Lesson 1: Know the limit of your camera, and don’t even try to push pass it, or you’ll just be disappointed.

Small cameras are known for their low dynamic range, so to get the most out of this sunset, I took two images at different exposure and merged them together with Pro HDR, right on the phone.  This increased the dynamic range to at least 8 stops, making it equal to that of a dSLR.  Then a bit of contrast and saturation boost completed the look.

Lesson 2: Post Processing

This picture came out very bland at first, but a few tweaks in TiltShiftGen made it marginally passable.  There are enough apps in the Apple Appstore to edit your photo into oblivion and back.  Some of my favorite apps are Pro HDR, TiltShiftGen and Best Camera.

Lesson 3: Color

What the tiny camera lacks in light-gathering ability, it makes up by upping the vibrancy.  iPhone photos are usually a lot more vibrant and contrasty than what you get out of a high-end dSLR.  Use this to your advantage.

Lesson 4: Bokeh

You CAN throw the background out of focus even on a tiny sensor like the iPhone camera, but only if you are shooting in macro.  Just be patient with the focus, it can take a while to get the razor sharp image that you wanted.

That’s all for now, I am still discovering the capability of the iPhone camera.  Let me know if you have any tips regarding digital photography.

Canon EF 100mm F2 @ F22

EF 50mm F1.4

You’ll notice the shape of the flare is very different for different lenses, and also the aperture size(F-stop setting) plays a big part in defining the shape of the flare as well.  In general, large f-number(F22) gives a more defined star-burst shape to the flare, while a small f-number (F1.4) gives a softer looking flare.

Anamorphic lens flares, which looks ‘cooler’ in my opinion, are harder to reproduce on a regular consumer camera because they require special anamorphic lenses.