Shoot—or at least end up with—snappier pictures with the built in camera.

Fill the Frame

Devote a reasonable percentage of the frame to your subject. The iPhone’s camera captures images at 1,600x1,200 pixels. That’s big enough for photos intended for the screen, but just at the threshold for a good 4x6 print. If you decide to crop out part of the photo later, you’ll lose resolution when printing at the same size. Fill the frame to make the most of the pixels you intend to keep.

Zoom with Your Feet

If you can’t get your subject to come closer to you, move closer to your subject. Since the iPhone is so thin, there’s no place to store a zoom lens like on a stand-alone cameras. Zoom with your feet, if necessary. Carl Zeiss has nothing on Chuck Taylor.

Shoot in Well-Lit Areas

Make sure your subject has enough light. With no on-iPhone flash, the camera’s sensor has to work a lot harder to take photos, resulting in noise—multicolored dot patters—filling the image. That doesn’t mean you can’t create good low-light, artistic photos with the iPhone. It just means that if you’re indoors and try to shoot a photo of your friend, you should either look for ways to light your friend’s face, or go outdoors during the day.

If it’s sunny out, try standing with the sun to your back, so more light hits your subject. You may have to tap Settings > Brightness and crank it all the way up to see the viewfinder in the sunlight.

Properly Expose Photos

Click image to embiggen

The iPhone compensates for low light by making the image sensor work harder, leaving the virtual shutter open longer. This extra time lets in more light, but can also cause moving subjects to blur. When taking a photo indoors, hold the camera as still as possible, and tell your subject to make like a statue.

When a light source is in the photo, the iPhone sets its exposure for a brighter scene. This can cause problems indoors when your subject is backlit by a window on a sunny day; the iPhone will expose for the window, making your subject a mere silhouette. Get closer to the subject to compensate.

Keep the Lens Clean

That cleaning cloth that you use on the glass face of the iPhone also works on the lens. Use it once in a while to prevent photos from appearing unnecessarily cloudy.

Check out our other iPhone University subjects:
Instant Interface - Learn input secrets for any situation.
Email Expertise - Manage, send, and receive messages easier than ever
iTunes - Make your music library and iPhone sing together.
Troubleshooting - If your iPhone acts up, here's how to take action.