I am sometimes asked why I bother with my phone camera when I have a fancy and expensive digital SLR.

My answer? Because I am forever surprised by what I can do with my phone. I love my SLR to bits, but she (and don’t tell me I’m the only one to attribute a personality to my cameras!) is both safe and predictable, and sometimes a girl just needs a bit of unpredictability in her life.

Like when I started using the macro function on my Xperia and realised I could get the bokeh-like effects that Holly once termed phonekeh. (I can imagine those of you with an iPhone and the Olloclip macro lens can get even more spectacular phonekeh than me!)

These days, I’m especially taken with all the different phone flare effects you can get.

Such as the long beams of light that sometimes stretch through my images to give the feeling of so much light; warm light, cold light, depending on your editing choices.

And also, the big, reddish circles that quite startled me the first time they appeared in my image. I don’t understand how they’re created and I can’t predict when they appear, but I love it every time they do – like in the image below, where I got both circle flare, beams and phonekeh.

And if you want visible light in your image but the light and your phone won’t cooperate, one trick is to shoot through glass like I did from the plane at the airport in Vienna.

Since last Friday I have a new phone, an HTC One S, and I can’t wait to find out if it behaves in the same way as the Xperia in terms of flare effects.

So tell me, how do you feel about phone flare effects? Any favourite phone flares you would like to share? I would love to see!