Cheap camera options? Or how to improve iPhone photos.

While is definitely possible to take really good photos with a phone
it is much easier with a camera. Because every phone now takes
decent photos, low end cameras are almost dinosaurs. Having
said that, there are dozens of them on eBay which can be had for
absolutely ridiculous prices.

 

I would recommend saving up for a nice camera before buying any iPhone camera accessories.
One major tips that I found helped me take better phone pictures is lighting. Taking a picture is about capturing light. The more light there is the better and more high def the picture will be. I take most of my photos outside or by a window with lots of natural light. Also you ideally want indirect light or light coming from all angles. You can help achieve this by using sheets of white material or paper to reflect the light. Also downloading a simple photo editing tool will help. Most phones come with one. The settings you want to be able to adjust the most are the hue, warmth, brightness, and contrast. I usually need to adjust these just a bit to really make the photo pop. Hope this helps

 

I would look into "bridge" cameras, like the Nikon Cooolpix and the Canon Powershots. You can buy them used for under $100, and they are extremely good cameras. They have wonderful zooms on them, shoot in raw if you want that option, and just are all around a fun thing to work with!

 

Adobe makes a version of photoshop for iPhone which, while it won't improve a poor photo, can help make a mediocre photo look pretty good. I think it's free or cheap to download in the app store. It has tools to adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, warmth, and a couple of noise reduction settings that I find helpful. It's also good for cropping, straightening, or otherwise skewing an image.

 

I don't know anything about your understanding of camera basics but I would recommend getting the Canon Rebel 3ti. Even thought the model was introduced in 2011 it is still a viable camera today except for Movie mode. I shoot most of doll pictures with this camera. It is a good camera for beginners to intermediate. Pair this up with a subscription to Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop CC you will be soon impressed with your own photos. Lightroom is easy to use for beginners and the pricing is very reasonable. Also, watch some YouTube videos on how to take Portrait pictures. This may answer some questions you didn't know you had such as lighting and lens sizes. I hope this helps.

 

Here are two threads I found on tumblr for with easy tips anyone can do without purchasing a new camera to improve photos!
Piko.Dolls
(Part 2) How to Photograph Dolls with n00bish-ness & no experience

 

I just got a Canon T6i! It comes with a kit so you get the camera and two lenses for $749 via Best Buy(or its $62 a month). It’s a beginner level camera. So you can blur out backgrounds and what not with it but it’s not as complicated as a true DSLR and definitely not as expensive. It’s a point and shoot with a little extra.... the holidays are coming up if you celebrate any....

 

Yes, a nice camera can make things look better, but a photo will never look perfect on its own. Photoshop, it isn't scary nor do you need to use it for extreme things. Using it to get the balance right in photos turns a good photo into a great one, plus it can really give you the desired mood of the photo. There are two main options professional and regular photographers use, Photoshop and Lightroom. Lightroom is really intuitive and easy to use. Photoshop gives you more editing options though. Personally I use Photoshop and I use their 'quick edit' to make adjusting the light balance easier. Either editing format gives nice camera or a regular phone great results.

 

I'm kinda surprised by everyone casually suggesting Photoshop as if it isn't $120 a year. That's, like, my whole yearly doll budget. Are there no less cost-prohibitive solutions for going from blurry camera-phone pics to something semi-decent? For example, Gimp is a free alternative to Photoshop.

 

There are many photoshop alternatives out there, I recommend looking into this list: Best Adobe Photoshop Alternatives For Windows And Mac [List] | Redmond Pie
And also, Photoshop CS2 is made free to use by adobe and can be downloaded legally from them too.

As a personal opinion, if you want to take more quality photos I'd recommend investing in an entry level dslr. It would be a huge step and would come with a lot of trial and error kind of learning, but they undoubtedly produce quality content once you get the hang of it.
I personally don't like the look of point and shoot camera pictures, they lack a degree of field depth and the ones I handled had trouble with closeup shots. Depending on your version of iphone, image quality might be close too.
You might also want to consider what the goal is: if you improve your phone's performance you still have the option of a quick edit and instant upload to instagram or other social sites. If you step in to getting a camera then this process will be more time consuming, specially if you edit your photos. Granted there are people (like me) who don't mind the time put into them.

As for improving phone cameras: there's nothing much you can do since they are automatic and built in. I find it useless to get those extra lens you attach to them because they didn't really do anything for me either, cool gadget but don't fall for the commercial that say it will produce dslr quality. The only gadget I support is the ring light you can mount to your phone. It's used for selfies, but can be nice for doll photos too, way better than using a flash.
Small tweaks I learned with my phone is to always clean the lens before taking a photo. Make a whole lot of difference and for a long time I didn't had that as a habit. Second is light, phone cameras perform best in medium light, too bright will just wash out, too dark will be blurry. (This is where phone versions come in play because mine performs pretty well in low light too but it's a fairly new phone.) Bouncing light can be done with a smaller piece of foil and white paper. I post to instagram so I use their built in editor that's enough for my phone pics. The little tipods that are meant to hold your phone is a good thing to have around too, while there is stabilizer built in most cameras, if you want to take extra sharp pics, it's handy (this goes for all cameras thou ^^; )

If you would like to, I can take a series of pics with phone, point and shoot and dslr unedited and edited too so you can see the difference, I planned on doing something similar anyways

 

If you are an iphone user, buy a mini studio with inner lightnings and variety of background layouts.