Trial and Error with quick cell phone photography

When you take a photo with a cell phone and if you want to take a better photo, Trial and Error Photography can help you quickly and without too much effort.

It was a nice rainy day in Los Angeles. When I looked outside through glass window, loved the clouds, blue sky and soft light on the trees and building structures. I wanted to take a good photo. So first I took a photo in default mode. Then, thankfully on my phone camera, I can use Exposure Compensation. I changed it to EV 1.5 and took a photo. Then turned on HDR (which automatically brought EV back to zero) and took the third photo. Look at these 3 photos taken within 30 seconds. Then I compared them and kept the one I liked.
Here are 3 photos. Tell me which one you like!
Don't you agree that it is easy to take better photos with Trial and Error method?

Photo in default Auto mode:

Photos in Auto mode

Photo with Exposure Compensation:

Photo with Exposure Compensation

Photo in HDR mode:

HDR mode

RAW vs JPG image- which format is better?

I never shot in RAW format...until yesterday. It was sunset time and the colors were coming very saturated in photos I was taking with Panasonic FZ200. I decided to try RAW format. Here are two photos- one out of box with Jpeg and the second one is converted from a RAW image. In RAW vs JPEG comparison, I am sold to RAW format now. Wish I had started using RAW format earlier :(

Photo in JPEG format out of the camera.

Image shot in RAW format


Here is one more example of Raw vs Jpeg.

Out of camera jpeg image

Jpeg from a raw image.