Gadgetory

hello everybody I'm Lynn la from cnet and if you're anything like me you probably use your smartphone to take tons of photos from hanging out with your friends to your lunch to selfies our handsets have become the main way to take pictures so today I'm going to walk you through some simple steps to get the most out of your camera on the powerful gs5 Samsung's current flagship device first be sure to check that your default settings are tailored to your exact preferences to adjust them tap the little gear icon in the corner and scroll through each of these items personally I always turn my compositional gridlines on to help me frame and straighten out my pictures I also check to make sure my flash is set off instead of auto so it doesn't surprise me and i turn my shutter sound off because it's just kind of annoying for frequently change settings you can have three shortcuts directly accessible on the viewfinders dash just long tap any of these settings and drag them over some settings that samsung turns off by default that you might want to know are recording Ultra HD video and video stabilization now there's one particular setting here that brings me to my second tip you've probably seen HDR or high dynamic range imaging before but the gs5 now has the option to toggle real-time feedback of what your HDR image would look like before you take a picture make this toggle your friend HDR combines several shots taking at varying levels of exposure and composites it into one image this can result in really striking almost surreal photos that have great contrast sometimes though it can also create unnatural images that you might not like so be sure to check by tapping on and off the HDR icon which is represented by this little Venn diagram looking icon here once you like what you see click the shutter third familiarize yourself with photo effects you can access some of them directly on the camera through the settings menu here it's indicated by the magic wand icon and displays the filters in real time if you know you'll never use some of these effects scroll all the way to the bottom tap on manage effects and hide it by unchecking it here other effects can be applied after you take the picture these are accessible through the photo manager just go to your gallery tap on this Polaroid with a pencil icon and several options will appear if you tap on the one icon that we saw before you'll see even more like pop art Impressionists and light flare which turns your picture into a low-budget JJ Abrams movie fourth get to know selective focus this is a new gs5 feature that lets you change the focal point of your picture by manipulating the depth of field pictures can look more professional and even dramatic you have to turn this option on before taking a photo so it's good to have an idea about it while you're shooting to turn it on tap the icon with the two human heads in the camera dash the device will tell you that for best results stand at most a foot and a half away from the closest object the object itself should also be at least four and a half feet away from the background tap on the object you want in your foreground and click the shutter it'll take a few moments for your handset to process but afterward go into your gallery by tapping on the bottom right square to initiate selective focus click on the icon here with the two little heads three options will emerge near far and Pam focus near will bring your closest object into focus and blur out everything behind it far sharpens only the background and pan gets everything in focus when you're finished tap done to save your changes and there you have it four basic steps to get the most out of your GS 5s camera remember there are tons more editing features packed in this little guy but this should get you started on the right foot for more GS 5 tips and for the written tutorial head on over to how to cnet com and if you have any questions or comments hit me up on Twitter I'm Lynn and happy shooting