8 Tips for Shooting Better Travel Photos On Your iPhone

iPhone cameras are a hot topic in the photography world — they’re a tool widely used and loved, and something we never leave the house without. Technically, you should never miss a shot again.

If you want to achieve better photography results without spending extra on equipment or carrying separate camera bodies, your iPhone is a powerful tool... right at your fingertips, ready for everyday use.

In this article, I’m going to go over some of my favorite tips to help you capture the moment, whatever your travels might entail, with just your iPhone at hand. But before even opening the iPhone camera, there are a few things to configure in the settings app that will improve the usability and final outcome of your phone’s images.

People often assume the iPhone camera works best straight out of the box. Let me show you why taking a few extra steps first makes all the difference... and how to get started.

Settings to Optimize the iPhone Camera

Tip #1 - Turn On the Grid

Composition is key to a great photograph, especially when shooting landscapes or street photography.

The best thing to help in-camera with this is turning on the grid to have a visual of the rule of thirds.

The grid lines will help you line up buildings or a lone subject in a vast landscape to nail the composition.

Tip #2 - Change the Image Quality

Ensure you are shooting at 24-megapixels (MP) and not 12MP; this gives you a bit more resolution to play with for a higher quality image.

This is a must if you are going to be editing your photography too, you’ll want as much information in the file as possible to ensure a clean edit.

Tip #3 - Switch to ProRAW

Toggle your ProRAW and Resolution Control to ON, this won’t stay on for every photograph, but depending on which camera the system is using, you can have up to 48-megapixel files.

So akin to the point above, you’ll have a higher resolution image which will not only look better but make editing easier.

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Tip #4 - Lens Correction

Turn ON lens correction, when you use the 0.5mm wide angle camera, this will correct the warping at the edges of the frame to give you a much cleaner final look.

This wide angle lens is great for epic rolling landscapes or cityscapes like NYC where the buildings don’t quite fit into your regular 1x framing.

Tip #5 - Use HEIF files

Under ‘Formats’, switch your photo file format from JPEG to HEIF. This means that your photographs are high-efficiency files that shoot in 10-bit color, delivering higher image quality despite final file sizes that are much smaller than JPEGs. Now, you not only have a higher dynamic range and better colours, but you also have more storage space on your iPhone.

Now that your iPhone’s camera is optimized to shoot, we can get into some tips to put into practice when you’re actually out on your travels, whether that's a city break, a mountain adventure, or a beach holiday.

Tip #6 - Utilize 2x Zoom

This feature on iPhone has been a game-changer for me. It uses the same lens as the regular 1x camera, but it takes the standard 12 megapixels of the 48 megapixel sensor and crops in.

The crop essentially gives you a 50mm lens and adds a bit more compression to the image. This is perfect for when you’re shooting portraits of loved ones or animals, or for an aesthetic picture of a dinner setup.

Tip #7 - Pick a Photographic Style

Though this tip is technically thought of before you’ve opened the camera app, it plays a huge role in your ease of use with the camera on your travels.

If you like an edit on your photographs but don’t want to spend time editing your iPhone's travel snaps, picking a ‘style’ like warm or moody tones will let you photograph with that setting on. You can essentially shoot with a filter already built in, kind of like a Fujifilm recipe, which is perfect for every kind of shoot.

The best part about these is that you can change it after, take a quick snap, and it turned out a bit too warm? Using Apple’s built-in editing feature, you can change the style post-capture.

Tip #8 - Use the Exposure Slider

When you have the camera app open and are on the screen, a small yellow square with a small sun to the right will appear. When you tap the sun, a line will appear, and you can slide it up to increase exposure or down to underexpose.

I frequently use my iPhone when photographing hotels, as they often require me to post photos on Instagram Stories while I am there. When using an iPhone inside, people will often find their windows have been completely overexposed to compensate for the darker interiors.

I’ll usually tap the window to bring up the square and expose the image to the window's light, then edit the image afterwards to bring out the shadows and “reveal” the image underneath.

This way, you can always perfectly capture your room with a view!

BONUS TIP - Use 3rd Party Camera Apps

There are plenty of 3rd party camera apps which will actually enhance your experience with the iPhones camera and allow you to do a lot more.

Moment has it’s own app, Moment Pro Camera II, that will allow you to fine tune the camera and use it in a much more comprehensive manual way, giving you more control of the final look of your images.

Though this isn’t a necessity, they allow so much more control over the camera which helps you to decide how your final travel images will look, rather than the built in AI.

Download the app here!