Capturing Better Photos and Video with your iPhone®

Chapter 1. Get to Know your iPhone

As the popularity of the iPhone steadily grows, we're seeing more and more iPhone photos—everywhere. The reason for this is simple: Not everyone wants to carry around a camera, but nearly everyone has their phone with them at all times. And iPhones take decent photos.

Many people, even professional photographers (including me), rely on an iPhone to catch everyday snapshots and to make great images on the fly. Although the quality of photos made with a cell phone camera, like the iPhone, isn't nearly as high as those made with a DSLR ... or even a good compact camera, your iPhone has the advantage of easy access.

Figure 1.1. A Holga is a toy camera that is known for soft focus and vignetting. I used the iPhone's Camera Bag app "Helga" setting to simulate a Holga-type image.

Quirks of the iPhone "Toy Camera"

The iPhone camera lens isn't top quality. There's no optical zoom or image stabilization; the images can be very grainy and even blurry; and highlights are often blown out. Despite these flaws, there is a cultish following of people who just love to take pictures with an iPhone. You're probably wondering why. Well, the reason is that we iPhone photographers use the shortcomings of the iPhone camera to our advantage.

If you're familiar with photography ...