Professional iPhone Photography: Unlock the iPhone's True Potential
Want to step up to professional iPhone photography? Unlock the hidden features and techniques to enhance your mobile photography skills.
Long gone are the days when cell phone pictures took a pixelated selfie that kind of sort of maybe looked like yourself. These days, iPhone cameras are so excellent that tons of people have started using them for professional portraits. It can make things a little disappointing; however, when you get the newest phone, go to take a picture and realize the quality is nowhere near what you’d expect. If you want to take a picture that looks professional, there are several things you need to know so you can unlock your iPhone’s true potential. As photographers and moms, we’ve spent a lot of time learning how to make our phone’s pictures look nearly as good as those from our DSLRs. If you want to improve your pictures to professional iPhone photography quality, then let us tell you everything you need to know.
The Ultimate Guide To Professional iPhone Photography
Learn About Your iPhone Camera
Just like with any camera, you can’t just take your iPhone out of the box and expect to take professional photography results. There are several features you need to learn about that will help you quickly improve your portraits. Here’s a few that are exceptionally great.
Portrait mode: Portrait mode focuses on a subject and blurs the background. This lets you draw out all the rich details while highlighting what’s really important. Just slide over to that mode on your phone’s camera and start exploring.
HDR: HDR (or high dynamic range) is a feature that will bring out vibrant colors by automatically increasing the contrast. Newer iPhone models have this feature turned on by default. If you have an older phone, you should be able to select the HDR icon on the camera to enable it.
Grid: One of the first things you learn about in photography is the rule of thirds. This essentially turns your viewfinder into a grid with nine squares so you can line up your image and make it much more compelling. Go to your phone’s settings, click on camera, and enable the grid.
AE/AF Lock: Your camera is going to instantly reset if it senses changes in the frame. You can prevent this by selecting AE/AF Lock. To enable this feature, line up your subject the way you’d like, click and hold the subject you want highlighted, and AE/AF Lock will instantly save your settings.
Burst Mode: When you’re taking an action shot at your child’s soccer game or while they’re running off their sugar-high, you don’t want to take one picture and be done. On iPhone models 11 and up, find your subject then slide your shutter button to the left and hold it to take as many pictures as you’d like. For earlier models, just hold the shutter button for a few seconds.
Understand Lighting
Lighting plays a huge factor in how your picture will look. Your iPhone tends to want to automatically give you a visible picture instead of a high-quality professional photography image. One of the biggest things you can do to help take the step to professional photogrphy this is turn off the iPhone flash. Otherwise, it’s going to create an awkwardly lit mess rather than a gorgeous portrait. You can do this by selecting the flash icon on the camera and turning off “automatic.”
You’ll want to look for soft lighting that seamlessly blends the natural light into the surroundings. Instead of taking a portrait of someone straight in the sunlight, move them to an area that’s well-lit without being harsh. When you’re outside, look for the golden hour sunlight closer to the evening when the sun isn’t directly overhead.
You can also adjust the exposure to light the area you want highlighted. To change the exposure, click on your subject (don’t hold down), and move your finger up or down on the right of the highlighted box to change this.
A quick note: you can always add artificial lighting to pictures through editing (more on that in a sec). It’s better to err on the side of too low of lighting than too much.
Edit Your Photos
The truth is that professional photography editing software is going to go a long way in giving you those perfectly dreamy iPhone pictures. There are tons of options for how you choose to do this. If you just want to change a few things, such as lighting and warmth, you can use the basic iPhone settings available under the edit option. If you want to get a little more serious, you’re able to get third-party apps that will let you play around and get that perfectly edited picture. Some of the most-loved options include Lightroom, Snapseed, and VSCO. There are also apps that let you get that Insta-perfect filter in just a few clicks so you can have a grid-worthy picture in seconds. For these, you can try out Canva, Afterlight, or A Color Story.
Experiment With Angles
The 2000s girlies were onto something when they did those iconic angled-down selfies. It can be hard to get a flattering professional photography when you’re shooting straight on, especially with an iPhone. Try moving around as you take the picture. Instead of shooting at eye length, try high or low levels. Take a few pictures from different perspectives and see which ones give you the look you were envisioning.
Add Depth with Composition
A standard 2D iPhone picture can feel flat and uninteresting compared to professional photography. Remember how we mentioned the rule of thirds earlier? Use this to create more compelling pictures. Look for leading lines that highlight your subject. Good examples of leading lines are roads and fences. By using these, you can draw the eye to what you want it to see. You can also use depth of field to help. With this, you can highlight a subject and blur the background, much like you would get in portrait mode. For this, just select the subject and move close enough to make it crisp.
We Hope You Enjoyed Learning About Professional iPhone Photography
Professional iPhone photography can be frustrating if you don’t spend some time exploring. With these tips, you’ll be on your way to taking some really gorgeous portraits. And if you need additional help, don’t forget about our Momographers program!
While you're here, don't forget to join our moms group for even more tips and tricks! Also, be sure to check out more blog posts below!
