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iPhone Camera Tips and Tricks: DSLR-less Photography

George Finlayson
March 7, 2017

 

A quality camera is every photographer’s best friend. However, there will always be times when you’ll find yourself without one. What do you do when there’s something worth taking a picture of? Use your iPhone camera, of course!

One good thing about your iPhone camera is you always have it with you. Whether you’re traveling overseas or just walking around the neighborhood, you can easily pop it out when your artist’s instinct starts working. Another reason the iPhone is your best friend is because it’s one of the industry leaders when it comes to phone camera quality ‘ even professional photographers commend Apple for their iPhones!

A lot of people who spend months and even years to polish up their iPhone photography skills. But don’t worry; whether you’re a beginner or you simply want to take stunning photos using your phone camera, follow these tips for portfolio-worthy images.

Use the grid

The grid is one of the most useful features of your phone camera. One way to use it properly is to place your subject on any of the four intersections of the grid. You can also use the lines to divide your images into sections and make the image composition balanced and interesting. Go ahead and play around with the grid; you’ll be surprised by the results.

Remove the clutter

Always keep your photos clean: Focus on a subject and try to remove any distracting elements in the frame. One mistake of many is that they fill an image and complicate it too much. Simplicity is key to a good iPhone photo. You can never go wrong with taking a minimalist approach.

Refrain from using the zoom

Although iPhone cameras are top of the line, there’s still a lot of things Apple needs to improve on. One of these is the zoom feature. Unless they develop something to overcome the limitations of a fixed lens, DSLRs and mirrorless cameras will always be better when it comes to zooming in on a subject.Instead of using the zoom feature, you can always move yourself closer to the subject. This way, the image will be less grainy and pixelated.

Find good lighting

Light is among the most important things you need to consider when doing phone photography. Taking a photo in low light will affect the image quality and will make it more grainy. Always look for a well-lit place for a good image.You can also experiment with how you use light. One thing you can do is create fascinating silhouettes. You can take photos of interesting shadows too.

Play with angles and perspectives

We all hear people say that photographers are dancers because they move around their subject to get the best images. This cannot be more true. If you want to take good photos, you have to learn how to go high, low, left, and right to get the perfect angle. Try to take your next photo from an angle closer to the ground and see what effects it can produce.

Look for reflections

Reflections are impressive once you capture them on cam. Among the most common reflections you could photograph are city skylines and landscapes, but don’t limit yourself; there are a lot more to capture! You just need to let your creativity run wild.

Use burst

One of the downsides of using an iPhone camera is its lack of manual setting, making users unable to control shutter speed. However, there’s still hope. If you want to take a photo of a moving subject, hold down the shutter button to take a burst of photos. After that you can view the images and select the one you’re happy with.

Activate the AE/AF Lock

Focusing on an area or a subject on an iPhone is easy: You just simply tap on it. But this is temporary; the second you or something in the frame moves, the focus and exposure reset. Here’s where the AE/AF Lock comes in handy. It locks the exposure and focus on a certain scene and disables the autofocus feature.If you want to return to autofocus mode, simply tap anywhere on the screen.

Clean the lens

Always! You place your phone everywhere ‘ your bag, pouch, pocket ‘ and are always using it. Chances are its camera lens already has fingerprints, scratches, and smudges which can affect the quality of the photos you take. Make it a habit to wipe it with a clean, soft cloth. 

Use a photo editing app

Don’t forget to add the finishing touches! Use mobile camera apps like VSCO, YI Action Camera App, Snapseed to enhance your photos. There are a lot of filters to choose from. You can also manually adjust the color, lighting, sharpness, and other elements of the images using these apps.

If you want to start taking amazing photos using your iPhone camera , following all that’s listed here will start you off on the right foot. All that’s left then is to experiment and improve your skill.

About the Author

George Finlayson

George Finlayson is an educator and professional writer with a BA in Creative Writing. He was born in London, England but currently resides in Shanghai, China. He has recently developed a great interest in photography and has begun a new venture into writing about photography and videography for beginners, and related topics. With so many technical details in digital photography, George likes to keep things simple so that everyone can understand and feel a part of the ever-growing global photography community.

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