One of the things I love about modern smart phones is that they include a camera. I love the fact that you can capture snaps on your phone no matter where you are. It allows you to capture pictures that you might otherwise miss, invaluable when you have children or go out and about a lot. I have captured some stunning photos using my phone and most phones have good quality cameras included these days.

As you know I am a Samsung Mob!lier and recently I have been using the Samsung Galaxy S3 camera to capture photographs. The Samsung Galaxy S3 has a camera which includes a host of useful features which make it very versatile. It is an 8 MP camera and it also has flash included which  a lot of camera phones often exclude. The other features are a Back-illuminated sensor (BSI), CMOS image sensor, Auto focus, Face detection, Exposure compensation, ISO control, White balance presets, Burst mode, Geo tagging, High Dynamic Range mode (HDR), Panorama, Scenes, Effects and Self-timer. This all sounds great on paper but what does it actually mean?

The camera is simple enough to use. When you press the camera icon on the phone you get a screen that looks like this:

On the bottom left corner you can access your photo gallery by pressing the little preview square. Moving across to the right the button with the camera on it is used to take the photos and on the far right is a slider which allows you to choose between taking photographs or making a video. At the top of the screen you get the different options for setting up the camera before you take a shot. The button on the far right allows you to choose between front facing or rear facing camera. The button with the arrow and the no entry sign beside it allows you to choose if you want turn flash on or off or set it to autoflash. Beside that we have the square which allows you to choose from a range of different effects.

By default it is set to single shot but you can choose from other options as well. Burst shot will take several shots at once and you can pick the best. HDR apparently stands for High Dynamic Range Imaging. It provides greater contrast between dark and light areas creating a more artistic effect.  The other options are Face Detection, Smile Shot, Beauty, Panorama, Cartoon, Share Shot and Buddy Photo Share. Buddy Photo Share lets you share photos with friends by tapping on their faces in a photo which could be useful.

Moving across the top we have the wand option which allows you to set photo filters.
You can choose from black and white, negative, sepia, washed out, red-yellow point, blue point, green point, solarise, posterise, warm vintage and cold vintage which provide some interesting effects.  The cog wheel button allows you to choose different settings.

The whole point of a camera though is to take photographs and I have been having great fun playing with the different settings.  These are some of the photographs I have been taking recently and I must admit I am very pleased with how well they have turned out.

This sunset photograph was taken into the sun, just using a single shot and no effects. I was really pleased with this photograph, it is really dramatic and captured the moment perfectly.

This next one is a panorama shot.

It is just a shot overlooking the field beside which I walk my dog but I love the contrasting shadows on the field with the sky above.

Here’s my dog Eddie.

I captured this one using burst mode and best shot. It takes 20 pictures in a row, about 10 per second. You can then keep the lot or choose to save the best one. This is brilliant if you are trying to get photos of a dog or a child. Every parent will be familiar with the difficulties of trying to get a photograph of a child where they actually look nice and smile, this gives you more of a chance of capturing a good picture. I love this picture of Eddie as he looks so inquisitive and I managed to capture him as he stopped running madly about.

These next four photos show burst mode in action, you can see the subtle changes in Eddie’s position.

This photograph shows some of the Autumn colour about at the moment.

I have been very pleased with the photos I have taken with the Samsung Galaxy S3 and it provides a range of useful effects and shooting formats that allows you to use it in a range of different circumstances.

Disclosure: I am a Samsung Mob!ler and I am writing this as one of my missions.