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PROBLEM: Selfies are too hard to set up. Your arms aren't long enough to hold the camera far enough from your face. SOLUTION: How about a remote control that saves you from having to

snap the shutter from the phone? Instead, it uses a little remote clicker that can attach to your keychain. You can buy one for as little as $7.50. To operate, just open the SETTINGS app on

your phone and BLUETOOTH to pair the gadget, then start snapping away. 5. USE ADDITIONAL LIGHTING The under 2-inch Lume Cube 2.0 may make you think of retro flashbulbs, but the

water-resistant LED light can function mounted on your phone or positioned nearby. Lume Cube PROBLEM: Your inside shots are too dark. SOLUTION: Buy a little accessory light. The Lume Cube,

$90, is tiny but very powerful and will produce more pleasing results than your built-in smartphone camera flash. You'll need a mount to attach it to the top of the phone, but if you

buy the Movo mount, mentioned above, or a tripod mount with a cold shoe (available for $10 to $15), you'll be in great shape. The Lume Cube connects via Bluetooth and will respond as a

flash when you snap the camera phone shutter or as a continuous video light. AND MAKE SURE YOU'VE THOUGHT ABOUT THESE The tools below are also must-haves before you leave the house for

any photo shoot. They won't improve your photography, but they will ensure that you can take the picture. • POWER BANK: Would you leave on a family trip without fueling up? You

won't want to arrive at Yosemite or Zion national park with a phone battery at 20 percent. For those instances when you either forget to charge or have taken so many photos that

you've exhausted the battery — unlikely, but just saying — it never hurts to have a pocket-sized power bank at the ready. These credit-card-sized gizmos sell for around $20 to $30, and

after a charge, can plug into your phone and give you another 8 to 10 hours of battery life when you're out and about. Just be sure to also have a phone-charging cable on hand, so you

can connect the phone to the bank to get the charge. • ONLINE BACKUP: In the same category as arriving to a shoot with a dead or nearly exhausted battery is having a phone with little to no

storage left for your photos or videos. Take the time before you leave to make sure you have room. On an iPhone, go to SETTINGS, THEN GENERAL. On an Android phone, go to SETTINGS and

straight to STORAGE. If you don't want to delete any files, move them to an external hard drive or a portable thumb drive for smartphones, or use online storage. Members of

Amazon's Prime entertainment and shipping program get free unlimited photo storage to Amazon's photo app, and Google, Apple and Microsoft offer limited free online storage — in a

bid to get you to pay for more. _Jefferson Graham is a contributing writer who covers personal technology and previously was a technology columnist for _USA Today_. He hosts the streaming

travel photography series Photowalks and is author of _Video Nation: A DIY Guide to Planning, Sharing and Shooting Great Video_._