DSLRs might be the professional photographer’s weapon of choice but for ordinary folks, an iPhone is much preferred.
You can stick it inside your bag, your back pocket or your purse and be ready to snap any picture-perfect moment in short notice.
The best part? You don’t need a college course to back you up if you want to get good-looking pictures.
In fact, there are only a couple of things you need to keep in mind. Ready to jot down notes? Here are some tips you can follow to instantly turn you into a professional iPhone-camera-photographer.
The BASICS – What You Already Know
Hold That Phone!
Yes, one of the basics is to seriously, stand still! Take your picture by holding your phone with both hands to keep it from moving around. Then of course, there are people seemingly born with shaky hands. Even if they’re at rest, they can never seem to get a good, steady shot. If you’re in this group, it can be a bit tricky but practice instead. Maybe stabilize yourself against a wall of rest your elbows on your chest to get a solid, focused shot. Also, simply stop moving and concentrate on getting the photo! That’s easy right?
Move On Towards the Light
Once you’ve got yourself some good steady hands, now it’s time to turn to your subject. An iPhone of course, isn’t a DSLR camera but it can snap pretty good images provided you know how to work it. And one way to do that is to bathe your subject in absolute sunshine!
Find the light and make sure your subject is in it. The better the lighting the crispier the images will turn out. This is especially true if your subject is constantly moving or won’t sit still enough for you to snap a portrait.
Get To Know Your Camera - er, in this case, iPhone camera
Spend some quality time taking pictures and fiddling with the different settings of your camera. Every camera (or every phone camera) has specifics. Some of them take pictures are slightly darker, while others tend to look lighter or washed out. They also come with a variety of exposure settings, effects etc., and so try it out. Take a ton of pictures and note down the settings that churn out your most favourite photographs of the bunch.
It’s easy to take 20-30 pictures of that dog frolicking by the beach. It’s equally easy to take 50 photographs of that tree stump in the forest. There’s no one to stop you from doing this. However, once done. Scan through them. Pick the very best one and delete the rest. This will save the storage space and you get one amazing photo you can enjoy.
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The iPhone DOES NOT take the picture until you’ve let go of the camera icon after pressing it. A good tip is to press the shutter, find the shot and focus then lift your finger. It should snap your pretty image after that.
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As mentioned in a previous post, you can also snap an image using the volume +/- button. Helpful if you’re using a tripod.
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Use apps wisely. There are countless cool apps out there; some are free while others aren’t. I must tell you, there are great apps (like Camera +) that allow you take control of the exposure and focus of an image. Just like a professional. If you want to check out other options, check this out.
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Want to fine-tune an image? Again, look to the apps for proper editing. There are times when an image you took just has that minor kink. Maybe you need to sharpen aportion or increase the contrast a bit. One of the best apps out there is Snapseed and it’s absolutely free baby!
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Once you have all this, there’s only one thing left: PRACTICE! There’s never a right or wrong way to taking pictures but there are things you can do better. So go ahead, take those snapshots wherever you go. And you’ll end up becoming a pro in taking iPhone pictures in no time.
Meanwhile, here’s another happy place you might like to visit. Check out the goods at The Dairy. We currently have tons of new collections you’d love to have.
Cam :)
