iPhone 101: Take decent photos

If you think about it take on release makes very good photographic sense.

The phone being light is difficult to hold still, especially if you have any shake in your hands. Pressing and holding let's you frame the shot. then gently releasing let's the shot be taken without camera movement. If it worked the other way around the act of touching the shutter button will always jar the camera a little. This is cleverly avoided.

Cool, I've added this tip to my flickr group, "Photos taken with an Apple iPhone" at http://urltea.com/12x6

@5 : That, added to Dave's tap/hold makes much better photos! Very nice. Thanks =)

Ah man, I should have known this. This will make it much easier to take self portraits.

A lot of computer controls don't do anything until you release the button. It's a little unusual for phones but I think that may be the best alternative when you don't have a three-state button.

Here's a tip that I came across by accident. Since I was unhappy with the quality of snaps using the button on the bottom of the phone, I turned the phone upside down so the button could be reached by my right thumb. I thought that I would just rotate the shot if I liked it. Turns out Apple already thought of that and flipped it for me. Also pay close attention to the camera icon on the shutter button...it rotates as the phone does.

Although I do hope some upgrades certainly come to the camera software when you can hold it steady it takes pretty nice pics. Much better than any other phone that I've used.

Nice article Dave. This is good to know! Thanks. =)

They need to patch in the ability to use the volume up/down button as a shutter switch. That is my most requested iPhone feature. I really don't need to adjust my ringer volume while taking photos, so please just let me use that button for the shutter. It's in the ideal spot for taking landscape photos.