Three Easy Ways To Quickly Improve Your iPhone Photography

Mobile phones are the most used cameras in the world. Step your game up with these simple tips.

1. The "rule of thirds"

This is kind of a biggie but really a lot more simple than it may first appear and will have the biggest effect on improving your images.

The rule of thirds is a fundamental composition principle that all serious photographers need to be away of. It is essential to create well-balanced compositions that just look and feel right to the human eye. In its most basic form, the rule of thirds states that the most important subjects of the photo should be placed along the gridlines and at the intersections of these lines, which are known as junction points.

Wikipedia definition:

The rule of thirds is a "rule of thumb" or guideline which applies to the process of composing visual images such as designs, films, paintings, and
photographs.[1] The guideline proposes that an image should be imagined as divided into nine equal parts by two equally-spaced horizontal lines and two equally-spaced vertical lines, and that important compositional elements should be placed along these lines or their intersections.[2] Proponents of the technique claim that aligning a subject with these points creates more tension, energy and interest in the composition than simply centering the subject would.

You can easily turn on gridlines to help you remember the rule by clicking on the "options" tab

Learn it and use it!

2. Use the volume button as a shutter

Did you know you can use the "volume up" button on the side of the phone as a shutter button? You can and it's awesome! Reaction time is much quicker and it will help you nail the shot more of the time. (like in the photo at the top of this post)

Nailed this shot of Dave Short on Whistler Mountain courtesy of the pseudo-shutter button

3. Choose your focus and exposure manually

Don't let the phone decide what's most important! Tapping on the screen will tell the phone which part of the picture you want to expose for. For example if you're composing a photo and the sky looks way too bright, tapping on it will bring it into check.

Alternatively, tapping also tells the camera where you want it to focus. A lot of times pretty much everything in the shot will be sharp, like on a wide angle landscape, but you can also achieve a pretty decent depth-of-field (ie. blurry background with your chosen subject in focus) by getting right up close to your subject and forcing the camera to focus there.

No fancy blur-effects needed. I just got down on my hands and knees and used manual focusing

There's lots more but that should be a good start. Happy shooting!