Nowdays more and more smartphone have some special modes to allow capturing photos like a pro. Pro camera mode lets you fine-tune photos and gives you full control over composition, exposure, and shutter speed. Low light conditions demand a longer exposure, long exposure means that your smartphone must be held still for some seconds in order to avoid or reduce blurring associated with the motion of the smart phone during exposure.

As my hand is not stable at all when i take night or day photos, i decided to make a simple but effective cardboard camera stabilizer. The project is very easy and requires only a cardboard, however the use of this stabilizer improves the quality of the photos, especially night shots with large exposure.

The size of the stabilizer and its ability to fold, make it very compact and easy to carry.

Supplies

Just a cardboard envelope, two paper clips, scissors and a blade cutter.

Step 1: Cutting the Cardboard

I used for this project a cardboard from a shipping envelope, which should be cut as seen on the video according to the dimensions of your smartphone. Then cut a slot, which is big enough to hold your smartphone in place.

Step 2: Setting the Camera Angle and Securing Both the Smartphone

Fold the upper side at different lenghts that correspond to your desired camera angles. Υou can fine tune the angle of the camera by moving the upper side of the carton forward or backwards and by using two paper clips fix it to the lower side.

By experimenting you should find the best angles for capturing great photos.

Step 3: Enjoy Using the Camera With Stabilizer and Voice Control

That's it, enjoy using the stabilizer. The results are for me personally more than satisfactory.

I recommend that you use the voice control function to trigger the shutter, by saying "Smile", "Cheese" or "Capture" you can improve the quality of your photos, because you don't have to touch and maybe shake your phone by capturing long exposure photos.

So say smile and have fun!