How to take better pictures with your iPhone camera

Out of all the features added to cell phones over the years, the ability to take pictures has had the biggest impact. Whenever something major has happened in the world, camera phones have provided the first, second, and third images taken at the scene. They have helped to bring down governments, they let friends and family know you're okay, and they help you remember what you did last night (even if you don't want to know).

But for every life-changing shot taken, there are millions of terrible photos — and it's about time we helped fix that!

iPhone cameras are designed to simply take shots; there isn't a lot of tweaking to the photos that can be done (and there isn't much you can do wrong). However, with a few techniques, you can turn an average shot into a good one just by being aware of the functions of the camera as well as your surroundings. The iPhone 4 camera has 5 options that can be set: flash on / off / auto, High Dynamic Range (HDR) on / off, front or back camera, zoom, and still / video mode. It's important to remember that the iPhone 3 and 3GS don't have flash, HDR, or a front-facing camera.

Make the most of flash

Flash is a great addition to the iPhone 4. It allows for those photos you want to take if you're out at night with your friends, and if you don't expect too much from it, it works well.

First, make sure that what you're trying to capture is at relatively close range. The camera's flash isn't very powerful, so you want to make sure the subject is within 3' to 5' of the camera. Anything further than this will create a hazy effect and wreck your photo.

Second, if there is a reflective surface such as glass or shiny plastic in front of the camera, try to avoid using the flash. The narrow angle of the LED flash will reflect light straight back at the camera, causing big white spots. If you do need to use the flash, try to avoid having a reflective surface someplace where this is apt to happen.

Working with contrast
High Dynamic Range imaging, or HDR, is another new feature introduced with the iPhone 4. In technical terms, HDR is an image processor that allows for greater dynamic range of luminance. In non-technical terms, it changes the contrast of different parts of the image depending on light. This can make clouds and skylines stand out more, light up items on the photo that would normally be darker due to other bright areas in the photo, and generally improve the look of your images by making the color and contrast more intense.

However, there are a couple of downsides. It won't work with the flash on, and the image size is larger than a standard image. It's not a bad idea to leave HDR on all the time (except if you need to use the flash), and here's why: Even if you don't like the quality of the HDR image, the iPhone 4 still saves the non-HDR version of any pictures you take, too. Comparing the two images after you've taken some with this mode will help you get a feel for what it brings to the game.

Zoom!
The last feature of the iPhone's camera is the zoom. Unless it's absolutely necessary, try to avoid using it if you can! It is a digital zoom, and because of this, the more zoom you use, the lower the image quality becomes. (This image degradation happens at very low levels of magnification; even zooming in a modest 1.2x really makes a mess of things.) This is because the camera zooms in by using fewer of its optical sensor to take the picture, rather than moving physical lenses (or optics) to magnify the image while still using the whole sensor. It is a cheap man's zoom, and it drastically lowers the quality of the image.

Great tips for getting a great photo

Try to always use the rear camera rather than the forward-facing one. The forward-facing camera is only really designed for FaceTime (and the odd indulgent self-portrait), and the overall quality of the camera is much lower.

Light, light, light! The camera sensor on an iPhone is very small, and the smaller a sensor is, the more light it needs. Saying this, you want the light to be behind the camera. After all, when you look toward the sun, it is hard to see anything because of the glare. Cameras have the same issues with bright lights that we do. If you can see what you are taking a picture of easily, so will the camera.

Try not to move while taking your picture — the less you move, the crisper your photo will be. An easy technique for this is to find something to rest your camera on. It might be a park bench, a fence, or even a street sign; you just want something that will be more stable than your hands.

These hints will really improve the quality of your iPhone pictures — but of course, the most important thing to remember overall when taking a good picture is to make sure what is in front of the camera looks good to your eye. If it doesn't, the camera won't magically improve it!

You will never get as high-quality an image as you would with a DLSR camera, but the iPhone camera is easy to use and always in your pocket, making it a great gadget to have with you at all times.

Post by Kingsley Foreman

[Image credits: saebaryo, Sean Davis, Yutaka Tsutano]