8 Ways to Shoot a Better Travel Video with your Smartphone

8 Ways to Shoot a Better Travel Video with your Smartphone

Want to take great travel videos with a smartphone? Of course, that’s why you’re here. Well, it doesn’t have to be hard work so read on…

Some travel videos are hard to watch and often it is down to the usual issues such as shots being out of focus, over exposed, under exposed, nasty looking preset LUTs and so on.

First step is to make sure you have the right gear. Then you’ll find you are a better smartphone travel video maker if you get to know the camera on your smartphone. If you use an app to give you manual control, get to know the features as much as possible.

1. Get To Know Your Camera

Personally, I’m not someone who likes learning lots of theory before I get creative. I would rather learn “on the job”. I mean, I basically taught myself filmmaking by shooting an entire feature film without a crew.

By the end of the 1 year shooting period, I knew my camera like an old friend. I knew all the little quirks and hacks I could use to get the best footage from a very low budget camera. I knew its limits and its strengths, so I worked around them. No point in trying to get shots your camera isn’t equipped for and then getting frustrated.

Every camera is different and has a different “personality”. That’s why I say get to know your camera like a friend. We love our friends because of their strengths and weaknesses, not despite them.

Smartphones certainly have particular characteristics. They tend to come with wide lenses, for example. They are also flexible, easy to use and are great for getting spontaneous travel video shots.

Being able to film people without making them nervous or self-conscious is often an important part of shooting a travel video. There’s no better camera than a smartphone camera for this, as most people in the world are now used to seeing them as normal everyday objects.

2. Use a Camera App

Depending on your smartphone, I really recommend you download an app which gives you complete manual control over your camera. This means you can set and lock things like white balance, focus, ISO, frame rate, shutter speed and so on. In some phones like the Samsung Galaxy S9 – S10 you can even set aperture.

Using manual control will really make a huge improvement to the look of your travel video. A telling sign of unskilled videography is focus, exposure and white balance changing during a shot due to the auto features that most smartphones use.

Here’s our list of the best camera apps for smartphones.

Note: the new Sony Xperia 1 has an awesome camera app included – the Cinema Pro App. So if you own this phone, you probably don’t need an app like FiLMiC Pro.

If you are looking at getting a new smartphone, check our list of the best ones for video.

3. Make Sure You Have Memory

Smartphones come with different amounts of inbuilt memory to store your apps, images and videos. But it’s video that really gobbles up your memory more than anything. So, make sure to get the model of phone with the most inbuilt memory you can afford.

Some phones allow you to add microSD memory cards. So again, get the maximum size you can afford and is at the same time compatible with your device.

Aside from memory within your phone, it’s good to have extra external memory. When your phone is full of video, you can “dump” the footage onto a hard drive.

4. Try Different Angles

Most casual filmmakers, shooting snaps and videos of their vacation, shoot from eye level. It just feels instinctive to shoot from where our eyes naturally are. But this misses the opportunity to get those interesting angles which make our videos richer and more watchable as a result.

Different angles create different feelings in the viewer. Shooting from a low position makes everything in the video loom over the camera, making it appear more impressive (or perhaps ominous). Shooting from a high position makes everything in the video smaller and gives the viewer a “God-like” point of view.

Remember how it feels in a plane as you are coming in to land or just taken off? If you have a window seat and clear sky, it’s an incredible feeling looking down on the world. Houses look like toys and tiny people scurry around like ants.

In total contrast to the high angle, getting close to an object or a person creates a feeling of intimacy. The viewer can almost feel like they can touch the object themselves. The close up gives the viewer almost a feeling of exclusivity, of being given a special insight into something more personal.

And this is just a few basic examples.

Smartphones are the perfect cameras for getting different angles

The advantage the smartphone has over most other cameras is its sheer versatility and mobility. It’s far easier to hold a smartphone above your head, run up some stairs with it to get a new angle, or just prop it against a bottle on your restaurant table to get a interesting view.

Why not lay it on the table to get an interesting shot of the ornate lampshade hanging above you? Moving from behind objects in the near foreground to reveal the background – so easy to achieve with a smartphone.

So now perhaps you understand why shooting everything from your standing eye level limits what you can do with your camera. More importantly, it limits your storytelling ability. Imagine having to describe your holiday to a friend using only 100 words, instead of the 1000s you are used to using everyday.

5. Basic Equipment

There’s all kinds of equipment you can add to your filmmaking kit to give yourself more options when shooting your travel video. And our blog here is full of articles on all the latest items of equipment. But here’s a quick overview:

Stabilization. Most smartphones come with some kind of inbuilt stabilizer. However, these are only useful for small movements or stills photos. You might want to add a gimbal, a tripod, some kind of grip or selfie stick to your kit.

Shaky, hand held video can work to create urgency. But other than that, stable camera movement (or completely still) is preferable to create nice looking, professional footage.

Conversion Lenses. Smartphones usually come with one (wide angle) lens. However, new top range models are now shipping with multiple lenses inbuilt. Sometimes up to 5 or more lens options are available.

But if your phone doesn’t have these options – or you just want to add more options anyway – you can add what are known as “conversion” lenses to your kit. They are called that because they convert your existing lens into another type of lens. As a general rule, the more expensive they are, the better their quality.

We have a list of some of the best conversion lenses currently available.

External Microphones. If you are intending to record your (or other people’s) voice you will most likely need an external microphone. There are mics designed for smartphones and iPhones for a variety of situations.

6. It’s All About the Editing

Spending time editing your footage can transform it from the average holiday footage into something exciting, dramatic and compelling. You can edit directly on your phone but its advisable to use a laptop or computer with a larger monitor space. Editing involves quite a lot of intricate work, which is easier to achieve with a bigger screen.

That said, the new version of LumaFusion 2.0 allows you to add an external monitor to your iPhone.

7. Create a Story of your Journey

I’ve researched quite a few “how to” videos and articles for travel videos, but I am yet to find anyone talking about what for me is an essential ingredient: a story.

Is this because most article writers and video makers realise the general video shooter can’t work at this level? Or is it because they themselves don’t value it?

Anyway, for me this is the (usually missing) element I miss most when it’s not there. Nearly all the travel videos we receive here at the Mobile Motion Film Festival are simply a series of nice shots joined together, with an evocative music underscore. For me, this is the equivalent of watching your friend’s or family’s home video which, after the 10th shot of them on the beach or visiting a famous landmark, starts to get wearing…

What happened on your journey?

A personal narrative relating your adventure to a foreign land is far more compelling than just a long list of shots of the lovely sunsets and crowded markets.

Creating or relating a narrative is probably the hardest thing of all, which is presumably why so few people include one. But here’s some simple tips to help you, if you decide you want to create more than some pretty vacation clips.

Storytelling is really about asking and answering questions. So here’s a few you can think about:

Why are you there?

What is the purpose of your trip? How do you feel about it? Being truthful will give people an intimate insight into you and your journey and make it more than just a “oh look at this nice palm tree”. Were you nervous? Excited? Exhausted and needing a break? Why were you exhausted? What has worn you down… and so on.

What are the challenges you face?

Is there anything specifically about the trip you are nervous about? Are you afraid of flying? Are you afraid of water? Will the new place present you with some kind of culture shock?

Does the journey itself present some kind of challenge? For example, are you going by bus via a precarious cliff road? Don’t just show that, but show the build up – create the dramatic tension! How do you feel about getting on this bus? Make sure to show it.

You viewers want to know every personal detail about obstacles and challenges you face. But if your trip is one of luxury and your every whim is catered for; if you are never going to leave your own personal comfort zone, then I will suggest your travel video will be rather dull to watch.

But if you are going to challenge yourself, then that should be centre to your travel video narrative.

Who are the people you meet?

When we travel we meet new people, with cultures different to our own. Well, your audience would absolutely love to know more about them. Who are the characters you encounter on your journey? Find out more about them, interview them or film them going about their daily lives.

Don’t just film the locals from the window of your tour bus. Get close and personal to the locals. Preferably, throw off your own culture for a while and embrace the dress and lifestyle of the land you’re visiting. How does it feel?

How you respond to these challenges are what will grip audiences to your videos.

8. Tame Your Instincts

When we arrive at our exotic destination, our first instinct is to wave the camera around wildly, trying to capture all the amazing stuff we see in one shot.

Don’t. Do. That.

When you come to watch these shots at home they will be almost unusable. Once uploaded to your editing software, you will wish you’d just kept the camera still and focused on one thing at a time. Of course, roving all over the place with your camera turns out to be a very poor substitute for shot planning.

Calm yourself and your shots. Tame these instincts to produce focused cinematography. Immediately your shots will start to look cool and professional.

And when you come to edit these shots, you will find yourself more able to create a compelling narrative.

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