How to take a good selfie: Instead of snapping away aimlessly, follow these basic rules and tips for great results

Natural lighting coming from a window can do wonders for illuminating your face. (Reuters image)

By Zia Askari

Let us admit it at the outset: we are a highly selfie-obsessed lot, especially the younger generation. Nowadays, people post thousands of selfies each day to social media sites, such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. After all, they are a form of self-presentation and expression, an interpersonal communication where a person conveys an image about him or herself to another individual. A simple search for #selfie on Instagram yields million of photos. And that’s why major mobile handset makers are packing in more selfie-focused features in their latest offerings.

However, the moot question is how to take a great photo of yourself while holding the mobile device? Here are some tips that can make a big difference.

The most common type of phone selfie is easily the classic and straightforward front-camera type. Here, there are a few essential components to bear in mind. Take for instance, the right lighting. For taking a good selfie, you need good lighting. Your best bet is going outside in the sun while you photograph yourself. The ideal time for this is during sunrise and sunset, that’s when you can get just about the right amount of light for taking the best selfie.

If you don’t want to venture outside for your selfies, you can still get great results by just facing towards a window. Natural lighting coming from a window can do wonders for illuminating your face. The latest offering from OnePlus assists in delivering great colour calibration for your selfies. OnePlus 9 Pro (Rs 64,999) comes with a 16MP Sony IMX471 selfie camera. I must point out the OnePlus 9 Series is using a new standard for colour calibration —Natural Colour Calibration with Hasselblad—to bring more perceptually accurate and natural-looking colours to photos. Hasselblad is a leading manufacturer of digital medium format cameras and lenses.

Moving further, selfie composition is another key facet to bear in mind. For getting best selfie results, it is recommended that you consider the Rule of Thirds (a frequent tool to help improve photography) when composing your shot. Samsung Galaxy S21 5G Ultra (Rs 1,05,999) comes with a lot of features that can assist in delivering great selfie composition for you. It comes with a selfie camera that is powered by it 40MP sensor and captures binned 10MP photos by default but if you want, you can get 40MP selfie results with this device too. It has autofocus capabilities and can shoot 4K 60fps stabilised videos as well. It also comes with new AI-enabled lighting and background effects.

Then comes artsy editing. No matter how well you take your picture, editing your output can always add an extra element of zest and creativity to your selfies. You can use filters for a quick change or if you want to explore a more personalised way of editing, you can use a set of features that comes along with most of the mobile phones today. These features allow you to play with different aspects like light, shadows, contrast, sharpness, and deliver great results.

Take for instance, vivo X60 Pro (Rs 49,999) which comes with a 32MP front camera for taking selfies. You can also access ZEISS Biotar Portrait Style on the vivo X series. This feature allows users to create customised professional portraits, with an ability to render centre sharpness and create swirly harmonious bokeh. The Oppo Reno 5 Pro 5G (Rs 35,990) is another great option that comes with a 32MP front camera for taking interesting selfies. This device carries an innovative ‘AI Highlight Video’ mode, which can brighten footage in low light or can also apply HDR effect, depending on the amount of light around your subject and this works for selfie videos as well. It also comes with a picture-in-picture mode for videos which can make things a bit more interesting for you.

Askari writes on communications, technology and gadgets at TelecomDrive.com