With a good enough camera, taking great pictures doesn’t require you to be a professional photographer. Sure, that helps (a lot), but it’s not strictly necessary. Especially if you have capable tools at your disposal, and enough knowhow to operate them.

The Samsung Galaxy S III has the tools in abundance. Its 8MP backside-illuminated CMOS sensor with ƒ2.6 aperture size is a spec beast in the world of mobile-phone cameras. The software driving it is packed with enough features and shooting modes to boggle the mind.

The question, then, is knowhow. I’ve been wrestling with the Galaxy S III’s camera for a few weeks now, and though I haven’t covered every possible use case, I’ve come close. While I’m hardly an expert, and my pictures aren’t quite “great,” they’re definitely some of the best I’ve taken with a cameraphone, and that’s thanks to the equipment Samsung has provided.

Click the video below for a guided tour of the Galaxy S III’s core photographic features, and maybe learn something you didn’t know (or re-learn something you’d forgotten) about the camera in your Android super-phone. Then leave a comment below sharing your best practices for snapping great shots with your phone camera.