5 Essentials Tips to Take Better Photos with an iPhone 15

If you have an iPhone 15 because you’re a photo enthusiast, this article is for you.

Here, I’ll give you five essential tips for taking better photos with an iPhone 15, whether you want to take pictures as a hobby or create professional social media content.

Apple has always been the leading brand for mobile photography, and it keeps improving the camera and photo features on the iPhone. The iPhone 15 is no exception.

So, let’s dive in and get you started in the fantastic world of iPhonography.

5 Essential Tips to Take Better Photos with an iPhone 15

These are five essential tips to take better photos with an iPhone 15. I’ll specifically discuss iPhones 15, 15 Plus, 15 Pro, and 15 Pro Max.

However, some of the tips may also apply to previous iPhone models.

Remember that the iPhone allows you to adjust the default settings so it remembers your choices and launches the camera with them every time. You can control this in the Camera Settings > Preserve Settings menu.

You can learn about all the camera features in this in-depth video.

1. Customize the Focal Length

The iPhone 15 allows you to customize the default lens. You can set it to be the 24, 28, or 35 mm lens in the settings. You can also turn the additional lenses on or off.

The iPhone 15 standard has .5, 1x, and 2x zooms, while the iPhone 15 Pro also includes 3x, and the iPhone Pro Max has 5x. These are all optical zooms. If you zoom in more than these, you’ll be using digital zoom.

Digital zooms reach 10x on the standard iPhone 15 and 15 Plus. The iPhone 15 Pro reaches 15x, and the iPhone 15 Pro Max goes up to 25x.

You can toggle between optical zooms by tapping on the options at the bottom of the screen. If you want to use a focal length between those values or go over the maximum optical zoom, you can zoom in and out using two fingers on the screen.

Another option is to tap and hold any optical zoom button. This will open a zoom wheel you can rotate to adjust the zoom as you want.

Consider that digital zoom degrades the quality of the photo, so it’s best to stick to optical zoom whenever possible.

• More: Must-Know iPhone Shutter Button Tricks

2. Get the Best Quality

The iPhone 15 has a 48MP sensor, which was previously exclusive to the iPhone 14’s Pro and Pro Max versions.

Even though the iPhone 15 has a 48 MP sensor, it is by default set to 24MP. If you want the highest quality, make sure you go to the settings and enable the 48MP in Photo Capture > Photo Mode.

Of course, this will create bigger files. So, make sure you have enough storage space available. You can always switch back to a smaller resolution if you’re running out of space or shooting everyday things that don’t require maximum quality.

This way, you’ll have more pixels to work with if you want to crop your photo afterward. You’ll also be able to print larger pictures.

You should also shoot in a raw format called ProRaw to achieve better quality. You can enable this in the camera settings.

Because these files record more information, the photographs will create bigger files. So, choose the format HEIF Max to get smaller files without losing data. This will help you to save storage space.

• More: 27 Best iPhone Camera Accessories

3. Turn On the Macro Control

 

The iPhone 15 can focus on objects that are extremely close to the camera, allowing for macro photography.

You don’t need to be on the ultra-wide camera to do this. The iPhone will automatically turn on the macro mode and switch to the ultra-wide camera when it detects your subject closer than 14 cm away.

Of course, changing focal lengths does more than adjust the minimal distance to focus a subject. So, you may not always want the iPhone to decide when to change to the ultra-wide camera.

For this reason, you can go to the camera settings and activate the Macro Control feature. Now, whenever a subject is close to the camera, a yellow flower icon will appear on the bottom left side of the screen.

If you tap on the macro icon, you’ll turn off the automatic change to macro, and you’ll be able to remain in the main camera. This way, you can keep the foreground element out of focus.

This allows you to control the plane separation in your images. It’s also useful to avoid sudden, unwanted changes in focal length while shooting videos.

• More: 11 Best Photo Editing Apps for iPhone

4. Turn On the Level Meter

While many users know about the grid that helps them compose their photos, the level is not as popular, even though it’s not new to iPhone 15. However, this is extremely useful for getting a straight horizon line and avoiding distortions.

You can enable this feature on Camera settings > Composition > Level (below Grid).

Once enabled, a white line will appear on the center of the screen as soon as the iPhone is rotated. Keep rotating it until the line turns yellow, which indicates that the horizon is straight.

Then, you can take your picture.

In the same section of the camera settings, you can enable the ‘View Outside the Frame’ feature, which can also help you improve your composition.

• More: What Are the Best iPhone Camera Settings?

5. Take Advantage of the Editing Features

All digital images can be edited, whether taken with an iPhone, an Android phone, or a digital camera.

However, iPhones have a few settings that allow you to edit your photographs in ways that aren’t possible with other devices. Let’s review your choices.

To reach the basic editing tools, tap the Edit button in the top right corner of the photo. Here, you can adjust the exposure, color, saturation, etc.

You can also apply filters – the same filters you can apply live when taking the picture. Here, you’ll also find the crop and rotating tools. You can add text and use other features.

So far, there’s nothing different from editing a picture taken with any device.

However, if you took your photo using the Portrait mode, you can adjust the lighting and the depth of field in the editing section. You’ll know if you used portrait mode because the word portrait appears in the top left corner.

• More: Tips for Using iPhone Portrait Mode

Another useful feature of iPhones is Live photos. When enabled, Live photos record a video that captures the moments before and after the photo was taken.

So, if you take a portrait and the person has their eyes closed, simply tap on the thumbnail and choose a different frame of the mini-video it recorded.

Beyond using this as a video, you can do other things like creating GIFs.

You can also review the video at any time and select the best frame to keep as the main photograph in the editing process.