, but if you're indoors or in a low-light environment, try increasing this value a bit. Just be aware that the higher the ISO, the "noisier" the resulting images will be - and nobody likes blurry photos.

The white balance

is another element that you can modify easily, and it is worth investigating if your photos are marred by unsightly color nuances, such as a blue cast in the image. Tinkering with the white balance can eliminate these issues and produce a more "natural" image, closer to what the human eye sees.

The Galaxy S4 has five settings: Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Incandescent, and Fluorescent. When these should be used is pretty self explanatory, but try to experiment for the best results.

Finally, there is

Exposure

, which is the amount of light that enters the camera sensor during a shot. A high exposure value will result in brighter photos, but you run the risk of losing detail and contrast. A low value will generally be darker, but you won't have bright highlights sucking up detail. As always, tweak this feature several times to get an idea of ​​what kind of image you want to create.

The new features of the Galaxy S4

Android phone makers are always happy to find new ways to differentiate their products from those of their competitors, and camera software is one of the most popular options. Samsung has included a series of exclusive photography features in the Galaxy S4, some of which are more useful than others.

Picture-in-picture

Dual Shot

lets you overlay a second image - taken with the phone's front snapper - over the photo you're taking. You can even add a frame to this inset image. The default choice is a stamp-like border, suggesting that Samsung intends to use this feature when taking cheesy vacation photos at

inflict on

share with friends or relatives.< /p>

Dual Shot puts your own face in your photo which is fun for about 5 minutes.

Voice control is a feature present in almost all modern smartphones, and Samsung has even included voice commands in its camera software. By bellowing "Smile", "Cheese", "Capture" or "Shoot", you can take a photo without having to touch the phone itself. Unsurprisingly, "Record Video" starts capturing video. Who needs fingers, right?

Share and add additional data to your photos

Image geotagging isn't new, but Samsung's Snapper software now enables contextual tagging, which means the phone uses GPS to detect where you are and tags the image accordingly. It notes your exact location and even the weather at the time of capture, as well as the shooting mode used.

It seems like a no-brainer, but you'd be surprised how useful it is. This feature is, especially if you're a budding David Bailey who likes to take photos all over the store - it means you'll never have to wonder where you took a particular photo.

One of the best things about taking photos with a phone is how easy it is to share them with friends, and the Galaxy S4's sharing options are as robust as you'd expect. Share Shot uses Wi-Fi Direct to transmit freshly taken shots to compatible devices, while Buddy Photo Share sends images to people whose faces are detected in the image. These options are in addition to the many usual Android sharing choices, which include email, Facebook, and Twitter.

Making the Most of Shooting Modes

If you're too shy to get really hands-on with your settings, you can always choose to use the Galaxy S4's many preset shooting modes. These allow you to quickly optimize the camera for certain shooting conditions or situations, avoiding memorable shots.

beauty shot

won't improve the physicality of your subject, but it will ensure that the camera settings are optimized for photographing someone's head, rather than the background behind them.

Sports

is great for capturing fast-moving objects, like someone comically running to catch a bus, for example -- and

Night

is designed for shooting in low light without using a flash.

Rich Tone< /p>

is Samsung's fancy name for HDR shooting, where multiple images taken at different exposures are merged together to create a striking, almost unreal shot - and handy when you don't want to blow out the sky behind a darker subject.

This photo was taken with default settings.

The same location, but with “Rich Tone” enabled. Note the increased detail and richer colors.

Drama

creates a story from a single shot, allowing you to show the path of a moving object by merging multiple photos into a single image.

The animated photo

is to create the impression of movement by giving movement to a part of the image, while

Sound and shooting

that's exactly what it says: when you take a photo, an audio clip is also recorded, giving the image an ambient atmosphere. Finally, there is the faithful mode

Panorama

, which allows you to take a massive horizontal image.

Never take a bad photo again

Burst Shot

takes a group of images at once, which means you can select the best of the lot, while

face detection

makes sure those snaps of friends and family are concentrated in the right places.

Anti-Shake

is a useful option if you don't have a steady hand, but should be used with caution - it can result in grainy images.

The Galaxy S4 is also bursting with special modes.

Best Photo mode

takes a series of eight shots and lets you choose the best of the lot, while

best face

takes it a step further and allows you to swap the faces of the people in the picture for those in the photo that have captured their best expression. It's ideal for that moment when someone inevitably blinks and ruins the group photo. You can merge some pretty awesome photos using this system - which you would never know were built from multiple shots.

Amazingly, this is actually a composite image - we've taken each subject's four "best" expressions and merged them.

Finally, there is the mode

Rubber

, which takes five photos and then gives you the option to remove distracting objects from the background by merging the best image with one of the others. Never again will you have that romantic sunset ruined by a wayward seagull or a stray dog.

Master the moving image

Capturing still images isn't the only thing you can do with the Galaxy S4's 13-megapixel camera - it also records 1080p HD video. There's also slow motion, for those epic action sequences, and fast motion, known in the trade as Benny Hill mode.

While recording, you can take a still image by tapping the photo icon in the bottom right corner. You can also force the camera to focus on a certain area by tapping the screen.

Post-production for the perfect shot

Taking the perfect shot is part of the job - as any seasoned photographer knows, it's what you do to the shot after you press the shutter button that counts. The Galaxy S4 comes with a full suite of post-editing features, such as brightness and contrast adjustment - handy if you're particularly taken with a photo but don't have quite the right lighting. You can also crop your photo to highlight a particular area, which is perfectly possible with the massive 13-megapixel shots the Galaxy S4 is capable of capturing.

Instagram, eat your heart out.

Frames, which have been present in mobile phone camera software since the early days of MMS messaging, are also present. They usually end up looking terrible in really great photos, so maybe don't worry too much about it. The same can be said for the drawing tool, which, as you'd expect, involves scribbling on your snap with your finger.