You don’t always need special or expensive photography equipment to take quality images. It’s true that with good lights, professional DSLRs and advanced software it’s usually easier to achieve the image that you want, but knowing how to use all of these tools and take advantage of them in the way that suits your style can be really hard too. The good thing is that you can experiment and have fun in the process.
This said, now look at the photo below. A pair of cufflinks. You may like it or not, but I think it’s a decent photo of a pair of cufflinks on a dark background, isn’t it? Not the best photo of some cufflinks you have seen? Ok ok I know, you’ve seen better images of cufflinks in the monthly ‘men’s fashion accessories’ magazine you are subscribed to, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make… Anyway, you would think that now I’m going to give a boring explanation with lots of details of how I managed to get this photo using some expensive flashes and diffusers, reflectors and everything with a very complex light setup. However, just the contrary, I simply used a smartphone to take this photo.
No, not exactly what you are thinking, I didn’t use my mobile camera (which by the way takes horrible photos, but this might be more related to the fact that I drop my phone an average of twice a month). I took the photo with my DSLR (I try not to drop this). What I mean is that I used my smartphone to light the cufflinks. No long and heavy explanation I promise: camera on tripod, dark room, long exposure setup, white image opened in my phone as the only light. Move this light source in the proper way and you will get a picture. That’s it.
I told you you don’t need expensive gear to take photos. Just a smartphone, even the cheapest one in the market will do it.
