8 easy ways to take better photos with your iPhone

With more than 700 million currently in use worldwide, it's safe to say there's an iPhone in quite a few pockets these days. Many of us carry our iPhones everywhere and often use them to snap photos, so here are some tips on how to get the most out of your device's camera. Tap to focus Make sure you take the photo you really want by focusing in on what you want to highlight. When getting ready to take a picture, tap on something in your shot (whether it's in the foreground or the background) to bring into focus. If you want to make sure the focus stays on that point, hold your thumb or finger down for a few seconds, and the auto focus lock indicator will appear. Panoramas Perfect for taking gorgeous landscape photos, the panorama function in the iPhone camera allows you capture much wider shots than your phone's camera would normally allow. To use it, simply open up the camera app, swipe right until you reach the 'Pano' setting and then follow the instructions on-screen to take your panorama. As well as taking panoramas by moving your camera from left to right, you can also move it up and down to photograph tall structures in their entirety. Tap your screen to focus in on the subject of your photo (Photo: Shutterstock) Turn off your flash One of the easiest ways to make your photographs look better and more natural is to turn off your camera's inbuilt flash. Do this in the camera app by tapping the lighting bolt icon and selecting 'Off'. Manually increase or decrease brightness Instead of relying on flash to brighten your pictures, you can subtly increase the light in your photos by adjusting the exposure. When taking a photo, tap the screen and a sun icon will appear. Hold your thumb or finger down and slide up to make the photo brighter. You can also slide down to decrease the brightness, if you are taking the photo on a very sunny day, for example. Use your grid lines Make sure your photos are straight by turning on the camera grid feature. Go to 'Settings', 'Camera' and then hit the 'Grid' button to see a faint grid on the screen when you open the camera app. You can also use this feature to apply the photography concept of the rule of thirds to your images. Use the volume buttons on your iPhone to snap a selfie easily (Photo: Shutterstock) Use your volume buttons to take selfies If you are struggling to take a photo of yourself using the the on-screen shutter button, you might be interested to know that you can also press the volume buttons on the side of your iPhone to snap a selfie. Capture a burst of action If you have an iPhone 6 or later, you can hold your finger down on the shutter button to capture multiple pictures very close together. Your phone will then group these photos together in a 'burst' - automatically blending them into one combined image, but still allowing you to select your favourite snap. This function is especially useful if you are taking action shots of people moving which might end up blurry if taken as a standard photo. Portrait mode Thanks to their dual camera lens, the iPhone 7 Plus, 8 Plus and X models offer a 'portrait' mode which adds a depth effect to your photos. This means that when taking a photo of a person or object, the background will appear in soft focus, but the subject of your photo will be crisp and clear. The result is an expert-looking snap that many people will think has been taken with a much more professional camera.