9 iPhone camera hacks you didn’t know about | Articles | Photo, video, optics

The iPhone cam­eras have many use­ful fea­tures that many peo­ple don’t know about. Let’s see how you can improve the process of video and pho­tog­ra­phy on your smart­phone.

Turn on HDR

HDR stands for High Dynam­ic Range — extend­ed dynam­ic range. Here, instead of one pho­to, the cam­era takes three: an over­ex­posed pho­to, an under­ex­posed pho­to, and anoth­er one with a nor­mal expo­sure.

Togeth­er, these three pho­tos cre­ate an image with greater depth of field and more vibrant col­ors.

To enable HDR, go to Set­tings and then to the Cam­era sec­tion.

Avoid using zoom and flash

Instead of scal­ing, you can use the crop tool in edit mode.

If you need more light in your pho­tos, try using an exter­nal source instead of a flash, or also adjust the light­ing in the pho­to edit­ing sec­tion.

Take a picture while shooting

To take a pho­to while record­ing video with­out stop­ping it, tap the white cir­cle on the right side of the screen in Video mode.

Take photos with EarPods and AirPods

You may already know that you can use the vol­ume but­tons on your iPhone to take pic­tures. Sim­i­lar­ly, you can take pic­tures using the but­tons on your Ear­Pods. Per­fect for self­ies.

If you use Air­Pods, you can use voice input. First, don’t for­get to con­nect your head­phones to your phone using blue­tooth, then go to the Cam­era on your iPhone. Then hold the lock but­ton on your phone, or just say “Hey Siri” to call the assis­tant, and then say “Take a pho­to.”

Shoot video in 4K

Go to Set­tings and go to the Cam­era sec­tion and then to the Video Record­ing sec­tion. Here you can select the record­ing qual­i­ty and frame rate.

Keep in mind that when shoot­ing in 4K, the phone drains faster and such videos take up much more space due to the large file size.

Portrait mode for a blurred background

The extra shal­low depth of field is the per­fect way to blur the back­ground and bring out the main sub­ject in the frame.

1. You can choose different types of lighting

Nat­ur­al light, stu­dio, stage and oth­ers

2. You can adjust the strength of the photo blur both during the shooting and after.

In Cam­era mode, you will see an f icon in the upper right cor­ner. Here you can adjust the amount of back­ground blur.

To adjust this set­ting for a pho­to you’ve already tak­en, go to Pho­tos, select one of the images, click Edit in the top right cor­ner, and then click the f icon in the top left cor­ner.

3. You can adjust the amount of light while shooting

(in all types of light­ing except nat­ur­al)

In the upper right cor­ner you will see a hexa­gon icon — click on it and adjust the amount of light.

Zoom disk

If you still decide to use the zoom, then you have more than x0.5 and x1 mag­ni­fi­ca­tions.

Press and hold x1 in Cam­era mode and a zoom dial will open in front of you, which you can adjust as you like.

Apple Watch as a remote control

Open the Cam­era Remote app on your Apple Watch. The app should also open on your iPhone.

Use your watch to frame pho­tos, set a timer, set the flash, and switch between the front and rear cam­eras.

In addi­tion, you can view the cap­tured image or take a pic­ture using the device. For the watch to work, it must be with­in the cor­rect radius of your phone — no fur­ther than 10 meters.

Pho­to from the offi­cial web­site of Apple / support.apple.com

Apple Watch as a viewfinder

Have you decid­ed to start shoot­ing vlogs, but at the same time you can’t afford to buy a cam­corder with a swiv­el screen? But, per­haps, you have an iPhone and an Apple Watch avail­able — then this life hack is for you!

Mount your iPhone on a tri­pod and put your watch on the phone itself. See how one of the Twit­ter users did it in the pho­to below. This is how the Apple Watch can func­tion as a viewfind­er.

Of course, you can shoot your­self on the front cam­era and see what is hap­pen­ing on the screen with­out addi­tion­al means. But if you have an Apple Watch, then you can use the rear cam­era while main­tain­ing video qual­i­ty.