June 2017 | Angkor Photography Tours

6 Top Reasons to Use Your Smartphone for Travel Photography

On June 24, 2017 / blog

Smartphone cameras have come a long way with a dramatic increase in picture quality the past few years, so much that it made point and shoot cameras almost obsolete and that smartphone photography is a now a category of its own. The latest smartphone cameras have high megapixels sensor (20+ megapixels) and new features as dual lenses to reproduce the bokeh effect.

Huawei P10 Plus, the last flagship model of the brand features a main camera with 20 MP Monochrome and a 12 MP RGB, F1.8 sensors. IPhone 7 Plus has two 12 MP sensors with 28/56 mm equivalent focal length (F1.8/2.8 aperture).

We will not discuss in this post the quality of smartphones but rather their use in travel photography.

1. Take snapshots

The most obvious of course: sometime when we travel especially we do not have always carry our camera but most of he time we carry a smartphone in our pocket. I wish I had taken the shot below with my Canon though:)

Group of young nuns carrying alms bowl in the streets of Yangon Myanmar (Huawei P9 Lite)

Smoking Burmese cigar in the streets of Yangon ( (Huawei P9 Lite)

Your camera phone will be useful to document your trip (for example take a picture of a train ticket or a street sign) and will save you space on your memory cards.

2 – Keep a low profile

In travel photography especially when taking portraits or life scenes, the approach is quite critical to get the best shots as possible. I have found that sometime a smartphone can help “breaking the ice”: after the subject being more relaxed, they can be less intimated by your big camera.

Young Burmese boy wearing thanaka in the streets of Yangon (Huawei P9 Lite)

Young Burmese boy wearing thanaka in the streets of Yangon (Canon 750D).

Some places like museums forbid the use of a camera in their premises, so if you want to document your visit, a smartphone camera is very handy. Do not forget to deactivate the flash and shoot in manual mode (set the ISO) when you shoot indoors.

3- Geotag your pictures

You might not have a GPS chip in your camera so taking few pictures on location with your smartphone will help you later to document your trip and come back later on location especially in areas where Google Maps do not have data.

4- Look at different angles, take difficult shots

Before getting out your camera from your bag, it is sometime useful to look at composition with your smartphone to find new angles. It is useful to know at this stage what is the 35 mm equivalent of your smartphone camera: Huawei P9 lite is equivalent to a 27 mm so it will make sense to use a full frame with a 24 mm lens for example.

As they are relatively small and light smarphone can be placed in places where a camera cannot fit. An example bel0w of a staircase in yangon where my DSLR could not go through the grid.

A old staircase in Yangon captured with by Huawei P9 Lite

5 – Promote your work on social media

Nowadays even in some remote locations in South-East Asia you will be surprised to get a 3G/4G signal, the data package are as well very affordable and you can have a number and several GB of data for less than USD 10. On top of that with powerful editing application such as Snapseed with which you can edit and even make promotional material. This alone justify to take your smartphone when you are on a photo expedition.

If did not bring your laptop during your trip and that your camera has Wi-Fi &NFC functions you can upload low resolution pictures to your smartphone, edit them with Snapseed and share them online.

6 – Take panoramic pictures

When shooting panoramic pictures, I tend to use most of the time my smartphone camera instead of my Canon 5DMKII as it lacks a panorama mode . It is best to take panoramic shots with the camera positioned vertically rather to horizontal to have a ratio close to 16:9. If you manage to include a person in your shot like o the picture below it is even better.

Taking a quick panoramic shot is also a way to check if its is worth taking it with a DSLR and go through the tedious task of stitching pictures.

Panoramic shot of Maha Bandoola Garden in Yangon city center (Huawei P9 Lite)

Panoramic view of one of the gate of Angkor Thom in Cambodia (Huawei P9 Lite)

The lost Temples of Mrauk-U in Myanmar

On June 14, 2017 / Myanmar

Mrauk-U is a relatively unknown and probably the most underrated archeological site in South-East Asia. It is located in the western state of Rakhine in Myanmar (Burma). Rakhine state is a narrow strip of land bordered on the Bay of Bengal on the west and by Bangladesh on the north.

Mrauk-U has an interesting landscape as it sits on a valley with numerous mounds and interconnected creeks, moats, canals and artificial lakes.

Founded in 1430 A.D, Mrauk-U became after Launggret the center of the powerful Arakan Empire for more than 300 years until 1785 and an important cultural and commercial hub.

Mrauk-U, named the “Golden City” by early Europeans (Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch) traders and missionaries who the center of trade for elephants, rice. It is also known as the fortress city due to its 30 kilometers of fortifications built around it.It is also called Little Bagan because it has pagoda and temples.

Mrauk-U archaeological site is centered on the old palace and divided in four main groups: western, eastern, southern and northern, the latter being the most important. You can buy a 5000 Kyats pass (less than USD 4) for the temples at Mrauk U, sold at the Shittaung Pagoda.

The temples of Mrauk-U are not as impressive as the ones in Bagan, but their beauty are hidden: you can stroll for hours inside them looking at colored carvings . You can have also many temples by yourself and with some tenacity found new ones which are not on the map. As locals are living within the ruins, you will have many opportunities to interact with them and take beautiful portraits.

The most popular temples in Mrauk-U are Kothaung temple (also called the little Borodudur), Andaw temple

In his last visit to Mrauk-U in december 2016, Kofi Annan (who sits on the advisory commission on Rakhine state) strongly advocated for Mrauk-U’ UNESCO World Heritage Status.

There is no direct flight from Yangon at the moment and the construction of the new airport is being halted due the lack of funding. The only way to get to Mrauk-U is by a 4 to 5 hours scenic ferry ride on the Kalandan river from the city of Sittwe, by bus or private car. With only 4,000 visitors in the temples of Mrauk-U in 2016, you are sure to have most of the temples for yourself.

If you enjoyed exploring the other archeological sites in South-East Asia (Angkor, Bagan, Borodudur,Sukhothai, Ayutthaya) it is time to go to Mrauk-U before it gets its fame back. Temples are best explored by bicycle or by foot especially the ones in the Northern group, but to move between all the groups it is recommended to have a private transport.