camera

OK, today’s MacBook setup doesn’t actually live in a camera and Lego museum like the headline on this post suggests — but close enough. The user is clearly a collector. The sheer number of cameras on display is impressive, and the Lego Star Wars spaceships flying up high on a shelf in the photo inspire some awe, too. And it’s not every day we see a dual-MacBook setup with both mounted open on stands, either.

The Photographic Styles feature built into your iPhone’s camera can give your pictures a radically different aesthetic. And once you nail down your personal photo style or styles, you can make sure all your pictures use these specific filters. And on a newer iPhone, you can edit them after the fact.

Photographic Styles can save you the time you’d waste editing your pictures in Instagram or VSCO. Since they live in the iPhone’s camera and in Apple’s Photos app, you can see them while you’re shooting your pictures, too. Read on to see how to edit your photos in these different styles or watch our video below.

You should get comfortable with the world’s handiest camera so you can capture memories that will last a lifetime. After all, more and more people are leaving behind family point-and-shoot cameras for the smartphones in their pockets. With our iPhone photography tips, you won’t need the latest and greatest in your pocket.

If you know the ins and outs of photography, you can make the most out of a years-old camera. In fact, the winner of the 2020 iPhone Photography Awards took the prize-winning picture on an iPhone 4!

No matter what phone you have, check out these pointers for the casual and curious. And watch our video to see them in action.

Camo is a powerful app that lets you use your iPhone, and any connected USB camera, as a webcam for your Mac. I use it every week to record videos and livestream podcasts. The camera built into the MacBook — and even the high-end Studio Display — just doesn’t compare to the clarity and quality of an iPhone camera.

Apple built a basic version of this feature into macOS and called it Continuity Camera. But like most apps that have been sherlocked, Camo goes above and beyond with powerful tools and pro features.

Camo also works with Windows PCs, Android phones and most modern cameras, not just Macs and iPhones.

Those tiny, cryptic symbols on clothing tags and car dashboards can confuse anyone. However, your iPhone camera can quickly decipher the meaning of laundry symbols and dashboard icons. You don’t need to look up a guide or Google their meaning. Just take a picture and your iPhone will tell you.

While in my testing the iPhone didn’t identify every single symbol, the feature will do in a pinch. And if you want to use a third-party app for the best possible results, I can recommend two that I found on the App Store that can help you.

The dual-camera system in the two basic iPhone models is an unnecessary complication. The iPhone’s secondary Ultra Wide camera simply doesn’t get used enough to justify building it into a handset.

Apple should focus entirely on the primary camera — the only one most people ever use. The iPhone’s Ultra Wide camera just adds unnecessary bulk and expense.

Recover and undelete lost photos from an SD card with Stellar Photo Recovery Premium, a versatile tool that can rescue your work from corrupt files and formatting.

The worst nightmare of every content creator is getting back to your Mac, plugging in your SD card, only to find all your work from a photo shoot is missing.

Stellar Photo Recovery can save the heartache. This tool for Mac and PC can restore photos and videos that have been deleted or corrupted from all kinds of storage media and all major cameras.

It’s available from Stellar’s website with a free trial. The Premium version typically costs $69.99, but Cult of Mac readers get an extra $10 discount.

You can scan and open a QR code directly from your iPhone camera or a picture — you don’t have to download a third-party app. Here are the three ways you can open them: inside the camera, using a shortcut in Control Center and directly from your photo library. 

If you’re in a restaurant and you want to open their digital menu, or you’re setting up two-factor authentication using a code, you don’t want to fiddle with installing an app. This functionality is built right into your phone.

Keep reading or watch our short video.

It’s taken a while to fully unpack and understand the technical improvements to the cameras in the iPhone 14 Pro. Camera nerd Sebastiaan de With, co-founder and designer of the highly-respected Halide camera app, has written a detailed review of the improvements to the camera system.

His professional opinion? These are not just great iPhone cameras, they’re great cameras, period.

The iPhone 14 Pro can take incredible 48-megapixel photos that capture eagle-eye details at incredibly high resolution. To take 48MP pictures, you need to shoot in Apple’s ProRAW format, which pairs the lossless RAW format preferred by professional photographers with the iPhone’s computational photography data.

This means that your iPhone 14 Pro is capturing all of the sensor data, and the results can be stunning — better than anything possible with any previous iPhone. (The iPhone 13 Pro captured ProRAW images, but only sported a 12MP camera.)

ProRAW captures images at 8064 × 6048 resolution. That means you can crop in really far on your pictures and keep everything pixel-perfect. You can print your images on a huge 26-inch by 20-inch poster, even at a professional-quality 300 DPI. The high-resolution images also give you more control during the editing process, so you can tweak your most important images to your heart’s content.

There are some caveats, though. Images with ProRAW enabled take up three times the storage space, for one. And shooting pictures like this takes a little longer. (The image capture isn’t as instantaneous as we’re used to.) And for everyday snapshots, ProRAW results might even be less satisfying than simply letting the iPhone perform its computational photography magic.

Read on to see how it all works so you can start taking 48MP photos with your iPhone 14 Pro, then edit them effectively.

A previous leak had already indicated that the iPhone 14 Pro Max will have a sizable hump, but new specs show the entire device is going to be… well, huge. But it’s all supposedly part of a significant improvement in camera specs.

These leaked specs also reveal other iPhone 14 Pro Max details, like the size and positioning of the new “hole and pill” design allegedly replacing the notch.

You have from now until the end of March to enter your most amazing iPhone or iPad photographs to compete in the 15th annual edition of the iPhone Photography Awards. As in past years, for the 2022 contest you submit your pics through the group’s website.

Apple Support premiered on Wednesday a video with helpful iPhone tips. Sit back, take a few minutes and learn something new you can do with your handset.

With ten tips — plus bonus ones — there’s sure to be something here you didn’t know.

If you’d like a distinctively cute case for your favorite earbuds and an extra layer of security, you might try the new Elago Snapshot Cover for AirPods Pro. It makes the case look like a tiny camera with an AirTag for a lens.

Smart home hardware maker Arlo recently released an iOS app software update to fix a bug. It kept users from adding the company’s smart devices to Apple’s HomeKit system.

Apple’s newest iOS 15 beta automatically removes lens flare in iPhone photos. The feature, first spotted by testers, appears to work under certain conditions as part of the Camera app’s post processing tricks.

A Kickstarter campaign pushes a new iPhone camera grip and MagSafe case combo called the Fjorden. It promises to turn your iPhone into a DSLR camera — while still fitting in your pocket. Its physical camera controls might make a lot of photographers very happy.

Want to capture a low-light photo without using the Night mode feature on newer iPhone models? It’s real easy to turn off right inside the built-in Camera app. We’ll show you how.

You’ve probably noticed that your iPhone stops playing music as soon as you switch to Video mode inside its Camera app, which prevents you from easily adding a soundtrack to your recordings. But there is a simple trick that lets you shoot video while your music continues to play.

The trick works in all versions of iOS 14 (including the latest iOS 14.5 betas) and requires no third-party apps. We’ll show you how to use it.

The iPhone will get a periscopic telephoto lens in 2023, TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claims in a new research note seen by Cult of Mac.

Although Kuo doesn’t provide much in the way of details, this would greatly improve the zoom capabilities of the iPhone. Currently the best iPhone for camera zoom is the iPhone 12 Pro Max. That handset features a 2.5x optical zoom in, and 2x optical zoom out. Digital zoom goes up to 12x.

A periscope zoom could increase this significantly. For example, the 2019-era Huawei P30 Pro and Oppo Reno offer 10x zoom capabilities using a periscope lens.

Apple won’t upgrade the seven-element primary lens assembly seen in the iPhone 12 until at least 2023, claims reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

The analyst revealed this in a Friday note to investors, stating that Apple isn’t planning on upgrading the lens system for the iPhone for either of the next two big handset upgrades. The seven-element lens was introduced with the iPhone 12, featuring a wider ƒ/1.6 aperture. This results in better low-light images.

Yujingguang, a.k.a Genius Electronic Optical, has denied that there are problems with the iPhone 12 camera lenses.

TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo previously suggested that some of the coatings for the wide-angle lens produced by the company had cracked during a high-pressure, high-humidity stress test by Apple.

However, Genius maintains that its production is running without issues. It also said that demand from its “brand handset clients” (which reportedly include Apple) remain normal.

The top-end iPhone 12 Pro could support 4K at 120fps and 4K at 240fps video recording modes, claims a new video from Filip Koroy of EverythingApplePro. If accurate, this would be massive step up from the current iPhone 11 Pro, which offers 240fps in 1080p.

Koroy reportedly found evidence of the new high resolution, slow-mo format in the iOS 14 beta code. Whether this is accurate remains to be seen. If it is, it would be far above what is available in other smartphone models right now. It would also make it likely that Apple will sell a shedload of high storage handsets this year — or way more iCloud subscriptions.

Apple took away the ability to hold down the Camera app’s shutter button to capture burst photos in iOS 13, but the functionality is still alive and well. You just need to know this sweet trick to use it.

The iPhone SE does a great job of taking the body of the iPhone 8 and infusing it with some of iPhone 11’s cutting-edge tech. But not every feature carried across to Apple’s new budget phone. For instance, the iPhone SE lacks the ability to take Portrait photos of pets.

That’s somewhat confusing, since iPhone SE’s Portrait mode works impressively. Fortunately, updates to a pair of highly rated apps will let iPhone SE owners take Portrait photos of nonhumans for just a few bucks.