Favorite iPhone Photography Trick

They always say that the best camera is the camera that you have on you. So for me, my best camera is almost always my Iphone 7 plus. I carry that bad boy everywhere with me and I am constantly snapping pics of anything that I see. As I grow and learn as a photographer, I find that the more I shoot the better I can get. While I do not know all the technical aspects of it all, I love the way I capture what I see so others can see it too!

I do wish I could carry my Canon 80d around everywhere with me but its just not feasible. In time, I will save up and purchase a small mirrorless camera but till then, my trust iPhone is my portable camera of choice.

With that said, I am pretty geeked to share this little trick I recently learned about the iPhone 7 plus. For those without the 7 plus, I apologize but this post is not for you, as the dual lens is not on the smaller models.

Portrait mode is the new fun way to shoot with the iPhone 7 plus and I often try it out in order to get that good old depth of field effect you get with a DSLR with a great lens. Depth of field is basically that nice blurry background you get when you shoot at a high aperture or low f-stop. The iPhone 7 plus Portrait mode is perfection in giving you a blurred background but it does get fickle and you have to have great light. But that is NOT the trick…….

The iPhone 7 plus trick that I find to be the most fun right now is using the dual lens. There is a telephoto lens and a wide angle lens on the 7 plus but I never knew how to activate either. Until now and I am sharing with you.

When you open up your camera app on the phone, it is ALWAYS the wide angle lens. You will know it is the wide angle when you see the 1x with a circle around it on the screen. If you tap that 1x it will switch to the telephoto lens.

This is the wide angle

The telephoto lens is a more close up lens without having to zoom in and lose resolution and quality. You will see a 2x once you switch it.

Dont mind the blurriness, I was trying to screenshot.

While the wide angle is always going to be the best to use in more than one situation, the telephoto is awesome for the two types of photos I like to shoot the most lately- street photography and portraits. In street photography, I can get a tighter more close up shot now without being too close to the subject and in portraits, the telephoto doesn’t distort the face as much and I don’t have to be all up in someone’s face to shoot a nice portrait.

These are straight from camera with NO editing.

You can also choose the degree of magnification you would like by sliding your finger around from 2x to 1x.

I have found 1.5 to be ok but I still think if I am going to use the telephoto, I might as well just go hard or go home.

Please let me know if you guys have any questions and definitely share this tip!!!!