How to take better still life photos with iPhone

Flowers look pretty

Apple has published an interesting feature story explaining how to take better photos of flowers with an iPhone 12 Pro or Pro Max, featuring a selection of handy tips from photographer, Nathan Underwood. There’s a lot to unpack in the feature, but for the record here’s a top-down summary of these tips:

Underwood’s hints

The collection of tips is aimed at floral photography, but should be of just as much use for anyone taking any form of still life photo with their iPhone. This summary gives you just the gist.

Lighting

Natural light is best, if available, and if taking an outdoors shot it’s always best to find a spot with consistent shade.

Background

For best results, find a natural background (blue or grey is best) with minimal patterns, bricks, dots and so on distract the eye and detract from the final image.

Framing

Try to frame your image correctly from the start, and always try to use the closest focal distance. He rates Portrait Mode as a great way to provide a sense of depth.

Edit

In order: Crop, tiny boosts in brightness, boosting saturation slightly and cooling the image down just a little bit all help improve the impact of the final image.

People seem to be liking the camera…

I thought some readers may want to take a look at some more tips I’ve published over the years.

Take better shots with the Grid

You can use the iPhone camera’s grid to take better images of almost anything you like, because the grid helps you take a better composition that fits the rule of thirds. To enable the feature: Open Settings>Camera and in the ‘Composition’ section toggle the Grid to On.

Exposure Compensation Control

Available in iOS 14, you can use Exposure Compensation Control to precisely set and lock the exposure settings you want to use for a series of shots. This is useful as the camera will set focus and exposure automatically left to its own devices. To use this, tap the arrow and then tap the button depicting a + sign above a –  to adjust exposure which is then locked and made available for use next time you use the Camera app.

7+ more iPhone photography tips

• 7+ fast ways to open your iPhone Camera
• How to take Night Mode portraits with iPhone 12 Pro phones
• Video: 3 more great Apple tips for iPhone photography
• 7 iPhone Photography Problems and How to Solve Them
• MacPhun’s Travel Photography Tips for iPhone and Mac Users
• iPhone 11: What is QuickTake and how do I use it?
• 7 hidden iOS tricks you’ll probably use

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