Lesson 10 · 7 min read
The best camera is the one already in your pocket
Modern phones make excellent photos if you stop letting them decide everything. A handful of habits — locking focus, choosing the right lens, cleaning the glass — closes most of the gap with a big camera.
Pocket lint and fingerprints cause most hazy phone photos. Wipe the glass first. Then tap your subject to focus and hold to lock it, and drag up or down to set brightness before you shoot.
Try it at home: Photograph a backlit window scene twice: once auto, once after tapping the face and dragging exposure up.
Switching to the 2x or 3x lens gives a genuine optical image. Pinching past that is just cropping and softening the photo. If you need to get closer, walk closer.
Enable the grid for composition, shoot in the highest-quality format your phone offers, and try ProRAW or RAW if you plan to edit. For video, choose 4K at 24 or 30fps for normal work and 60fps or higher only when you want slow motion.
Brace your elbows on something solid or use a mini tripod. For interviews, use wired or wireless earbuds as a microphone, or record a second audio track on another phone placed close to the speaker.
Try it at home: Record the same sentence with the phone at arm's length, then with a phone a foot from your mouth. The difference is dramatic.
Practice project
Get five genuinely good photos and one clean 30-second video with only a phone.
Open the printable card →Tap an answer — you'll see right away if it's correct.
Your phone photos look hazy in every shot. First thing to check:
Pinching to zoom past the phone's longest lens gives you…
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