The easiest and most effortless way to record video for youtube is when Smartphones are powerful video cameras that are always with us. Smartphones have become increasingly important as creative tools for mobile work, even becoming the primary purpose of the device.

You can use your smartphone to make great footage, vlog, or even record an indie film or documentary if you practice a little and learn a few tips.

In an effort to help you capture anything you desire in the best way possible, Pocket-lint has compiled ten tips to help you be as efficient as possible when it comes to taking pictures. While some of the tips might seem obvious, following them all should result in a great video every time, even if some of them seem obvious to you.

Here are some tips for recording better videos on your smartphone:

Table of Contents

Landscape

In my opinion, there is nothing worse than to have two black vertical bars running along both sides of your footage to ruin it. It is very important that you use the landscape orientation of the camera when recording so that you do not make this amateur mistake.

When you view your video on a widescreen or television, the landscape will not only make it more aesthetically pleasing, but it will also make it more enjoyable to watch. In addition, the actual video will contain more information.

Just keep in mind that you should never hold your phone vertically while filming unless you really want or prefer the inclusion of those vertical black bars (or if you’re recording solely for an application like TikTok or Instagram Stories).

The framing

With your subject filling the frame, you are now recording in the right orientation (see above). In order to create a more visually intriguing scene, you can also put the person or thing slightly off-center. Take a look at what works and play around with it.

When you go into the camera settings on most phone cameras, you can enable gridlines, showing vertical and horizontal gridlines on the screen while shooting. You can use the horizontal lines to position the horizon line, or you can use one of the vertical ‘third’ lines to align the subject with a vertical ‘third’ line.

Zoom

Professional photographers will tell you there is nothing worse than digital zoom. We’re fortunate to live in an era when most smartphones have lossless (or optical) zooms, which provide a lot of detail without loss.

A device with a decent optical zoom, such as the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, will allow you to zoom in while recording videos without losing the clarity and vibrancy you desire. Many smartphones come with a dedicated “telephoto” lens on the back of the device if there are multiple cameras on the back.

Flash

Almost everyone has watched those videos where the subject has yellow skin and red devilish eyes that are combined with a very dark background to make up a crazy scene. Is there a culprit here? Obviously, it’s the photographer’s fault…but it’s also the flash’s fault.

As you know, smartphones have too bright LED lights that can easily alter the color temperature of pictures. It is also common for video to end up poorly lit. At night, you will need another light source if you want to take a photo. In addition, you can use your phone’s night mode if it has one. Low-light video recording isn’t easy on most phones, however.

A backlighting system

Another thing to keep in mind when thinking about flash and lighting in general is to stay away from scenarios that are strongly backlit.

When people are backlit, you might be able to see their faces, but your smartphone camera typically can’t; thus the movie it produces will typically show a bright light haloing a dark figure. Additionally, that figure won’t have any discernible features, indicating that you failed to capture what you were attempting to photograph. That’s something you absolutely need to pay attention to, unless your phone has some pretty sophisticated HDR features.

Video stabilization and smoothing

Electronic and optical image stabilization has been a major advancement in the smartphone industry in recent years. Essentially, it reduces any handshake if you are shooting handheld to a minimum so that it is as smooth as possible. As you can see, it works pretty well, but if you’re panning or orbiting around a person or object or moving in such a way that you want it to follow the subject, you’d better get a physical gimbal that works with your phone so that you get really smooth results. The DJI OM4 is a good example of the best smartphone gimbal stabilizer. With your phone attached and the necessary camera app loaded, you’ll be able to take full advantage of your phone’s video capabilities, while the stabilising effect provided by the gimbal will result in a clean, cinematic look you wouldn’t get with a handheld camera. Regardless of how steady your grip may seem to be.