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A few tips for getting the most out of your iPhone 11 camera

Updated Dec 25th, 2019 11:18AM EST
iPhone 11 Pro
Image: Alex Tai/SOPA Images/Shutterstock

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After a few years of arguably incremental upgrades, Apple’s iPhone 11 lineup was a breath of fresh air. Aside from boosting battery life significantly, Apple made some serious improvements to camera quality across the board. Night mode in particular is an absolute game-changer as it delivers low light photography performance that surpasses what you’ll find on Google’s Pixel devices and even the Huawei P30 Pro.

Of course, if you want the best that Apple has to offer photography wise, you’ll want to consider the company’s iPhone 11 Pro models which both feature a triple lens camera scheme. And while it’s certainly easy to take stunning and crisp photos right out of the box, there are some tweaks you can implement here and there to help take your photos to the next level.

Writing for the USA Today, Jefferson Graham spoke to a handful of professional photographers and asked them for a few simple but effective tips that can vastly improve iPhone photos. Whether you’re a seasoned photography guru or a newbie looking to learn the ropes, there are a few tidbits here well worth checking out.

With respect to taking Portrait mode photos, for example, Matt Van Swol notes:

Create distance. The more physical distance between your subject and the background, the more separation your iPhone can create for you. Portrait mode creates depth by mimicking the depth of field that you’d get on” pro-level camera.

One tidbit not in the article but worth mentioning involves taking selfies. By default, your iPhone will take a 7-megapixel selfie in portrait mode if you just open up the camera and hit the shutter button. However, if you want to take full advantage of the iPhone’s 12-megapixel front-facing camera, tap the expand button (symbolized by the two-arrow icon) and you’ll be able to take a slightly higher quality photo. Incidentally, if you take a selfie in landscape mode, the default photo will be 12 megapixels.

One final tidbit worth mentioning — if only because I’ve been surprised by how many friends aren’t aware of this — is that you can take high quality photos while video recording simply by tapping the white button on the right-hand side of the display while a video recording is in progress.

Yoni Heisler Contributing Writer

Yoni Heisler has been writing about Apple and the tech industry at large with over 15 years of experience. A life long expert Mac user and Apple expert, his writing has appeared in Edible Apple, Network World, MacLife, Macworld UK, and TUAW.

When not analyzing the latest happenings with Apple, Yoni enjoys catching Improv shows in Chicago, playing soccer, and cultivating new TV show addictions.