I was listening to a speaker talk about corporate internet security when he said, “I want to get serious for a moment.” He talked about having a 15 year old daughter and wanting to keep her safe. He said every thief and pedophile out there knows how to right click on an image and see the metadata on it. Metadata is the information like the time and date a photo was taken, the lens opening and other technical information.

TURN OFF LOCATION IN CAMERA AREA

Cell phones are automatically set to also record the exact location a photo is taken at. Giving out your home address on the internet is too much information. He suggested turning off the location in the camera area of your cell phone. Location still stays on for the rest of the phone so you can get directions, etc. but it is turned off in the phone area.

HAVE FAMILY & FRIENDS TURN OFF LOCATION TOO

He also suggested anyone visiting your home, like family and friends, turn off the location info in their cell phone cameras as well. If someone comes to your house for a party and posts photos with your home address they just gave out your address to anyone on the internet.

KEEP YOUR FAMILY SAFE

You want to keep your children safe and don’t want to be robbed. Consider turning off location in your cell phones camera area for your safety and your family’s safety.

Cell phones have some really fun settings for different effects and scenes. Have fun looking through and exploring the different settings.

You can verbally tell your cell phone camera to take a photo instead of touching the screen or pressing a button.

Most new cell phone cameras have this feature built in. If not you can download an app that will do it for you. Check in your cell phones camera settings for the key words to say that will make the camera take a photo. With my cell phone camera I say, “Picture” and it takes a picture.

Try it out and see what you think.

Your cell phone can get junk on the lens from things in your pocket or purse. You can also get a fingerprint on it which can blur the photo. Simply wiping the lens off before taking a photo with your shirt or a soft cloth can be a good idea to get the sharpest photos possible.

If you have a specific area you want your cell phone camera to focus on, you can tap that area of your photo on the screen to help the phone know where to focus.

As you watch this video you will see the cell phones camera refocus on the area of the screen that I touched with my finger.

Taping on the screen can also help the cell phone set it’s exposure for the area you tapped on.

As you watch this video you will see the exposure change as I touch the cell phone cameras screen outside and inside my car.

In this video you will see how tapping on the screen can change where the camera focuses and change the exposure to take the meter reading from the area you tapped on.

This works for most modern cell phone cameras.

Do you know that millions of cell phones are lost or stolen every year?

LOSE CELL PHONE – LOSE ALL PHOTOS

If your cell phone is lost or stolen you lose all the photos on it. For many people that can be years of photos. Generally there are precious memories that they wouldn’t want to lose.

Backing up your photos to the internet or your computer is a very good idea. Doing this monthly or after a great trip or photographing a special event is a good practice.

BACKUP PHOTOS

You can contact your cell phone company on how to upload your photos to the internet so they are backed up there. If you have personal photos that you may not want hacked and would be embarrassing to have spread on the internet you may not want to send them.

Backing up images to your computer can be done using Wi-Fi or Blue tooth. You can also do it with a cable that plugs into your phone and the computer connecting them.

VERY IMPORTANT You will need a cable that does data transfer. A regular charging cable generally won’t work. The charging cable you got with your phone is probably a data cable as well.

The procedure will vary depending on whether you have a Windows computer or an Apple computer. It also will vary depending on whether you have an Android or Apple cell phone.

Once you figure out all the steps for saving your photos to the internet or your computer write them down. It will make it easier to do next time.

Avoid the tragedy of losing all the photos on your cell phone. Visit your cell phone provider and get their help in learning the process or go online and search for how to do it. You will feel better once you have your photos backed up and safe.