Taking Your Best Shot
As with many apps on the iPhone, you find the Camera app icon on the Home screen. Unless you moved things around, the Camera app is positioned on the upper row of icons, all the way to the right and adjacent to its next of kin, the Photos icon. You tap both icons throughout this chapter.
Might as well snap an image now:
1. On the Home screen, tap the Camera app icon. Or from the Lock screen, double-tap Home and then flick the Camera icon on the bottom-right corner of the screen in an upward motion.
These actions turn the iPhone into the rough equivalent of a Kodak Instamatic, minus the film, of course.
2. Keep your eyes fixed on the iPhone display.
The first thing you notice on the screen is something resembling a closed camera shutter. But that shutter opens in about a second on the iPhone 4 and in a snap (couldn’t resist) on the 4S and 5, revealing a window into what the camera lens sees.
3. Aim the camera at whatever you want to shoot, using the iPhone’s display as your viewfinder.
You get a brilliant 3 1⁄2-inch display on older models, or a widescreen 4-inch display on the iPhone 5.
We marvel at the display throughout this book; the Camera app gives us another reason to do so.
Make sure the switch at the bottom-right corner of the screen is set to camera mode rather than video mode. (The switch appears in the upper-right corner of the screen if you orient the iPhone in landscape, or a sideways, position). The on-screen switch is under the little picture of a camera rather than the little picture of a video camera.
4. When you’re satisfied with what’s in the frame, do one of the following to snap the picture:
• Tap the icon that resembles a camera at the bottom of the screen (see Figure 9-1) to snap the picture. The camera icon is on the right if you hold the iPhone sideways. As we show you in a moment, you’ll be able to change the point of focus if necessary.
Figure 9-1: Say “Cheese.”
If you have trouble keeping the camera steady, try this trick. Rather than tap the camera icon at the bottom of the screen, keep your finger pressed against the icon and release it only when you’re ready to snap an image.
Be careful. The camera icon is directly above the Home button. We’ve seen more than one iPhone user erroneously press the Home button instead.
• Press the volume up button. We generally consider this method a better way of shooting because it mimics the experience of capturing photos with a regular camera. If you’re an iPhone traditionalist, however, don’t let us stop you from continuing to use the on-screen camera button method.
On the iPhone 4, you may experience momentary shutter lag, so be sure to remain still. On the iPhone 4S and 5, thanks partly to their zippier chips, shutter lag is no longer something to worry about. When the shutter reopens, you see the image you shot, but just for a sec. The screen again functions as a viewfinder so that you can capture your next image. That’s it: You’ve snapped your first iPhone picture.
5. Repeat Steps 3 and 4 to capture additional images.
If you position the iPhone sideways while snapping an image, the picture is saved in landscape mode.
In our experience, the iPhone camera button on the screen is supersensitive. We have accidentally taken a few rotten snapshots because of it. Be careful: A gentle tap is all that’s required to snap an image.