iPhone photography tips and tricks

Stefanie of Ni hao Yall suggested that I do a little tutorial of iPhone photography.  I am not an expert, by any means.  I have had so many people ask me about it, so I thought I'd share.  I have the iPhone4, which has a decent camera.  The 4S has an improved camera with additional features.   I chose two very basic pictures of my adorable son for this.

Here are a few tips & tricks:

1. Never ever ever EVER use your iPhone flash if you want a quality photograph. It slows down the camera, gives people white glowing eyes and you have to hold it VERY still to not have blurry pictures. It's more of a "I just got in an accident at night and I need to take pictures kind of a flash". 

2. Take lots of pictures, especially if you are taking pictures of little ones.  They move so quickly and it is extremely difficult to take pictures of moving objects with an iPhone. Never stop and look to see if your one picture turned out good.  Just snap a ton and you can go back and look at them later. 

3. If possible, always use two hands when taking pictures with the iPhone.  Remember that blurry picture thing? Very common with an iPhone. Use a hand on each side and then raise one finger to press the shutter button.  Practice it! 

4. Press down the shutter button and hold it until you are ready to take the shot. It will auto focus and then you can release your finger.  The picture will instantly take! Another one to practice.

5. Change the lighting before you take a picture.  Click on a light/dark area of the screen before you take the picture and the lighting will lighten/darken, depending on your preference.

6. Decide which button you want to use to take a picture--The volume up button on left side of phone or the camera shutter button.  Practice taking pictures with both and decide which pictures are the most clear. 

7. Have a super cute subject that you convince to pose at great lengths ;)

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If you enjoy taking pictures as a hobby like me, you probably don't have fancy high dollar editing programs.  If I am using my iPhone, I use Snapseed or Instagram.  Snapseed is much more quality editing, but is a paid app ($4.99) and takes longer to edit.  Instagram is free, is a very basic editing app and changes your picture to a square {which can not be changed}, and is usually quite blurry for printing.  

If I'm able to upload my pics to my PC {usually email to myself for quick transfer}, I use PicMonkey.  

All of these programs are fairly easy to use and come with great tutorials. Practice and try all the features.  Don't just throw plain pics up on instagram and expect everyone to love them.  Change the filter, change the lighting, remove frame options at times, use the focus buttons. 

I made some collages of the changes I made using the different programs. You'll see I removed the rain gutter on the PicMonkey edits.  

Please let me know if you have any questions or tips or apps that you can share with me! 

What edit do you like the best?

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