Finding Your Way Around the Camera App
Okay. New module. We spent four lessons on light because light is the whole game, and I meant that, but now I want you to actually open your camera app and figure out what's in there.
Here's the thing. Most people use maybe three features of their camera app and don't know the other twelve exist. That's fine, honestly, you don't need all twelve. But there are a few I want you to find today, because we're going to use them constantly for the rest of this class.
Grab your phone. Open the camera. Let's go find things.
Tap to focus
Somewhere on your screen, when you point the camera at something, you can tap on it. A little box or circle shows up. That's you telling the phone "focus here, not over there."
This matters more than people think. Your phone is guessing what you want in focus, and it guesses wrong all the time, especially close up. If you're photographing your kid at the table and the fruit bowl behind them is sharp and your kid is soft, that's a focus problem. Tap on the face. Every time. I do this all the time, it's the first thing my thumb does now before I even think about it.
Practice this on something boring right now. A coffee mug, a plant, whatever's on your counter. Tap near, tap far, watch the focus jump around. Get a feel for it.
The grid
Go into your settings (it's usually in the phone's main Settings app, not inside the camera app itself, which trips people up) and turn on the grid. It'll put two horizontal and two vertical lines across your screen, like a tic-tac-toe board.
I know it's a mildly boring feature to talk about, but I'd rather you learn to see using the grid than lean on portrait mode or a filter to save a boring composition. The grid helps you notice where your subject actually is in the frame, whether your horizon is crooked, whether you're centering something that would look better off to one side. It's a small thing that changes a lot of your photos once you start actually looking at it instead of ignoring it.
Exposure lock
This is the one people skip and shouldn't. When you tap to focus, you'll usually see a little sun icon appear next to the focus box, and you can drag it up or down to make the photo brighter or darker before you shoot. If you press and hold on your subject instead of a quick tap, most phones will lock both focus and exposure together, so it stops adjusting itself while you move around.
I'll be honest, this took me a while to trust. I'll teach that properly in a couple lessons because it deserves its own time. For now, just know it's there and it exists to stop your phone from constantly re-guessing the shot.
Front camera versus back camera, and the little flip icon
I'm not going to spend long on this one because most of you know it, but check where your flip-camera icon is, usually a little circular arrow, so you're not fumbling for it later.
Zoom, and why I'd rather you not
Your phone probably has a zoom, sometimes a couple different lens options if it's a newer phone. Here's my honest opinion on this: I'd rather you walk closer than zoom in. Digital zoom especially just crops and stretches the photo, and it gets soft and grainy fast. Get low and get close instead, with your feet, not your fingers. We'll practice that more later, but keep it in your head now.
Let me tell you about a photo that taught me nothing and I still liked it anyway. I've got this indigo quilt top sitting in my upstairs closet, half-finished, going on two years now. I dragged it out one afternoon thinking if I photographed it nicely, in good light, maybe I'd fall back in love with it and actually finish the thing. I set it up by the window, tapped to focus on the center block, locked the exposure, took my time with it. Got a genuinely nice photo. Didn't touch the quilt again. It's still up there. But I look at that photo sometimes and it's a good photo, dang it, even of a project I apparently don't want to finish. Sometimes the exercise is just the exercise. Learning your camera app is like that a little. You're not shooting anything important today. You're just poking around so the buttons stop being strangers.
One honest caution: while you're doing this, don't do it walking down stairs or crossing the parking lot. People get so absorbed in the screen they stop watching where their feet are. Sit down, get comfortable, then poke around.
Before next time: find the grid setting on your own phone and turn it on, and practice tapping to focus on five different things around your house. Doesn't matter what they are.