The Guardian - UK (2022-04-30)

• The Guardian Saturday 30 April 2022

54

P

hotos are precious

records of our lives, and

as the summer kicks

off many of us will be

adding to our collection

as we enjoy holidays

and celebrate special occasions.

For lots of us, however, these

pictures end up locked on our

phones, taking up storage and at

risk of loss.

Without proper and timely

backups – or printed copies – a

smashed, stolen or accidentally

wiped phone could instantly

wipe out snaps of your child’s fi rst

birthday, that once-in-a-lifetime

trip or just that picture you love

enough to make your wallpaper.

We’ve had a look at the best

options for storage and printing,

how much they cost and what you

get for your money – and have a

guide to how to take photos you

will want to keep.

Storage solutions

More than just ensuring treasured

memories are safe, backing up your

photos makes them much more

accessible from computers, tablets

and even digital photo frames.

Also, it can free up space on your

phone so that you no longer have to

continually delete things to make

it work.

How do I back up photos?

It is extremely easy and there are

many diff erent options available ,

some of them free. The best will

use an app to automatically upload

your photos from your phone to

secure cloud storage.

From there you can view them

on apps and the web, meaning

you can carry around access

to every photo you have ever

taken  and relive memories at any

time. However, there are other

options if you would rather store

them on your phone or device,

or curate which ones are saved,

or make some public or even

sell them.

For regular snappers

Four of the best cloud photo backup

systems are made by the traditional

tech fi rms, Amazon, Apple, Google

and Microsoft, most of which have

a free tier and options to pay should

you need more storage.

Backups from your phone

happen over wifi or mobile data the

moment you shoot a photo, which

means your snaps are safe very

soon after you’ve taken them. But

be warned, taking lots of photos

and backing them up while out and

about can eat through your mobile

data allowance if it is quite small.

Normal phone photos typically

range from one to 5MB each but

special high resolution ones can

easily be 15MB or more. If this is

likely to be a problem, check the

settings on the app and switch off

the option to automatically upload

shots via mobile data.

• Apple iCloud
  5GB free; 50GB 79p a month
  If you have an iPhone, iCloud is
  Apple’s default backup and cloud
  storage system. It is where backups
  and documents of your iPhone or
  iPad are stored if you ever need to
  retrieve them.
  It is quick and easy but you
  get only 5GB of space for free,
  which is typically only enough
  for a backup of the apps and
  some photos on one or two
  devices. Photos and videos can be
  automatically uploaded to iCloud
  and then viewed on other Apple
  devices or the web. Windows PCs
  can back up photos to iCloud but
  Android devices cannot. Photos
  from a camera can be manually
  uploaded via a computer, too.
  It costs from 79p a month to
  upgrade the space to 50GB, which
  should be enough for most people’s
  collection of photos and videos.


• Google Photos
  15GB free; 100GB £15.99 a year
  Google Photos is the default picture
  backup system on most Android
  smartphones but is cross-platform
  and available on iPhones, iPads,
  Macs and Windows PCs, plus the
  web, too.
  Photos uses the same free 15GB
  of storage shared with your Gmail
  and Google Drive. It automatically
  backs up your photos and videos
  using the Google Photos app and
  lets you view, organise, search,

Picture perfect

How to take,

store and print

your photos

If you keep precious

memories locked away on a

phone they risk being lost.

Samuel Gibbs sets out the

options at a range of prices

The best camera is the one you

have on you, which these days

usually means the one on the

phone in your pocket. Camera

quality is the current battleground

between the big manufacturers,

which means there are some great

options. But if taking the best

possible photos is important to

you, you’ll need to spend at least

£600 on a high-end phone.

Google Pixel 6, £599

Arguably the best bargain in

high-end smartphone cameras

is Google’s Pixel 6. Its main

50-megapixel camera is one of

the best you can get on a phone,

capturing a stunning amount

of detail across a large range of

conditions including low light. Its

12MP ultrawide camera is good

too, but the phone lacks an optical

zoom leaving you with digital zoom

up to 7x. Stick to 2-3x and you’ll

get good results. The Pixel 6 Pro at

£849 has an extra 4x optical zoom

camera, which is excellent, too.

Apple iPhone 13 Pro, £949

Apple’s best iPhone also has its

best camera. All three of the iPhone

13 Pro’s 12-megapixel cameras –

main, ultrawide and 3x telephoto

• are among the best available,
  producing sharp, detailed and
  balanced shots in a variety of
  lighting conditions. The 3x optical
  zoom camera is particularly good,
  and closes the distance to objects
  compared with previous models,
  but falls short of some extended
  zooms such as that from Samsung.

Great photos in your pocket

The best cameraphones

▲ The Apple iPhone 13 Pro has three

cameras, including a 3x optical zoom

▲ The Google Pixel 6 has a 50MP

camera that takes stunning photos

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, £1,149

Samsung’s biggest, most

expensive mobile, the S22 Ultra ,

also has the most powerful and

adaptable camera you can get.

It has a fantastic 108MP main

camera with excellent low-light

performance and a very good

12MP ultrawide camera. But it

is the duo of 12MP telephoto

cameras on the back with a 3x

and a 10x optical zoom that is

unbeatable, getting you closer

to far away objects than any

other phone.