3 ways to turn your iPhone into a professional-grade camera
Summer is right around the corner, which means you’ll have the opportunity to capture priceless moments at the family reunion, barbecues, sporting events and other fun gatherings. You just need a camera.
Spending thousands on an expensive camera, however, is completely unnecessary when you have a powerful photography tool in the palm of your hands, literally. Your trusty iPhone is packed with cool features to help you take stunning photos in a flash.
From aligning your pictures perfectly to making sure you capture the best picture possible, Apple’s iconic smartphone can do it all.
I’m here to bring you a few tips that can really enhance the pictures you take with your iPhone. Once you try them out, you’ll wonder how you had ever gone without them.
Burst into action
Trying to capture the perfect picture while your grandson is making a breakaway play in his soccer game or to catch the beautiful scenery during your road trip can be hard. The images often come out blurry or focused on the wrong part of the image.
Apple tried to fight this by introducing Burst mode for the iPhone 5s and up. With Burst mode, you can capture photos in rapid succession, up to 10 shots per second, so you can improve your chances of getting the ideal shot.
Here’s an example from iphonehacks.com:
Using Burst mode is easy. Just tap and hold down the shutter button (or volume up button) when you want to begin rapid-fire shooting. As you’re holding down the shutter button, you’ll see tiny thumbnail images of the photos you’ve snapped appear. This will help you know how many photos you took and decide when you have enough.
To stop shooting photos in Burst mode, just lift up your finger and all of the photos you took will be saved on your Camera Roll.
Use the camera grid to set up your shots
Have you ever heard of the rule of thirds? It’s the way you should frame the pictures you take to make them as visually appealing as possible.
According to the Digital Photography School, “The basic principle behind the rule of thirds is to imagine breaking an image down into thirds (both horizontally and vertically) so that you have 9 parts … The theory is that if you place points of interest in the intersections or along the lines that your photo becomes more balanced and will enable a viewer of the image to interact with it more naturally.”
You can use the rule of thirds grid right on your iPhone to help make every photo you take more visually appealing. When using this grid, try to line the subject of your photo up to intersections of the four lines. As seen in the photo above.
To enable the rule of thirds grid, go to your main Settings page >> Photos & Camera >> Grid >> Toggle Grid slider on. Now when you open your camera, you will see the grid before you take your pictures like the image below.
The grid won’t show up in your finished photo. It’s just meant to be a guideline before you snap the picture. You can turn off the grid by following the steps above and toggling the Grid slider off.
Give your photos a little exposure
Just like a fancy digital camera, your iPhone can adjust the level of exposure for every photo before you take it.
I’m not talking about public-type exposure, I’m talking about the level of light that your iPhone’s camera allows into the shot. In the photography world, that level is called exposure and it can turn your dark, unrecognizable photo into a masterpiece.
Apple’s iOS technicians worked to include an exposure tool that you can slide up or down to indicate the amount of exposure to light that you want the particular photo to have.
To experiment with exposure, launch the Camera app and tap on the screen to bring up the focus point. Tap and hold on the sun icon and the exposure slider will appear. Drag the slider left or down to make the photo darker, or drag your finger right or up on the slider to make the photo brighter.
Image courtesy of imore.com
Now you’ll be able to manually adjust the level of brightness in each of your photos before you take them. Your pictures will be in focus and with the correct amount of light, instead of dark and blurry!
More tips you can’t miss:
How to customize your iPhone and iPad inside and out
5 Siri tricks you never knew existed
How to prevent your iPhone from keeping you up at night
Tags: Apple, Apple iPhone, family, settings