Nokia Lumia handsets tend to be packed with the best smartphone camera technology around. It’s one of the things they’re known for. However, sometimes you want to step away from accurate colours and super-sharp images and apply a little retro film artfulness to your photos. Here are some top tips for making your Nokia Lumia photos look like vintage film.
Just as vinyl maintains a sizeable following despite the proliferation of digital music formats, so there will always be a place for film in photography. Even the little imperfections in the physical format can be highly desirable.
There are plenty of apps out there to help you apply fancy retro filters to your Lumia photos, as well as a number of techniques (both straight-forward and outlandish) that can help to get you results.
DOWNLOAD: Nokia Creative Studio
As Nokia Conversations noted recently, you can make your snaps look like classic film shots by following these simple tips.
Play With Colour
The physical nature of film leads to subtle variations in colour and tone, and this can be replicated on your Nokia Lumia. Use a decent photo editor app like Nokia Creative Studio (which is free, don’t forget) to play around with the colour tone of your images. A little orange or yellow will give you that warm vintage look.
Adjust Contrast
In a similar way to colour, you can really give your photos that classic film look my messing with the contrast. Switch off the HDR mode – a very modern and thus undesirable feature here – and experiment with over-saturating those colours or fading everything out slightly.
Deliberate Graininess
Graininess is often seen the enemy of smartphone snaps, and a blurry lack of detail is usually a no-no. But the advice when seeking that vintage film feel is to embrace both! Don’t go mad, but try shooting through a plastic sheet or even some nylon stockings to take the digitally sharp edges off your shots.
Use Vignettes
No, it’s not a type of salad dressing. The vignette effect is where the centre of the shot is noticeably brighter than the corners. Previously this was a simple technical limitation, but now such vintage effects are often seen as desirable. It’s also a nifty way to draw a viewer’s attention to the object in the centre. Most decent photo filter apps will contain a vignette example.
Tilt That Camera
Inspired by the Lomography movement, tilting your Nokia Lumia at a jaunty angle when taking your shots nails that guerrilla “shoot from the hip” vibe. Well, not on its own it doesn’t, but if you try it in conjunction with some or all of the above, you’ll create a distinctly retro-tinged image.
Give it a try!
Do you have any tips for creating arty retro pictures on your Nokia Lumia? Any particular apps you use? Let us know in the Comments section below.
Find out more about Nokia Lumia smartphones at Nokia UK