As I’m waiting for the iPhone 12 Pro Max to arrive, I’ve been thinking about how great of the camera the 11 Pro has been, and all the photos and videos it’s captured in the past year.

As a photographer, the iPhone X was a major leap forward. It was first time I had a phone with telephoto lens, but also all the camera and screen improvements rekindled my passion for iPhone photography. The XS was a noticeable refinement, but the 11 Pro was falling in love all over again.

Looking back, a lot of the feelings I have about this phone have to do with the historic year we’ve lived in. The 11 Pro was my main, go-to camera for almost everything: the empty streets during the lockdown, social justice marches, violent white supremacist rallies, taking pictures of the same things every day but in new and interesting ways while on a walk.

The 11 Pro was there for all of it, and constantly exceeded my expectations. It has been the most versatile camera I’ve ever used.

Some of my favorite photos from the past year

Lens system

The most consumer-facing feature added to the 11 and 11 Pros were the Ultra Wide lens. Clocking in at 13 mm, this lens was added to both new phones, while the 11 Pro kept the telephoto, making an at first funny looking, but extremely powerful, camera system.

iPhone 11 Pro’s camera

As I noted in my first review, a fisheye lens like this is one of the last lenses I would invest in on a DSLR, and the last I would carry in my camera bag. But it’s now one of my favorite parts of an iPhone camera, ever. A core principle of my approach to photography is to capture the world in a way we’ve never seen it, and the Ultra Wide has allowed whole new types of photos and videos that were previously prohibitive.

The whole three lens camera system together is something to note. To capture those three ranges (wide, ultra wide and telephoto) I would need to lug around a bag with a camera and three lenses, not to mention switch them, which takes you out of the moment. But the ability to switch lenses with just a tap, and even during recording video, was a game changer and the most underrated part of the 11 Pro. Especially for video: Being able to get close AND capture more of the scene WHILE being stable is a photojournalist’s dream.

Covering a large, Black Lives Matter march downtown, I was able to quickly and effortless, and most of the time without thinking, switch between the three lenses. Being able to capture the full breath of a darkened and closed city. The Wide Angel lens allowed me to get some of my favorite shots of the year. The quality of the lens was severely lacking compared to the other two, but distortion is common in fisheye lenses, and frankly, the overall effect was worth the trade off to expand the scene of a moment. And if the composition, lighting and moment are good, quality really doesn’t matter. I’m excited to see how the lens has improved in the next camera system, and the next, but I’m not doing a lot of cropping on these shots.

I’m incredibly glad to have gotten the Pro because of the telephoto lens. Is it really a “telephoto” at 52 mm? Not really, if you compare to other cameras, but that extra distance, the little bit of visual compression, added up. Looking at the stats of the photos I’ve taken, I’ve used the telephoto lens a lot. Switching between the lenses is natural. I can’t imagine giving up the telephoto lens.

iPhone 11 Pro Stats

Total photos and videos taken: 44,692

• Ultra Wide: 10,072 (22.5%)
• Wide: 14,144 (31.6%)
• Telephoto: 9,013 (20.2%)
• Front Facing: 1,013 (2.3%)

The other images were a mixture of multiple lenses

Oh yeah, and the expanded front facing camera was great for selfies.

Background processing

In the background, the iPhone 11 Pro had some serious upgrades, mostly with Deep Fusion and Night Mode (more on that below), which increased the overall image quality through computational photography.

For video, the handheld stabilization was the best I’ve used, and many friends were surprised that video I shot was handheld… they thought it was with a big cinematic camera. I’m not sure how much of that smoothness came from switching to shooting 24 FPS in 4K mostly, but there is a feel about the video system that is super smooth.

The advancements to the software, Smart HDR and the chipset on the 11 Pro gave me the confidence to know that, with little adjustment while shooting or in post, the image would come out as I saw it. It keeps getting better every year.

A marketing photo for work… Looks at the details captured of the crashing wave and sunset!

Shooting outside the frame

When the 11 Pro came out, one of the features I was most exciting about was Shooting Outside the Frame. When enabled, this feature used the other lenses to capture information outside the frame, which allowed you to add parts to the image in during editing. It was like the inverse of cropping. This was a dream come true for someone who shoots a lot of action photography. You had 30 days to made edits with information captured outside the frame. I remember the first weekend with the phone at a friend’s wedding (I was only late 15 minutes to the rehearsal dinner to pick up the phone), adding the bride’s trailing wedding dress into the frame that was cropped out as we were quickly walking down the beach.

But when Deep Fusion was released in an early iOS 13 point beta, it disabled shooting outside the frame, and I abandoned the new feature for an increase in quality I didn’t really understand how it worked. The other week I looked in the settings to enable it again and found out it was cut entirely in iOS 14, which is a shame, but I think has to do with overall performance of the Camera app. I hope it returns in the future on iPhones with more memory because it was one of those hallmark features that only an iPhone could offer and changed how photographs were taken.

Deep Fusion

So, I gave up one feature for another, quality overcoming convenience. Deep Fusion was introduced during the 11 Pro announcement and when it came out, I was super excited. As soon as it was available in beta I turned it on…. and frankly haven’t noticed the benefits. It turns on automatically in low light and captures more details in the image. Some folks did comparisons when it was released, and the differences are noticeable, but it’s not something I think about when shooting or editing. I’m sure I’ve reaped the benefits, but it’s not something I really think about when considering a year with this phone.

Night Mode

Another hallmark feature of the 11 series was Night Mode. In a nutshell, these are handheld, long exposures that are put together through computational photography. The results can be stunning… and strange. Personally, I enjoy photos at night taken without it. Night mode can make the images seem fake. But it does come in handy and I’ve been happy with several shots. I’m looking forward to see how the feature improves.

Favorite shots and memories

This past year has been one unlike any other, and photography and videography have been a constant for me. So much has happened and are some highlights to how I used the 11 Pro during it.

Pandemic shut down

When our state shut down to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, I was one of the few people walking the streets of my downtown. I was able to capture what was going on in our community and share it with people who were at home. The Ultra Wide was really good at showing the emptiness of the downtown. I can’t imagine telling this story without it. I’m glad I captured it for posterity. This is what photography is all about.

The first weekend of the COVID closure

Black Lives Matter

After the murder of George Floyd, protests and marches began across the country. There were several that happened in my town, and I would stumble upon them with just my iPhone. The ability to quickly switch lenses on a camera that was powerful enough gave me the confidence as a photographer to know I would get the shots. And also during the pandemic, the telephoto lens allowed me to get shots while keeping a distance.

Violence in the streets

This summer, a White Supremacist group held a march in Kalamazoo… and violence erupted. I was there in the middle of it with my iPhone. I captured raw images of the events. The iPhone 11 Pro was up for the task. I didn’t have to worry about focus, stabilization or any of those other concerns that come with larger cameras. Again, all three lenses were vital, and the ability to take pictures while recording video was convenient to get images quickly to share with local media. The photos and videos were seen around the country and documented a darker part of the year.

Spring… Summer… Fall…

This year I’ve spent a lot more time walking, before work, during lunch and at night. I’m shooting a lot less for work than I normally do, so I kept my photography skills up by capturing images on my walk. The flexibility of the 11 Pro allowed me to create images I never imagined.

One more thing… the Smart Battery Case

I’ve always loved using the Smart Battery cases to get a little extra juice while shooting. But the 11 Pro case introduced something new: a dedicated shutter button. And boy did I use this. Press the button to open the camera and press it again to take images. It really made the phone feel more like a camera. I will miss this on the 12 Pro

A camera unlike any other

The iPhone 11 Pro was really the first Pro iPhone camera. I know the term Pro gets thrown around in marketing and many people think it means “more expensive.” That’s true, but the 11 Pro gave photographers and videographers everything they needed for most things in one package. Instead of a heavy bag full of lenses, it was all just a tap away.

There’s a new manual exposure control in the Camera app in iOS 14 Beta 2.

I discovered this by accident while shooting video earlier today. The icon, a plus and minus sign within a circle, appears in the row of additional settings within the Camera app on iPhone 11 and 11 Pro.

When you select it, a familiar slider appears, similar to editing adjustments in Photos. There’s also small histogram also appears that reflects the exposure changes you make.

To get a manual exposure previously in iOS, you would press on the frame and a box would appear with a small sun on a line. You would have to press that line to adjust the exposure. It was always finicky and not really reliable.

In my first test of it, it does not appear to link with the square and sun exposure adjustment. In fact, it seems that you can use both simultaneously. I will play around more with this in the future.

Making manual exposure easier to use is an important addition to the iOS Camera app. While the auto exposure has gotten better and better each year, sometimes you want to accentuate a certain part of the image you are capturing.

A dedicated and easy to use manual exposure control is a welcome addition to the stock iOS Camera app. I often use other apps like Halide because of its ease to manually adjust exposure.

While there was a lot to get excited about in iOS 14, there wasn’t much for Photos or Camera apps, so this is exciting to find.

www.youtube.com/watch

The one thing that drew me to Apple’s latest Smart Battery case has nothing to do with extending the life of the phone: it’s all about what it adds to the camera.

The Smart Battery Case for iPhone 11 and 11 Pro includes, for the first time, a mechanical shutter button for taking pictures and video.

My short review: it’s amazing.

My long review:

The shutter button

I’ve often used the volume controls on the side of the phone in the past to trigger the camera. However, their placement often requires using two hands. Having this new button for the camera near the bottom of the phone makes taking pictures an ease.

The button fits the index finger well. It feels natural and sturdy, like something you’d have a larger camera.

Holding the button for about half a second will open the camera app anywhere you are on phone, even if it’s locked. I do wish the camera launched quicker, but it’s super simple and has become the most frequent way I get to the camera. I’m not as concerned about accidentally triggering the shutter as much as I am missing the moment I’m trying to photograph.

While it makes sense that the button will open Apple’s Camera app, one downside is that you can only use it to take pictures in that app. There have been times when I’ve lauched a third party app like Hailde or FiLMiC and tried to use the shutter button to no avail. Apple could open this up to developers, since they currently can use the volumne control buttons to trigger the shutter.

Something else I noticed that was frustrating was not being able to use the camera trigger when I had directons throgh the Maps app. Hopefully this is a software bug and will be fixed.

I would love to have a regular case with a shutter button or even have it added to the iPhone hardware. I know Apple doesn’t like to add buttons to their devices (they’ve only removed them) but, as someone who uses my iPhone as their main camera, it would be a welcome addition without the bulk of the battery.

I’ve taken the case off or used a different case a few times and missed the button: my muscle memory adapted quickly. I’ve kept the case on most of the time because of this and have a hard time imaging taking pictures with my iPhone any other way.

The extra battery

I recently took it on a four-day trip to Las Vegas and I only really needed to charge my phone twice. It was great to have the camera shutter (of course) but also to have the peace of mind that, no matter what happened, I had enough battery life to get me through 24 hours plus.

The case is bulky, as expected, but the design feels sleek. You only really notice the bulk when a) you first put the case one b) you take the case off or c) you have another phone that is ceaseless or has a case. I’ve stopped minding the extra weight and size.

What makes the Smart Battery Case so good is the intrigation that Apple includes. You see a battery status when you connect it and the percentage of battery shows up in Control Center. My favorite feature of previous versions of Apple’s case is the iPhone also knows when it’s drawing power from the case and will not perform intensive backup or other processes. Using other battery cases, the iPhone will think it’s charging connected to the wall.

For all the other “smarts” fo the case, Rene Ritchie has a deeper dive over on iMore.

At $130, the Smart Battery Case is a pricy upgrade, but the only battery case to consider if you use your iPhone as a camera. A forewarning: once you start using the shutter button, it might be difficulty to go without it.

One of my guiding principals of photography is to capture the world as I see it. This was core to my training as a photojournalist and the iPhone has been perfect camera for this: a single 26mm lens, no optical zoom and a sensor that allowed little editing.

While being a good snapshot camera, there have also been tools and methods that photographers have used to capture images beyond what the eye can see. The iPhone 11 and 11 Pro are the first to really do this for Apple’s camera system. Night Mode and the Ultra Wide Lens are two hallmark features that bring the iPhone into a different category of camera.

Through the iPhone’s processor, Night Mode captures colors and light in darker scenes while holding the camera in your hands. Any other camera would need a tripod and a long exposure to achieve this. The Ultra Wide lens captures a much larger scene than the eye can see and gives an effect that only an expensive fish eye lens could. Both features provide new ways to capture images with just the camera in your pocket, no additional tools required. 

These are my impressions of the new iPhone having used it for three months. Like any iPhone update, the improvements are noticeable throughout the camera system. But with the addition of the Ultra Wide lens and processing power of Night Mode, the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro take portable photography into a new era.

Ultra Wide

When I worked in my local newspaper’s photo department, there were two rules for interns: You could only take one photo of the downtown fountain surrounded by mirrors and you could only submit two photos taken with the fisheye lens.

Cashing in: a photo o f the mirrored fountain taken with the Ultra Wide lens.

Why these rules? Sometimes, as a photographer, you can overuse a certain lens or location, and these were two that interns consistently overused, especially when they had access to a fisheye lens for the first time

Like one of those young photographer, I found myself immediately drawn to the Ultra Wide lens on the iPhone 11 Pro and have used it for about 37 percent of the pictures I’ve taken.

With my DSLR, an ultra wide or fisheye lens would be the last one I would carry with any regularity. First of all, they are expensive and I only rent one a couple times a year for special projects. Second, even if I had one, it’s another lens to carry. Using it would also require switching lenses or carrying a second body. I don’t know many photographers who have this lens as part of their daily kit. They produce a nice effect, but they do not offer a lot of versatility for the cost and extra bulk.

Without the constraints listed above, it’s been a joy having this lens always available on the iPhone. It really opens up so many new kinds of photos and videos that were impossible to capture previously on a camera that fits into your pocket.

The day the phone was released, I headed to Northern Michigan for a good friend’s wedding. Right away I saw the benefit of being to capture groups of people and the surroundings.

But I also quickly remembered that just because an image is wide doesn’t make it good. I would take a dozen pictures with the Ultra Wide thinking they were great because of the new perspective I was seeing only to be disappointed later when I reviewed them.

There’s also an issue with quality. The Ultra Wide angle lens reminds me of the iPhone 4s camera. It captures stunning images in daylight, but indoors or at night, I was a little disappointed with image quality. A lot of this has to do with the distortion that comes shooting so wide. It doesn’t benefit form some of the same low light sensor as the other lenses, not including Dark Mode.

While the quality isn’t the best, the Ultra Wide lens was able to capture this moment of snow falling during a production of Elf: The Musical. I’ll take the perspective over the quality. Distortion with the Super Wide.

As the quality of iPhone lenses and sensors have continued to get better each year and I expected the Ultra Wide to be on par with the rest of the camera system. This isn’t anywhere near a dealbreaker, however. The moments I’ve been able to capture with it, even if they weren’t as good of quality as the other lenses, is worth it.

For landscape images, Ultra Wide is stunning. Something to keep in mind is that the wide angle lens distorts the image, especially if you put it close to something. It’s very easy to take images that do not look like what the eye sees. This can be a fun effect, but isn’t something you can do for every photo. (It’s a lot of fun with dogs).

For a lot of people, this will be their first time holding a camera with such a wide view. If my excitement any indication, I can only imagine theirs.

The greatest benefit of the Ultra Wide

My absolute favorite feature of the iPhone 11 camera system is being able to capture outside of the frame of images taken with the Wide and Telephoto lenses.

This is something that no other camera offers — additional information. If you take a photo or video at 1x or 2x, it will use the other lenses to capture information surrounding it. So if your taking a picture of a running dog and she moves outside the frame, you can crop and add in part of the image outside of the frame.

This is really revolutionary in a lot of ways, something all photographers have probably hoped for at some point. It really is a photography-shifting feature that I thought I was going to miss when going back to other cameras. However, my use of it was relatively short lived. A month or so after the phone was released, Deep Fusion was released in iOS 13.2. This is a new feature of the iPhone 11 and drastically increases the quality of images by “computational photography mad science,” in the words of Apple senior Vice President Phil Schiller.

There’s no way to easily toggle it on or off outside of the Settings app or to see if an image uses Deep Fusion. So I’m back to taking images the old way. I’ll choose the quality of Deep Fusion over the additional information that is captured. This is probably because I’ve been taking pictures without the extended data collection for decades.

I hope Deep Fusion and outside the frame collection comes in future releases.

Night Mode

One of the three pillars of photography is Shutter Speed: the longer the shutter is open, the more light can hit the sensor. At night, you almost always need a tripod to get a sharp image that’s properly exposed. But if you leave the shutter open for one, two or three seconds, you can capture light and colors in a way the human eye does not perceive because you are allowing the sensor to soak up the light a longer period of time.

I’ve dabbled with night photography in the past, but didn’t get into it too much because I didn’t like having to carry around a tripod with me. iPhone 11 Pro changes that.

I didn’t realize I was using Night Mode the first time I used it. Unlike turning on the flash manually, Night Mode will activate when it notices low light. When you hit the shutter, it will tell you to hold the phone still for one to three seconds. You can turn it off by swiping on the viewfinder to see the redesigned control panel.

I held the image up to what I could see and they were drastic. The Night Mode photo looked as if there were large baseball field lights nearby.

Regular exposure (left) vs Dark Mode (right)

It’s amazing to be able to capture that level of detail. It creates a stunning image that’s free of blur. But after three months of using it, I don’t know what I like more: the standard image or the Night Mode version. However, I’ve noticed friends have been blown away by what Night Mode can do.

One thing Night Mode doesn’t do is capture movement. One neat thing about night photography is when cars or other lights move by, it creates streaks. Night Mode really captures what you see when you press the shutter button and enhances that. If you’re looking for a long exposure app that captures light streaks, check out Spectre.

There’s something about capturing night as we see it. I don’t like the increased colors as I do the more muted and dark ones. I like something in between.

A few steps away for reality

So what do these two new features mean for photography on the iPhone? Is is bad for a camera to capture the world in ways we can’t naturally see it? Not inheritly. A camera is a tools like a pen or a paintbrush — you can create art that is realistic or more fantastic. One great thing about photography is also showing people the world in a way they’ve never seen it, and this iPhone offers two major new ways of doing that.

Using the iPhone 11 Pro is a little jarring at first that it can capture things in ways beyond which the eye can. These are all tools I have used as a photographer, but given the need to carry an extra lens or tripod, rarely used. Now that they fit in the phone in my pocket, I will utilize them more often.

The promise of Computational Photography made with the release of the iPhone XS come true with the 11 Pro. Smart HDR was a stunning addition and has gotten even better. The iPhone 11 camera system is a huge step forward, offering more tools for anyone who takes pictures with it. Night Mode and the Super Wide lens have ushered in the next era of mobile photography, replacing yet again tools and methods unreachable to most people,

Other iPhone 11 Pro observations

• As with other iterations, Portrait Mode has improved significantly.
• The UI redesign of the Camera app is overall nice, but some areas are taking some time to adapt to. Other areas leave me with questions, such as why does the lens selection have three circles in Photos mode but only one in Video? You need to tap it to toggle the different lenses. Strange. But so happy that an iOS 13 update allows you to change the video format settings right in the app.
• All of my selfies are now taken in the wide mode. With the ultra wide lens on the rear camera, I want to the front camera to go even wider.
• I remember the Slofies announcement during in the keynote, but it took me a while to figure out it wasn’t a specific setting, but just shooting slow mo video with the front facing camera.
• Videos are absolutely stunning and the upgrade should be noted.
• I’ve noticed some delays in using the app and switching between different modes on longer shoots. Usually it comes during heavy shooting. No app crashes, just some delays.

Interesting news the other week: Apple released technical specs for flash assessories that work directly with the iPhone.

I’ve never been a big fan of using the flash and rarely use it on my iPhone. However, having a flash that can be positioned or bounced is really promising, especially for portraits and product photography.

A major downside of the built-in iPhone flash is that it’s fixed to the phone (obviously). With it’s position next to the lens makes it nearly impossible to bounce the flash.

While Anker has a flash that will ship next month, I’m excited to see what devices are released. It appears the flash will connect to the phone via the Lightning cable. Will there be flashes that then link to other strobes, making a wireless network? Do the strobes use the same technology as Apple’s built in flash?

First the camera button on the Smart Battery case and now this? An great end to 2019 for iPhone photography accessories.

I take a lot of photos. Currently in my iCloud Photo Library, there are 236,167 images, 6,429 videos and 8 items. And I’m running out of cloud storage.

While Apple has made major improvements in Photos and the iCloud Photo Library in recent years, such a large photo library is difficult to manage. It takes what seems like months to have the library scanned for faces and items.

For years, I’ve tried to bring the size down. There are apps that scan for duplicates and similar images, but they haven’t really worked well with a library of my size in the cloud.

Over Thanksgiving, I set up a new MacBook Air for my Dad. In Photos, I saw how beautiful the app is when there’s a more curated library there.

Photos has become the dumping ground for all of my images in the past decade. I want it more like a curated photo album that is more enjoyable to browse and use.

So in 2020, I’m embarking on a goal to downsize my library one day at a time, and you can too.

Each day, I’m going to look at all of my images that were taken on the day, delete duplicates, export similar photos, and make my library more manageable and enjoyable.

Every Day Photo Housekeeping

Find today’s photos

• Tap the search icon in the lower right corner of Photos on iOS or the upper right corner on MacOS.
• Type in the day’s date.
• Select the date in the drop down menu. You will see a box surround it.
• Below that, you will see how many photos were taken on that day. Tap “See All” to the right of it.
• There’s all the photos from the specific day over the years.

Select the ones you want to delete or export

After having all the photos, I scroll through looking first for duplicates and selecting them. I delete those.

Then, I’ll look for similar shots, selecting all but the ones I want to keep. Blurry and rapid shots are selected. I add those to an album called “January Export and Delete.”

At the end of the month, on my Mac, I’ll export the originals to a folder in Dropbox and delete the images from Photos.

Reflect, share, make albums

When looking through these photos, I’ve found it’s a good time to reflect, edit and share memories from the past. I’m planning on adding older images to my Day One journal and also share some with friends and family.

While the automatic album and Memories feature is great on Photos, I’m planning to use this audit as a time to make my own, curated galleries of events, trips and people. There’s something about handcrafted galleries that I really like and want to have more of in my digital life.

Going forward

It’s one thing to clean house, but another one to keep it clean. I’m planning on doing weekly reviews of my Photo Library going forward and do the same things I’ve done each day.

I’ve done this on and off over the past couple years, but am going to do it for the whole of 2020. If I miss a day, I’ll make sure to come back and knock it out. I’m going to make a mega project in Things to keep track of each day of the year.

Photos in iOS 13 offers more refined organization of pictures and videos as well as expanding editing options for photos and, for the first time, videos

Photos in iOS 13 received significant updates in two primary areas: organization and editing. While it might not initially seem like much has changed, this is one of the most important updates in several releases for all types of photographers.

The organizational overhaul still focuses on the overall timeline of when photos were taken but curates them in a new and smart manner based on days, months, and years. Using machine learning, Photos can pick images and videos that are relevant to your location and time of year. Also improved are the search abilities and how terms are suggested. This organization system finally feels like it makes sense on both iOS, iPadOS, and MacOS.

For what Photos offers in organization, it balances with editing features. Eight new adjustments have been added, with a focus on color and image clarity. The layout for editing brings the adjustments to the forefront, removing the basic Light and Color adjustments in previous releases. Without a doubt, the most welcome addition in Photos is the ability to edit videos. Now you can perform all of the same edits on videos as you can for photos. Previously, you would have to use third-party apps or the iMovie extension, which took a lot of time and crashed often.

This review will look at the what’s new for Photos in iOS 13 and my impressions using the betas over the summer. From Apple’s recent event, it appears there will be a lot of new features in the Camera app, which I will cover once they are released.

Dark Mode

Before we jump into the two main areas of improvement in Photos, I need to mention a third, and one of the greatest: system-wide Dark Mode. It’s a significant improvement for browsing images and video, letting them stand out. Common in most photo and video editing and organizational applications, Dark Mode in iOS 13 is one of the best features in Photos. You can toggle this in Settings -> Display & Brightness. You can also add a button to Control Center to turn it on and off. 

Editing

Interface

Photos has always had somewhat robust, but still convenient, editing abilities. While other apps have long surpassed it in the sheer number of features, iOS 13 is where Photos returns with serious power.

The training wheels have been removed editing photos in iOS 13. Previously, adjustments were divided into three subcategories: Light, Color, and B&W. Pressing one would open a bar with a sliding scale, where you could make an image brighter or darker, or increase or decrease the color. To get into the finer adjustment areas, you had to click on a menu icon to the right and see a list of editing options. Clicking on Highlights, for example, brought up a new scale to adjust. 

IOS 13 introduces a streamlined editing process: all of the editing categories are right there. There are no submenus, you scroll through the adjustments and pick the edit you’d like to make. Each adjustment has its own icon, which makes it easy to navigate by sight. Tap the circle and it will activate. Once edits are made, there is a nice yellow bar around the circle icon that represents the edit, reminiscent of the rings for Activity on the Apple Watch. When you press it again, that part of the image will revert to the original.

I’ve found that my editing speed has increased significantly under the new layout. Less taps are always welcome, and having all of the adjustments together is helpful when making decisions on what you want to edit.

One of the best cases of the new design is when a photo is automatically enchanted. Previously, the Magic Wand was located in the upper right-hand corner. You could only see what adjustments were made if you tap down to the Color and Light layers. With the single line of adjustments in iOS 13, you immediately see what was done to your image. This is not only an excellent way to make additional changes but also to learn what different adjustments will do, especially when combined.

New editing features

In addition to the redesign, there are also eight new adjustments you can make in iOS 13 that primarily focus on color and clarity of the image. The best way to learn about these adjustments is to load a photo and play around with them. But here’s a breakdown of what each one does.

• Brilliance: Adjusting the brilliance is similar to changing the light and exposure. Brilliance, however, relies on the iPhone to make specific adjustments based on the light levels of the current photo. Think of it as a “smart exposure” adjustment. Brilliance will look at parts of the picture that are over or underexposed. When you move the dial, it will adjust just those parts that need it. It does a better job at maintaining the highlights and shadows than adjusting the Exposure.

• Vibrance: Similar to how Brilliance works for exposure, Vibrance will intensify more muted colors while leaving other colors as they are. If you were to increase the Saturation, all colors would intensify, often resulting in over-saturated images. This has been one of my favorite adjustments to use in other apps and am glad it’s in Photos.

• Warmth: This setting mimics changing the white balance of photos. In a nutshell, white balance is how your camera interprets what kind of light is in your photo. Ideally, whites should be white, not bluish or orange. When you increase the warmth of your photo, the light in the image becomes more warm, and decrease, more cool. Warmth handles light that casts on the orange and blue spectrum. Pictures shot in the RAW file format can have their white balance edited fully by other applications. Adding Warmth and Tint are helpful adjustments for photos taken with the iPhone’s native Camera. The iPhone’s camera does an excellent job of automatically adjusting for White Balance, but sometimes you need to manually make adjustments to reflect what you see.

• Tint: In addition to editing the orange and blue light in a photo, you can adjust the light on the green and magenta spectrum with Tint. You often don’t need to make changes here, but it’s good to know if you are editing photos that were taken under artificial light.

• Sharpness: Sometimes, photos can come out a little blurry; either the focus didn’t snap fast enough, there is a smudge on the lens, or there’s some camera shake. Sharpness will adjust the overall focus and contrast of a photo, making the picture appear to be more in focus.

• Definition: This adjustment will increase your photo’s overall structure, defining edges within your image. A word of warning: a lot of photographers will ramp up the Definition to make their picture seem more dramatic. But when you look closely, it just looks fake.

• Noise Reduction: When pictures are taken in low light, the camera’s sensor is working harder to capture light. To do this, it will increase the ISO, resulting in noise, or grain, on the photo. When applied, Noise Reduction will remove this to make the image more clear. As a result, the effect often makes the image a little blurry. When I need to get rid of some noise, I usually increase the Definition by the same amount to balance it out.

• Vignette: One of the more artistic editing features added to iOS 13, vignette is either darkening or lighting the corners of an image. This effect naturally occurs with some lenses under certain circumstances, but it’s a great tool to draw focus onto the subject of an image.

There are also new features for cropping:

• Vertical and Horizontal perspective transformation: This editing feature allows you to change where the perspective of where the photo was taken. Transforming an image’s perspective helps photos that might have been captured off-center or pictures of tall buildings that seem to be tilting. Be warned; this is one of the quickest ways to make your photo look fake.
• Flip Image: Basically, this will flip the photo to a mirror image of itself. 

You get all of the same cropping aspect ratios. However, 5:4 has been renamed to 10:8.

Portrait Mode

Two new features have been added for Portrait Mode. A new lightning filter for iPhones XS and XR called High Key Light Mono, which takes a subject in black and white and replaces the background with white. 

You can also change the strength of the artificial light that is applied to the subject, increasing or decreasing it. I seldom use any of the lighting features but have found to use them more with the updates because I can roll back the lighting. 

Adjust strength of filters and auto enchantments

All of the built-in filters have remained the same in iOS 13, but added is the ability to adjust their intensity. This helps create an image that looks a little different than the filter. I often like to add a little color to black and white filters or add a bit more to the color filters. Also, you can adjust the strength of Auto Enhance, which is helpful if Photos doesn’t give you precisely what you’re looking for. 

Video editing

The most exciting part of editing in iOS 13 is the ability to make changes to videos. Previously, all you could do was trim a clip or open an extension for another app like iMovie.

Now, iOS 13 allows all of the same edits to videos that you can make on images. It’s hard to signify what a significant addition this is for the app. You can edit a video shot in 4K, adjust the color and exposure, crop to a square, and change the perspective all within a few taps. This was previously nearly impossible to do on iOS with any ease. Something that could take anywhere between 10 to 20 minutes now takes a matter of minutes.

Also, when you trim a video, you are not forced to save it as a new clip. The original file is preserved so you can revert later, just like images.

I have been amazed at how seamless editing videos are. Previously, you would have to use several different apps even to get close to what you can quickly do in Photos. In a lot of ways, I didn’t realize how good videos shot with an iPhone could look. Most videos I shot would be texted or tweeted soon after taking them. 

I feel like, with this base of editing in Photos, Apple could launch a rewritten version of iMovie that would be more functional. In my experience, the iOS app has been limiting and buggy.

Live Photo features added in iOS 13

A somewhat hidden feature added for Live Photos is the ability to export as a video. Live Photos – introduced with the iPhone 6S – record a short video of the time before and after a photo is taken. This allows you to see the picture move but also choose which keyframe you want (it helps taking pictures of lightning).

The quality isn’t at the same level as a video you’d shoot with your iPhone, but it’s nice to have the flexibility of the format. Previously a third-party app would be used to extract the video on iOS. 

One part of this new feature I stumbled upon is that Photos will play a series of Live Photos together as one longer movie. If you take a series of Live Photos and press down on one of the images to play it, the Photos app will play a continuous video of all of the connected videos. Also, you can select the same series of photos, hit the share button, and export them all as a single video. You can actually do this with any Live Photos you’d like, creating a 1 Second Each Day-sequel video.

Knowing this came in handy recently when I was talking a photo of a friend who started saying something funny. I knew I wanted a video, but it was too late to switch camera modes. So I kept taking Live Photos and was able to export the eight photos together into one seamless video, audio and all. 

Another step in the right direction

Editing photos is one of my most common tasks on iOS, and I’m glad to see the redesign of the editing panel and the addition of new adjustment tools. While previous versions hid the complexity of photo adjustments under three categories, Photos in iOS 13 embraces all the essential photo editing tools and invites users to enhance their photos in ways they may have never thought of.  For those who often get down to adjust the fine details of a picture, the new design makes it even easier. The latest adjustment tools make it less likely to switch out of the app. 

Oh yeah, and video editing is the greatest. After a few months using it, I can’t imagine going back without it. 

Organization

People have been using iPhones to capture images and videos for longer and their collections have continued to grow. As cloud storage makes libraries grow, many have become confronted with the problem of photo management.

Apple has aimed to make organization in iOS, both simple and powerful. Since the beginning of iOS, there have been different organizational views for the chronological grid of photos, which has grown over past releases to include zooming in and out.

In recent releases, Photos has used metadata and on-device scanning to make the library smart, offering collections of images from locations (trips, the office, home) or themes (holidays, pets, people). While impressive, these features always felt secondary. 

This machine learning and categorization is now in the forefront. The entire core of organization in Photos has changed with iOS 13, injecting the chronological view with machine learning to create something less of a camera roll and more of a curated photo exhibit.

I like to think of it like this: viewing your photos in previous versions of iOS was like looking at a large topographical map. The iOS 13 updates to Photos breaks that map up into points of interest, includes roadways with information on traffic, and brings up relevant information you might not want to know until you are traveling. 

When you initially open Photos in iOS 13, you will need to update your library. You will then see the same tabs on the bottom: Photos; For You; Albums; and Search. But there is a new menu above that with Years, Months, Days, and All Photos.

Photos

Years

This is the broadest view you can have of your Photo Library: there is a title and single image for each year. What picture is picked? Photos pulls an image from around the same time of year that you’re currently in.

If you keep the screen up, the year will cycle through a photo from each month, displaying the name. It also uses your location to try and pinpoint images that are relevant to the time of year and location. I’ve found I’ve seldom looked at photos in this mode, but it’s helpful when drilling down to an exact time period.

Months

When you tap on a photo in the year mode, you are taken to the next panel: Months. 

Here, you see several large photos from each month. These are collected moments from what Photos deems as highlights. 

I’ve found about 3 to 5 moments per month. These are organized by a particular date or location and can span a couple of days or a week. I’ve found Moments are created for trips, sporting events and times when I’ve taken a lot of photos at a single time.

When you tap the menu button — the circles with three dots in the middle — you can view a video of those images or share the photos. 

Months are kinda like Moments. Introduced in iOS 7, Moments are the smart ordering of photos into something like an album: it uses the dates and locations of pictures and videos to create digital albums. They’ve never really stuck for me, scattered in the For You section. The collections in Days are like make sense in iOS 13 organized under Months. 

When you click on the collections, you move to the Days view.

Days

Days view is my favorite when browsing for an image. It has curated collections of photos from each day.

Days view has photos collected for that day and location: if you take pictures in the morning in one location and then travel and take some more, they are organized separately

The view in Days has images, and video fill the whole screen, with some being smaller and others larger, which gives a beautiful curated view. Videos also autoplay, which is a nice touch to highlight the content.

There does seem to be a limit at how many photos are included for each view. At the bottom, the last image has a number with a plus sign, indicating how many more photos were taken on that day. Tapping that will move you over to the All Photos panel.

Organizing photos in this way is better than the previous grid of days. For general users, this will be a welcome change. As someone who takes a lot of similar shots of the same thing, it’s nice to see a bird’s eye view of all pictures from that day.

All Photos

This is moved from an album in the Albums tab to the main photos tab, where it was called Camera Roll. 

The Camera Roll was all of your photos in a grid organized when they were added to your library. The Camera Roll has been split up in iOS 13: All Photos is your overview of all images and videos, while the new Recents album shows all of your recent media as it was added to your library. 

The standard and my most used view in Photos. This is a chronological listing of all the photos you have taken. 

Pinching in and out is much smoother, and there are more levels to view photos, from pictures that stack upon each other, an individual image takes up the whole width, to having three in a row to 5 and 13, which is not a way I like to look through images. 

For You

This is the area that I’ve found the most welcome upgrades to the organization of Photos in iOS 13. The suggestions are better, and they all make more sense the way they are organized.

For You has become the curated dashboard for your photos and videos that Apple has always wanted to create in previous releases. 

This section is dynamic for each device. Using two iPhones and an iPad, there are different suggestions on each device, as well as a separate order of the following categories. They are mostly similar, but the differences are sometimes nice, other times annoying. 

By no means are these suggestions perfect, but they offer a good starting off point of browsing photos and a great way to explore memories in your library that you may have forgotten about.

Memories

Memories have been around in the past few releases of Photos. They are collections of images and videos that Photos thinks will be relevant to you.

Shared Album Activity (with recent activity) 

The same feed of uploads, comments, and likes from your Shared Albums. I use these with family, friends, and coworkers. 

Sharing Suggestions

Introduced in the last release, sharing suggestions will look at photos taken that include other people and suggest sharing with them. It’s still not perfect: the suggestion will consist of pictures and videos unrelated to the ones I would want to share, but you can select photos for the collection. I will see a selection of photos that include a friend, but also include pictures I snapped before and after we saw each other, as well as different graphics and photographs from that day.

Featured Photos

I don’t know how Photos picks these images, but I’ve found they are often images with smiling faces, of nature, sunsets, and animals. They also are usually photos that have been Favorited. Whatever is happening behind the scenes, the images picked are pretty spot on with some of my favorite snapshots I’ve taken over the years. 

Recently Shared

This shows recently shared photos, both that you’ve sent and received. iOS 12 introduced a new way of sharing multiple photos and videos with people via an iCloud link, automatically setting an expression date. It includes media shared on Shared Albums and through iCloud links, which were introduced in iOS 12 as a way to supposedly securely send a lot of photos to friends. This feature is excellent when you’re sending a large amount of pictures to people, but gets annoying when you’re just sending 4 or 5 photos to someone via iMessage.

Effect Suggestions

I’ve found these are mostly related to Portrait photos and changing the light effect, such as Studio, Contour or Stage. I often don’t use these editing features, so it’s nice to see what they can do for an image, and a few times I’ve taken the suggestion.

Albums

The Albums page has been given a similar redesign as the rest of the app has. First, you see two rows of “My Albums” with Recents and Favorites the first two. Recents is one of most used albums as it shows photos that have been recently added to your library. If someone sends me a bunch of pictures, this is the easiest way to access them. As you swipe to the left, you see your most recent, manually curated albums. Hitting “See All” in the top right corner will bring them all up.

As you scroll down, you see  Shared Albums and then People and Places, which are smart collections of images based on faces that appear in photos and videos and their geolocation.

Past these are my favorite collections: media types, such as videos, selfies, time-lapse, slo-mo, etc. This is how I often drill down and quickly find a particular piece of content. 

Search

By far, my most commonly used way to access my photos is by searching. iOS 13 has improved on something confusing and challenging in the past: finding pictures that were taken on a specific day.

The suggestions when you open the search tab help train you to understand different things you can search for. Some of these included moments, people, places, categories (such as cars, stadiums, snow, and dogs) and groups, which are smart collections of photos that include more than one person. When you tap one of the suggestions, it takes you to the search bar with that phrase, subject, or location as a highlighted keyword.

When you see the search results, you can hit view more to see all of the photos. 

Search features a lot of the on-device categorization of images, has had mixed results for me. When your device first links up to your iCloud Photo Library, it analyzes the contents of your image. Unlike other photo services, all of this is done on-device, meaning whenever you get a new phone, it needs to do it all over again. As someone with a relatively sizeable iCloud Photo Library: 215,155 Photos, 5,472 videos, and 8 items, totaling 1.3 TB, this has never worked adequately for me. I often blame the bugginess I encounter using Photos and other different apps — both on and off betas — on my library size.

Photos Wishes

Copy edits to multiple photos

I’ve come to use Photos for more editing in iOS 13 over other apps, given the simplicity of the design and system-level access. However, when I make edits to one photo, I often want to copy those and apply them to other images taken under the same circumstances. I wish there were a way to copy those edits and paste them to other photos. To do this now, I use Darkroom if I know I want to make bulk changes to several images. Adding this would be a significant workflow addition for

Auto-hide photos with selected Faces

The iPhone is the best camera to capture all kinds of moments in our lives. Sometimes, after a breakup, death, or other traumatic event, you might not want to see photos of a particular person or memory. There is a way I wish there were a way to select a Face or Place in the Albums section and mark all those photos as hidden. I never want to delete any images, but sometimes, for personal health, it would be beneficial not to see those photos pop up, especially with the new curation. 

iOS 13 Camera

There are very few updates to the Camera app in iOS 13 at launch. I’m sure that will change when Apple releases new iPhones in a week. I’ll have some initial thoughts posted with the release, followed up with a fuller review of the new camera system, depending on what’s available.

Conclusion 

Photos has matured in iOS 13. A lot of the features Apple introduced beginning in iOS 7 feel like they have fully bloomed.

Initially, the addition of Dark Mode made Photos feel like a professional organization and editing software. The more I used it, the more I realized how good and useful the machine learning had become given the Photos organization and the For You suggestions. Search has become more refined and has worked the best of any iOS release I’ve used.

I am excited to see what updates come with the release of iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro and how they work within the updated Photos app.

Photos has always been the primary destination to view, edit and share photos and videos on iOS. With this Fall’s update, it has become more powerful and intuitive. I hope that these updates will allow more people to discover images that have previously been hidden in their camera rolls and make edits to them that they may have never realized were possible.

Lightning can be one of the most difficult and time consuming things to photograph. It’s hard to predict when it will hit and there’s usually adverse conditions that make it potentially dangerous.

But the results can be, well, striking.

With DSLR cameras, the standard way of photographing lightning is placing the camera on a tripod, set the shutter speed to the longest you can, under expose the and keep taking pictures. When lightning strikes, the bright flash of light will appear in the exposure. You just have to keep pressing the shutter.

How do you recreate this with a handheld iPhone? Live Photos.

I recently figured this out sitting on a plane that was delayed for two hours because of a storm. I was the only person sitting there on the runway OK with the hold up.

I was able to take these photos of lightning as I was waiting for the most intense part of the storm passed. I help the phone in position looking out the window, and when I saw lighting strike I hit the shutter. Then, I open the Edit settings of the photo and hit the Live Photo icon. From there I could pin point the exact time when lightning struck.

Note: if you are taking pictures of lightning, please be careful. One of my favorite places to set up is in parking garages.

The downside is that you don’t have any control over the exposure, so you don’t get the pure black sky and lightning bolt. There’s several apps that automatically take pictures of lightning (I’ve used iLigntningCam), but you need to have the phone stabilized and that was not an option on the plane.

But for taking pictures of lightning handheld, it’s quite remarkable. Another great use for the iPhone’s image system, something I would not have been able to do with any other camera.

There’s a really cool feature in iOS 13 that allows you to watch a series of concurrently taken Live Photo’s simultaneously as one long video.

I noticed this a few weeks ago when I was watching a Live Photo and it kept on going through the others I took. It took me a few minutes to realize what was going on.

As a bonus, you’re also able to select a group of those same Live Photos and extract them as one long video.

This is a huge feature I hadn’t heard about before stumbling upon it. I almost always shoot with Live Photos enabled in case something happens that I want to turn into a GIF later. Can’t wait to see what other hidden gems are in the release.

The days are getting longer and the temperature is rising, it’s summer in Michigan. Here are some of my favorite photos I’ve taken in the past month. Lots of beautiful sunsets and some quality time with my family’s dogs.

One of the biggest things that holds new photographers back is feeling comfortable taking a picture of something. It can feel strange to stop, take out your phone and photograph something, especially if there’s people involved, especially strangers.

I’ve learned you need to become comfortable with this, because some of the best photos will come in these moments.

Here’s a story about a tree I see on my drive to work. There’s nothing special about it, it’s like other trees. But when autumn comes, it’s leaves change to a color different than the surrounding trees. Some mornings, the sun poke through in a striking way.

I always thought: I need to stop my car, get out and photograph it. But I never did, telling myself I’d get it tomorrow, or it will always be there and I can always get a picture.

Three years later, I never taken that picture and I never will. Driving to the office today, I noticed a new building is being constructed on the piece of land. The tree is still there but the backdrop has totally changed. I will never be able to get that photo.

This is just one example, there are many more. Honestly, it hurts a little to think about the pictures that have slipped through time.

This is a part of being a photographer and will continue to happen. But, a general rule should be if something catches your attention, follow your curiosity and take a picture of it. You might never have the opportunity again.

Apple announced a whole bunch of new software on Monday during its WWDC keynote, and Camera and Photos were well represented. While many of the big new features come with the release of new iPhones in the fall, there was a good amount announced for

I played around with the new iOS — I installed the beta last night and used it for 12 hours before switching back (I got scared).

Here’s a quick overview of what’s coming for photographers in iOS 13. Watch the full keynote here, the section on Camera and Photos begins around the 48 minute mark.

Camera

Portrait Lighting

The one big addition that is coming to the Camera app has to do with Portrait Mode’s Portrait Lighting. These are the filters you can apply to Portrait photos. There is a new High Key Mono mode, which looks stunning. You will also be able to change the intensity of light in the different modes.

Apple

Photos

Photo Editing

The editing interface has been redesigned in photos. It looks more suited for smaller screens and more detailed. Instead of having a text based menu, it appears it is more visual.

There are also new areas of the photo that you can edit:

• Vibrance
• White Balanace
• Sharpen
• Definition
• Vignette
• Noise reduction

Apple

These are huge updates for editing — vibrance is one of my favorite adjustments, white balance can really make a photo stand out and vignettes will be amazing to have for portraits. I can’t wait for these.

Video editing

All of this is coming to video, according to Apple. Finally, you can do more to a video than just trim it! iOS 13 will allow users to rotate video, apply filters and make other adjustments like you can for photos.

Apple

Organization

The organization of photos is the most noticeable change of iOS 13. There is a redesigned front tab called Photos, which will use machine learning to remove the clutter, such as receipts and white board shots. Craig said it becomes a “diary of your life.”

Photos will take the best photos and organize them in a grid, including videos and Live Photo’s that will auto play. When you go out to the Months view, photos will be organized by events in that time period.

The Years view gives a birdseye view of your library based on the day you are viewing them. Some examples given by Justin Titi included showing photos from the same time of year based on your current situation. In the examples showed, photos from previous WWDC conferences and his daughter’s birthday appear. This is something like TimeHop for photos. Titi said it “brings your library to life” and “makes it easier to browse the greatest hits of your library with one view.” I can’t wait to use it over the course of a year.

This looks like a huge update to Photos. If the iPhone XS was a step forward into computational photography, this seems to be one for computational photo management. In my limited time using it, it felt different than previous versions but I’m excited to spend more time browsing my library with it. Pair all of this with Dark Mode and Photos becomes an even more powerful tool.

The questions I have: Does it automatically give suggestions to delete these duplicate photos? Will it sync across devices?

Apple

Let’s use it!

iOS 13 will come out in the Fall when new iPhones are released. There is currently a developer beta, but Apple strongly warns against “thrill seekers” using it. There will be a public beta in July, and I can’t wait to install it and start using it.

I’m starting a new monthly feature highlighting my favorite photos I’ve taken with my iPhone.

This month, I fell back in love with shooting in black and white. I never really used the built in filters in the Camera app, but my girlfriend sent me some photos using the build-in Silvertone filter and have fallen in love. There’s something about seeing the world without color as you are taking pictures that really has gotten my creativity flowing.

Check out my Instagram @fritzklug for more photos as I take them. Enjoy!

I recently presented at Kalamazoo Social Media Week. It’s a great conference full of local Kalamazoo marketing folks. It’s always fun to meet the people behind the brands we follow digitally and hear what works for them.

The goal of my presentation was to give actionable tips for taking better photos and video with just your mobile phone. Here are the tips I touched on during my presentation, with links to corresponding articles here on the site.

Here’s a link to the slides.

Thanks to everyone who attended and the organizers for inviting me to speak!

See updates from questions asked during the presentation down below.

Visual storytelling and capturing moments

What makes a good photo or video? Composition, yes. Exposure, definitely. But what will make your work stand out is capturing moments. Those are the short snippets of life that evoke emotion.

Think about all the photos and videos that mean something to you.

Moments happen every day as people react to the world around them. Friends seeing each other after a long time. Someone receiving good news. Laughing at a joke. Seeing something beautiful or exciting for the first time.

These moments are what you want to capture. Look at photographs that are interesting to you. What makes them stick out?

These moments tell compelling stories and are the core to the content you will create.

Once you start identifying moments, you can start anticipating them. Think about what happens before they happen. This allows you to get your camera ready and in position. The more you do it, the better you will get.

Your mobile phone camera

Limitations of your mobile phone

• Since the sensor is smaller, low light photos will not be captured as well as larger cameras.
• In low light, images might be more blurry too.
• With a smaller lens, there is no optical zoom — it’s all software. So unless you have a camera with multiple lenses, zooming won’t help.
• So how can you zoom in? The zoom you always have with your your feet. If I see something far away, I grab a quick picture of it and then move closer.

Strengths of your mobile phone

• Great for natural day light
• Works well when you are close to your subject or shooting landscape photos

Shooting

Look at light

Photography is all about capturing light. When you take a picture of video clip, look around at the light. Where is it coming from? How is it bouncing off of your subject. How does it change when you move your camera around? These are some things to think about.

Framing your shot

After light, framing your shot is the most important part of photography and videography. You don’t need a camera to do this. Think about what you are seeing, what’s in the frame, and how you can change it to best convey what you are seeing. More on the Rule of Thirds.

Holding your camera

Once you have an understanding of the light and frame of your shot, how you hold your camera will impact the quality of your images. Check out this blog post for more information on holding your camera.

Portrait Mode

Modern phone camera systems have something called Portrait Mode. This creates a bookah effect that is common in DSLR cameras with a portrait lens. This does a great job but there can be issues with it that make your images look fake. Always shoot a few shots with the regular mode before jumping over. Given it’s a software effect, it sometimes can come off a little fake.

Using the flash

I seldom use my flash. In fact, I recommend turning it off on your phone all together. Why is that?

• takes people out of the moment
• takes a long time to take the photo — no rapid fire
• looks unnatural
• for most low light situations the camera is powerful enough to capture and you can bring out the colors and light afterwards

Working with people

Working with people is an important part of photogrpahy and videography. Here are some tips for working with people:

• Make they feel comfortable
• Talk to them as you are taking pictures
• Show them what you are taking
• Send them photos when you are done

Video tips

• Use Do Not Disturb and Airplane Mode when shooting videos and streaming a live video (link)
• Record more than you think: Count to 10 (Link)

Video gear

Here is some basic video gear to help with longer videos and interviews.

• AmazonBasics 60-Inch Lightweight Tripod with Bag
• Vastar Universal Smartphone Tripod Adapter
• Rode smartLav+ Omnidirectional Lavalier Microphone
• Rode VideoMic Me Compact TRRS Cardioid Mini-Shotgun Microphone for Smartphones

Play around with different modes

Once you grab a photo or video, try out some of the different modes on your camera. A photo is fine, but a animated GIF or timelapse video could be a lot more compelling and engaging.

Clean your lens

This may seem simple, but clean the lens on your camera! A device you hold frequently, the camera can get smudges on it. Clean it frequently with a lens cloth or a soft shirt.

Editing

I did not focus too much about editing photos and videos in my presentation — that’s a whole separate presentation within itself. Here are some great resources on editing photos and videos

Editing photos

Here is a great tutorial of the basics of editing photos from REI.

Editing videos

For video editing, here are some tips from How Stuff Works and The DIY Video Editor.

My secret tip: Look through your camera

This is hard to describe how this works, but when filming look through your camera at what your recording. Basically, don’t focus on the phone and holding it straight but at the subject you’re recording. I find this mindset helps a lot to cut down on shaking.

Working on deadlines

Spend 10 minutes getting a safe shot and then experiment. A former colleauge taught me this. When you go out on a shoot, spend the first 10 minutes of your hypthetical time getting a safe photo that will work for what you are doing. No matter what happens, you’ve completed the job. With the rest of your time, experiment, try something new. You might strike out but more times than not you’ll get the best content this way, and if you fall flat you already have something you can use.

Your questions and answers

• Lens attachments: Moment makes a great company to check out if you want to play around with different lenses.
• Foldio portable Lightbox for product shots (link)
• Handheld gimbal: I really like the OSMO Mobile 2 from DJI – good value. I always carry a Glif and handheld grip every day.
• Get portrait mode on any phone: - Point Blur & LiveFocus (I’ll play around with these to see how they work)
• Video editing apps for your phone: iMovie, LumaFusion, Adobe Clip, Adobe Rush

If there was one basic rule to taking better photos with your iPhone, what would it be?

Over the weekend, I was listening a recent episode of John Gruber’s The Talk Show with guest Merlin Mann and the subject came up.

The most basic rule of photography is to have the light behind you, they said.

This is something that I do all the time and never thought about in such basic terms. If there was just one rule to follow, this is it.

When the light is shining on the front of your subject, it is fully illuminated and all of the colors are highlighted.

When you take a picture of something and there is light behind them, either they become dark and the background will come through, or the subject will be fine and the background will be blown out.

Now, are there times where you break this, of course. Photographs of food look better when light is coming from the front. And sometimes the whole point of the photo is to capture both the subject and the background.

If someone is at a baseball park, for example, you want the field in the background and not the stands. Of a sunset, you want to have it behind the people. There is a quick way to address this: turn on the flash. This will brighten up the front and

I would only really recommend this outside during the day or at sunset, otherwise the flash will make the photo look like you are, well, using a flash. Sometimes, this is what people want, but looks unnatural.

Keep the light behind you is particularly important on iPhones. Sometimes when someone asks you to take a quick picture, you need to act fast. And with you camera in your pocket, it could come at any moment. Look at where the light is coming from and have your subject facing it, so the light is shining on them.

While computational photography is getting better and better on the iPhone, especially with the introduction of Smart HDR on the iPhones XS and XR, this basic rule is still important. The new phones are better than any other phone, and even some big, fancy DSLRs, and quickly gathering multiple levels of exposure, but it doesn’t always work.

As with any basic rule, there is a long list of exceptions, but if you’re just starting out or are in pinch, start here.

Some really nice photos here. A testament to not only the power of the iPhone camera system, but the photographers who use it. The comments from the judges also provides good insight to what makes the photos stand out.

Fresh, white snow offers a simple contrast to shadows and golden hour colors from the sun.

These cold winter months in the Midwest can be brutal, but they sure are great for photography.

While it’s often cloudy this time of year, fresh snow becomes a blank, white canvas when the sun comes out, offering contrast for shadows and soaks up colors cast from the sun’s light.

If you live in an area that has winter, pay attention to how snow acts like a mirror reflecting light. During the middle of the day, harsh light bounces right back up, making it brighter than it gets in the summer. But at sunrise and sunset, the golden colors in the sky are reflected on the snow, transforming the landscape with an full warmth.

Shadows are my favorite in the winter — they appear longer than at other times of the year. The earth is tilted (which causes winter) and the sun is lower, casting shadows that stretch far. Having these contrasted against fresh white snow, it’s stunning. I think of it as a natural black and white photo, but in color.

Especially here in Michigan, where the weather seems to change every 15 minutes, I am often caught off guard by the beauty of the winter, which is why most of the photos were shot with my iPhone. I often don’t need to do anything special in the camera, especially at sunset, but sometimes I need to set my exposure for the snow. If it’s really bright outside, the image can be overexposed and blown own.

Mix the long shadows with the colors from a sunset, winter offers some of my favorite  stunning images, no filter needed.