How To Use Manual Settings on iPhone Camera
Taking control.
One of the coolest things about the iPhone camera is how good it is. Truth is, the pictures you get right out of the camera app on your iPhone are better than whole generations of point-and-shoot cameras that came before from industry standard-bearers like Nikon, Canon, Olympus, and FujiFilm. Companies that helped create pictures which define photographic history. It's no wonder that those companies have scaled back on their compact, consumer level camera production to focus on high-end professional camera development and production. It's tough to compete with the convenience and capabilities of today's smartphones.
Because of the many advanced technologies that smart phones can offer, you don't have to do much more, if anything, to capture beautiful, well exposed and framed pictures and share them with pride. With a few standard settings, iPhone photography is now the gold standard for point-and-shoot picture taking. But it's also fun to put your own spin on your creative work, and the iPhone Camera app makes that possible too. If you want to explore some manual control of your iPhone photography, it's easy to do.
When you are in the Camera app, you'll see a small upward arrow at the top of the screen. Tap that to show your manual options under the photo viewer window.
Depending on the model of iPhone you have and the software version that's installed, you'll see several setting options show up right above the shutter button.
Possible options are Flash, Live Photo, Format, Self-Timer, Filters, HDR, Exposure, and Night Mode.
Keep in mind that any applied Filters and Formats can be changed back to the default photo version in editing. Live Photo can be turned off later too.
No, it's not the range of settings that you can access on a pro camera, but it's a start. Beginning to think about your exposure and your framing are two important steps toward thinking more like a photographer and adding a bit of your own creative mojo to the pictures you take.