Like many truck drivers, you probably have a cell phone to help you keep in touch with family and friends while you’re on the road. You might even have one with a camera, but do you know how to use this feature of your phone?

John Frederick Moore, the author of How to Do Everything with your Camera Phone, has the following advice to help you make the most of one of your cell phone’s best features.

Email your pictures
Moore says sharing digital phones from your phone can be difficult to understand. Some people don’t realize that most carriers charge a monthly fee for photo-messaging services, and that you can only send pictures to someone who has the same carrier as you, he says.

You can always just email your camera phone photos if you’d rather not pay for the messaging fee, Moore says, but you must have a data plan for sending e-mail from your phone. If you want to send some pics to friends who don’t share the same carrier as you, or don’t have a cell phone at all, emailing is your only option, he says.

Depending on your phone, Moore says the basic concept of emailing from your cell phone is the same: 

1. Go to the picture gallery and select a picture to send.
2. Click options, then click Send.
3. If you previously saved the contact information, select the address from the phone book. Be sure to select the e-mail address from the contact information, not the phone number. Otherwise, you’ll need to enter the e-mail address manually.
4. Insert a text message or an audio clip (optional).
5. Click Send.

Change the filename on your phone

Along with better images, Moore says, mega pixel phones offer more memory, giving you plenty of room for all of your pictures.  The problem, he says, is when you transfer those images to your PC, the phone automatically gives your photos complicated file names, such as pic000903412450704_2.jpg.  You can rename your files once you’ve transferred them to your computer, but he suggests changing the default image name that your camera phone uses to store pictures instead. If you’re going somewhere and you know you’ll be taking a lot of pictures, he says to change the default name to the place you’re visiting (For example, New York, San Francisco, etc.). Subsequent pictures will contain the filename New York 001, New York 002, and so on.

Moore outlines the following steps to help you change the default name in your camera (The following steps apply to the Nokia 7610 phone, but the process is similar among other camera phones that offer this option):
1. In camera mode, click Options, then Settings.
2. Select Default Image Name.
3. Enter a new name, then click OK.

Capture great shots

Moore says many people never do anything with the photos they’ve taken with their camera phone because they’re disappointed in the shots they’ve taken. He says when it comes to detecting details, film cameras and digital cameras are more limited than the human eye, and camera phones, in turn, are more limited than both film and digital cameras. Because of this, Moore suggests only applying basic photographic principles to get the get the best-looking pictures possible, but recommends you be aware of and know how to compensate for your camera phone’s deficiencies.

Framing your shot
Think about the composition of your shot before you actually take a picture with your phone, Moore says. Take the whole frame into account, paying close attention to objects in the background or on the periphery of the image. Pay attention to the rest of the scene, he says.  He also suggests placing subjects off-center, since it gives a more interesting sense of space. 
Lighting conditions might pose a problem to the user, since camera phones don’t give users the control to adjust for different situations.  Moore says be prepared to do your own compensating for less than ideal conditions, but strongly suggests avoiding low light when taking photos.  The more light in your environment, the sharper your image will be, he says, since even units with a built-in flash will provide minimal support to the user.  You can also adjust the brightness level on the camera phone before you take the picture.
Another adjustment you can make, Moore says, is to adjust the white balance.  Experienced photographers use blank white or gray cards to help judge the white balance. You can simply keep the white balance set at Auto, but if you have a few minutes to spare, Moore says you can always use the same technique the professionals use:
1. Place a white card or sheet of paper in front of you.
2. Go to picture-taking mode.
3. Look at the white card through the screen.
4. If the card appears off-color (too yellow or red, for example), go to your camera phone’s white-balance settings and toggle through the selections until the card appears as close to white as possible.
Moore also recommends you avoid backlighting. Think about where your light source is coming from before you snap the picture. If the light source is behind your subject, it will appear too dark, almost like a silhouette. Cameras with fill-flash options can compensate for this, but camera phones, even those with built-in flashes, have no such feature. Unless you want the subject to appear as a silhouette, it’s best to stand with the light behind you, not your subject, Moore says.
Since camera phones use fixed-focal-length lenses that are very short, Moore suggests keeping your subject close. For example, for a 35mm-camera lens, 50mm is considered normal focal length, while a decent focal length for a camera phone is 3.3mm.  This means the lens can capture details in a wide area but not a deep one, Moore says. If your subject is too far away, it will appear very small, so Moore says it’s best if you keep your subject within 3 or 4 feet of the camera.
Don’t zoom, Moore says. Since camera phones are stuck with digital zoom options and have limited focal range, zooming will degrade the image quality. However, he says you may be able to use the zoom, but only when the camera is set to take pictures in a lower-resolution setting, which will result in smaller images.

Now that you know how to actually take photos with the camera in your phone, it’s time to get out there and take some pictures!

You can check out more articles by John Frederick Moore at http://www.cnet.com.