Shooting great video with your Android smartphone

Shooting videos with your smartphone is easy and a highly cost-effective way of creating great images for your organisation.

Android phones have some fantastic features. The only slight snag is that different brands - Huawei, Samsung, Google and LG - all have slightly different ways of doing things.

I'm basing this guide on Samsung, the world's biggest smartphone seller, using the S8 Plus model. A lot of other top-end phones from other manufacturers will have similar features.

NOTE: this tutorial is based on a smartphone running Android Oreo. Recently Android has upgraded to Pie (V9) For reasons best known to Samsung, they decided to remove a number of the best features in the Pro video mode. So the moral is: if your Samsung is on Oreo (v8), don't upgrade!

TIP ONE: to open your camera quickly, so you don't miss a shot, double click the power button (or the home button in some Samsungs). You'll need to set this up the first time: tap Camera Settings --> Advanced Features --> Quick Launch and tap the slider so it turns blue.

TIP TWO: with the camera open, swipe up to switch quickly to selfie (front) mode, swipe down for the main (rear) camera .

LET'S GET STARTED

When you open the camera, you'll see a range of icons around the screen (below).

To shoot video couldn't be easier. Just point the camera and tap the video button! But there are a range of extras under the bonnet that will make your video look and sound a lot better.

TIP THREE: give your camera lens a quick clean with a soft cloth before shooting. It's been in your pocket/bag all day!

TIP FOUR: avoid using the rear fingerprint sensor to open the smartphone. It's too close to the main lens and a greasy fingerprint is not what you need.

FOCUS AND EXPOSURE

You'll want your pictures looking sharp and not too dark or too bright. Here's how.

Tap the screen where you see the main subject of your video. That does two things. It focuses your shot on the subject, and brings up a brightness scale with a lightbulb on it. Slide up and down to control the lightness or darkness of your picture.

When shooting video, it's almost always a good idea to lock your focus and exposure. That way the lighting and the sharpness of your pictures won't change in mid-shot. To lock, tap the screen at your main point of interest and hold until a circle with AE/AF appears (below) Your focus and exposure are now locked. Tap screen again to unlock.

Occasionally, your subject is moving quickly towards or away from you, so a locked focus is not a good idea. Samsung has a tracking focus function which keeps the subject in focus however they move. Tap Camera Settings (top left of screen) and enable Tracking AF.

A yellow square appears on screen (see below)...place it over your subject and it will stay in focus whatever its movement. Disable the tracking focus function when you've finished that shot.

VOICE CONTROL

A neat trick on the Samsung S8 is voice control. It allows you to shoot video just by telling your smartphone "Record Video"! Useful when your camera is on a tripod out of reach. For stills, just say out loud Smile/Cheese/Capture or Shoot.

TIP FIVE: the last thing you want when shooting video is for your phone to start ringing. It'll ruin your recording. Make sure you are in Flight Mode first (below). Swipe down from the top of screen and select. To make doubly sure you're not interrupted, swipe left and enable Do Not Disturb.

TIP SIX: enable Grid, which superimposes three vertical and three horizontal lines on your screen. It's really helpful for composing great shots. Go to Camera Settings --> Grid lines --> 3 x 3

The key thing is to position the most important parts of your shot where the lines cross (see below). It's known as the 'rule of thirds', and it's helped photographers and artists alike create great images.

TIP SEVEN: video shooting uses up a lot of memory. Most Samsungs have only 64GB of memory, which doesn't go very far. Buy a micro SD card (at least 128GB) and insert it in the tray at the top of your smartphone, next to the SIM.

SHOOTING LIKE A PRO

So far we've been shooting in Auto mode. In other words, the camera has been making most of the big decisions about the shots. But Samsung smartphone cameras have a range of extra "Pro' functions which give you a lot of extra control. To find them, swipe right to bring up the menu (below).

The key function is Pro, of which more shortly. The two other big ones for video are:

• Hyperlapse: for time-lapse shots

• Slow motion & super slow-mo: self explanatory

The other effects are for stills only:

• Panorama: for super-wide shots

• Selective focus: allows you to change the focus of pictures after they've been taken

• Food: for those who like boasting about their dining experience. Emphasises the colours.

• Virtual shot: circle your subject to create a view of the subject from multiple angles. View by dragging your finger left or right on the photo.

• Sports; sharper action pictures

• Beauty face: adjusts the skin tone of faces

Tap on the cross top right of screen to download extra modes. Position them on the screen with your finger

PRO MODE

Pro Mode gives you the kind of control you usually get either with conventional cameras, or in specialist smartphone apps. Tap Pro to bring them up on screen.

ISO (below): the sensitivity of the camera to light. The higher the value, the more sensitive it is. Slide to control exposure. I recommend keeping the ISO as low as possible, consistent with a good shot, and then adjusting the shutter speed (below). This technique works well in low light levels.

Shutter speed (below): there is no actual shutter in a smartphone (it's a hangover from the days of mechanical cameras), but it is a measurement of the amount of time the sensor is exposed to light.

​Manual focus (below): slide up or down to achieve more precise sharpness. When the subject...in this case, the flower... is highlighted in green, focus is sharp.

White balance (below): cameras are very clever, but also a bit stupid. They don't know what is white...and as they calibrate all the other colours from white, you need to tell them what is white at each shoot. So put some white paper/card in front of the camera and tap White Balance.

Filters: a range of filters which change the look of your shot. I recommend you leave this on the default Standard setting.

TIP EIGHT: enable video stabilisation for nice smooth shots as your camera moves. It really helps remove camera shake. Tap Camera Settings --> video stabilisation.

AUDIO

Unfortunately, there isn't any way of monitoring the audio levels as you record your video, so you're never sure how loud or soft your sound will be. A shame, as more smartphone videos are ruined by poor sound than anything else. More advanced apps - such as Filmic Pro - do have audio meters on screen, so you can see your audio levels as you shoot.

Avoid using the microphone on your smartphone wherever possible. The sound is tinny and echo-ey unless you get very close indeed.

TIP NINE: always use an external microphone if you can. An inexpensive lapel microphone, like this BOYA BY-M1 can make a huge difference for around £15. Buy a windshield to go with it; windy conditions can wreak havoc with your audio. If you don't have an external microphone handy, use the microphone on your earphone cable; it will really improve your sound, especially if you hold it close.

TIP TEN: always listen back to your audio BEFORE your interviewee leaves the location!

CAMERA SETTINGS

You can change the quality of the video recorded by your camera by going to Camera Settings --> Rear Camera --> Picture size. I've selected 16:9 (9.1 Megapixels) which is the highest quality in widescreen.

Go next to video size (below). I've selected FHD (full HD). You can select higher quality settings. For example, 60fps (frames per second) will make your video look smoother, but it will take up a lot more memory.

UHD (also known as 4K) is even more memory-hungry, but the video looks great.

SELFIE CAM

Swipe up to bring up the selfie cam. Swipe right to bring up more options, though for video, the standard Selfie mode is the only one that's useful. Exposure and focus lock (AF/AE lock) doesn't work on the selfie cam.

Selfie: conventional selfie shot.

Wide selfie (stills only): allows a pan around the subject to make the shot wider

Selective focus (stills only): blurs the background slightly

Virtual shot (stills only): create a view of the subject from multiple angles

TIP ELEVEN: to zoom in, instead of pinching with your thumb and forefinger, just move the camera button up and down. Beware: don't zoom in too much or the quality of your pictures will get worse. Get closer to your subject instead!

As you can see, the Samsung S8 is a great smartphone for video. But there are apps out there that will help you take your video to the next level. The best is Filmic Pro, available on the Google Play store. (warning, not every Android smartphone supports Filmic Pro. Look at Filmic Pro Evaluator here for more info)

Now you've learnt how to shoot great video, you'll want to edit it. I'd recommend PowerDirector which is free to download on Google Play. Upgrading to the paid-for version gets rid of adverts and a burnt-in logo. See my how-to tutorial on Power Director elsewhere on this blog.