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My favourite iPhone photography hack It works best for macro but can give you a slightly different perspective for regular photos too

Week 159.0 — 9th November '20

The best camera is the one you have with you. As the cameras on our phones improve, there's very little reason to invest in dedicated hardware and it's easy to forget to even bring anything you have along with you. Even more so as computational photography really begins to shine.

Sometimes though, you find yourself in a spot taking a photo and you just can't get the angle right or position the item in a way that is flattering. There's an easy fix for that, one I don't think many people think about.

Just turn your phone upside down!

It's really that simple. I do this whenever I need to get up close and personal with something that might be sitting on a table but there are a couple of other scenarios where it works too.

One is when you're taking photos of something low down, rather than struggling to get low enough, turning your phone so the camera lens sits at the bottom buys you another 5-6 inches.

The other is for other photos where you're taking photos of people. It all depends on your height and the height of the subject. Again, you can spend some time getting down low to fit everyone in at a flattering angle but just turning the phone upside down will buy you those crucial inches that really make the difference.

Show me! Does it really work?

Here are 3 photos. One is taken with the 2x camera on the iPhone, held upright. The middle one was taken with the 1x camera with the iPhone upside down and resting on the table. The last photo was also taken upside down but with the 2x camera.

photo examples when using the phone the correct way and upside down

And here's the camera interface when taking a photo, you can see that all of the icons and buttons are have rotated and appear the right way up, so the orientation is taken into account when the photo is saved. The labels for the various modes stay as they were.

iOS camera app interface, used upside down

What's your favourite mobile photography hack? Let me know on Twitter @cchana or @1thingaweeek.

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Notable

Quick links and commentary on interesting articles, videos and more throughout the week.

  1. 159.1 – Monday
    1. Alfa Romeo Giulia GT Electric blessthisstuff.com
    2. Moon over ISS Derek Demeter on apod.nasa.gov
  2. 159.2 – Tuesday
    1. 200,000 Faces mkorostoff.github.io
  3. 159.3 – Wednesday
    1. Tesla Tequila   $250 shop.tesla.com
    2. 1989 Batmobile desk clock   $29,900 kross-studio.ch
  4. 159.4 – Thursday
    1. Set in the Present xkcd.com
  5. 159.5 – Friday
    1. "We Are The Champions" trailer Netflix on youtube.com

Jump to notable items for Week #158, Week #160 , view the notable archive or my favourites.

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