How to Master the Camera App on iPhone 16 Pro!

Here is everything you need to know to master the camera app on iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max. What we're going to look at first is how to launch the camera app.

Now, of course, the most basic is just tapping on the camera app icon; everybody knows that. You can also long-hold on that icon to jump to certain areas. You can jump directly to the portrait, selfies, portraits, video, or selfie modes. You can jump quickly to various modes of the camera with that long hold. Alternatively, if we go back here to our lock screen, you'll notice in that lower right-hand corner these are two different shortcuts. You can set either of these to the camera app. So if we long-hold onto our lock screen and tap on customize, go to the lock screen itself; we have these icons down here. I could remove that one; I could remove the flashlight; tap on the plus and add the camera back in. You could also launch third-party camera apps as well. So we have set it now to the camera app, and you can just long-hold on it, and boom, jump directly into the camera. Of course, the swipe is still there, so from the lock screen, swipe to the side into the camera app. Finally, there's the action button. If we go back into our phone and we go into the settings app, tap on the action button; we can set this to open directly into the camera. So just like that, you can also choose the mode down here with that drop-down: selfie, video, portrait, portrait selfie, right there, just stock camera app. Now when we go back here, hold the camera button or the action button, it jumps directly into the camera app.

The last option on the iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max is the new camera control. It's located here on the lower right-hand side, and with a simple press, you can open the camera app. Now it depends on where you are, so if the phone is completely off, you know, completely inactive, one press is going to wake up your phone, and another press is going to launch the app. So you might need two presses depending on where you are; otherwise, camera control can jump you directly into the stock camera app or any third-party camera app. More on the camera control in a minute. We're next going to talk about taking photos.

So of course, just a tap on the bottom of that shutter is going to take a photo. Tap on the little icon in the lower left-hand corner to get to that photo you just took. Swipe down to make it go away. That is the most obvious way, but of course, there are others. For example, the volume buttons here on the side; I can press either the volume up or the volume down button to quickly take a photo. Very easy to do. If I go ahead and hold either of these buttons, it's going to start recording a video. Now we're recording a video, and until I let go of the button, and it stops. That works with either the volume up or the volume down. Unless we jump here into settings, we can turn on "use volume up for burst." So now when I go back to the camera app, if I hold the volume up button, it's going to start taking burst photos, and if I hold the bottom button and hold that down, now I'm recording a video. So press to take a photo, hold the up for burst, hold the bottom for video. Apple actually bakes in a similar functionality to the shutter button. So if I tap the button, it takes that photo as I showed before, but if I tap and hold, now we're recording a video; see the time counting up at the bottom. Once I let go of the button, the video stops. If I tap on the button and hold it down, start recording that video; I can swipe to the right and lock it into video mode, and it's still capturing the video now until I hit the red square to stop it. While it is recording video, this goes for any video mode. I can pause video just like that and hit it again to resume. On the right side, it can also take a photo; that is a still frame during the video. It is not as high quality as if I took a regular photo, but it can save you a still while you are recording. Once you're done, go ahead and tap on the square to stop it. So that is called QuickTake. So again, hold it down for video, hold and pull to the right to lock it in video mode, but if I push it and drag it to the left, I'm taking burst photos again. So tap and just immediately drag to the left, taking burst photos. By the way, unlike previous iPhones, the new iPhones are capable of higher-resolution QuickTake video. This can be captured at 4K resolution, whereas before QuickTake limited your quality to only about 1080.

Let's now talk about zooming in and out on your iPhone. So of course, many people know about pinching on the screen, just like that; pinch back out to zoom out. But you kind of move the phone around when that happens, and it's not super precise if you're trying to get it exactly on one of the numbers. So you can tap on any of these at the bottom to quickly jump between those virtual cameras. You have your 0.5, which is your Ultra-wide lens, which is now 48 megapixels here on the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max. You have your primary camera, which can be set to three different focal points: so 24 mm, 1.28 mm, 1.2, or press it one more time for 35 mm, which is a 1.5-time zoom. You can set that preference of which one you wanted to always go to in the settings app. Finally, you have two times; this is two times Optical quality zoom, and then five times is using the telephoto lens on this camera. An alternative is to use the scope wheel. So say we're here at our one times or 1.5 times zoom; I can tap and hold on any of these and slide my finger left and right, and just like that, I have very granular control over exactly how much I'm zooming in. You can see the window pops up in the corner when I get very high into the zoom. You have your five, your two, your one, those individual 2 and 0.5 options as well, and all the way out for your Ultra-wide. Whenever you find the zoom level that you want, just pull down on that wheel, and it will dismiss it, or you can just wait a moment; it'll also just dismiss on its own. But yeah, you can pull down from the top of the wheel to drop it out. By the way, what's nice about that is you can also use it like while you're recording video. So if I go sideways here, I switch to video mode; I start recording; I can use that to like granular zoom in and pull back out, and it's pretty darn smooth.

One of the most talked-about aspects of the new iPhones is the camera control. It's this new button located here on the lower right-hand side. Since it's a touch-sensitive button, it's hard to protect; you can't just cover it with the case without losing out on its abilities. And as a physical button, it's not something that you necessarily want to leave unprotected. It's another thing that could break on your $1,000 phone. Fortunately, my sponsor for this video was ready with a solution on day one. Spigen is out with its new T-Series cases specifically designed for iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max with full coverage of the camera control. All of the T-Series cases feature this special cover that is seen in very few third-party cases. It has a glass surface similar to Apple's own cases to retain all functionality and touch sensitivity. What's great is that it offers the same functionality as Apple's own first-party cases, but Spigen's line is more affordable and gives you more options. My favorite from the new line is the Ultra Hybrid T MagFit; it's the most minimal and lets the titanium colors come through. You can get it in this clear or in Frost black. Then there's the Tough Armor T AI MagFit, one of Spigen's signature cases. Spigen uses AI simulation analysis when refining the design to improve impact and stress reduction by more than 90%. It's got a dual-layer design, a sleek matte finish, and a built-in kickstand that won't interfere with the built-in MagSafe magnets. Pick up the new Spigen gear at the link down in the description and pinned in the comments.

Now let's go back to talking about that camera control. As I mentioned, the camera control can be an easy way to jump into the camera app; press it to open the app whenever you need to, but it also does more than that. It can also act as a shutter button. Let's go ahead and rotate our phone sideways here, and when it's properly aligned, you can just click down on that button to take a photo. Very easy to do. If you press down just a little bit, you'll notice this little control comes up. You can swipe your finger on top of the camera control to further zoom in or out as needed for your photo. A double soft press will bring you into the control picker, so I can choose things like exposure, depth, zoom, cameras, and styles and tone to choose from. When you're ready, just press down again halfway, and you can move between all the different cameras on your iPhone using the camera control, just as we saw with the actual shutter button and the volume buttons. That one press will take the photo, or press and hold to start recording a video. It'll record the video as long as you're pressing down, and once you release, that video capture will stop. If we jump back into the settings here and go to camera, then camera control first, you can choose which camera app opens with the camera control, so any of these third-party ones will work. I stick with the stock camera app for this video. You can also change how it launches the camera, whether a single or double click. If you find yourself inadvertently opening the camera when you don't mean to, a double click can make that a bit more simple, so that way you only have to hit it two times and you don't accidentally open it when you don't mean to. So if you hit it too often, turn on double click; otherwise, feel free to leave it at single click. Personally, I also recommend turning off this clean preview. So let's go back to the camera app. When I start using the camera control for anything, you'll notice that it like takes everything off the screen, and it doesn't look very good, and then you have to like wait for this to dismiss before all your other stuff comes back. That drives me crazy, especially if you accidentally press on the camera control, so I turn off clean preview. Going back, I want to jump into accessibility and then go down to the camera control. Another couple of things that I might suggest first is this light press; you can turn this on or off depending on that extra press. If you don't want to use that for those controls, if you just want to use it for capturing photos, you can turn that off. Same thing with the swipe; you can just use it for photo capture. Now, assuming you leave those on, you can change that light press if it's lighter, firmer, or just leave it at the default. So if you find that it's, you know, not quite right, you can tinker with these, both the press and the speed, to get that to your exact likings, to dial in that camera control. Personally, I find the camera control is the fastest way for me to jump into the camera and take a photo, which has been amazing with a toddler running around. Just on the lock screen, I'm in an app; something cute is happening; I just press it; it launches the app, and press it one more time to take that photo. It's been a godsend so far in the past few weeks.

Back in our beloved camera app, let's take a look through the UI and controlling some of the different aspects. So first, you can swipe left or right to change between your different modes. So here on the iPhone 16 Pro, all the way on the left, we have our time-lapse, slow-mo, cinematic, and standard video modes. Going to the right, we start off at photo but then go to Portrait, Spatial, and Pano. Spatial is new with these. If we go ahead and rotate our phone again, we can record video and photo thanks to the little toggle in the corner. So there is photo; swap it here to move into video. This will record basically 3D spatial video that can be played back on Vision Pro. As someone who has a Vision Pro, these are really nice; I'm very glad that you're able to add photos as well as video with this update. Portrait mode is great; you can change these different portrait styles, but you don't always need to because when shooting in portrait mode, when it detects a person or a dog, it'll actually turn on and capture spatial data at the same time that you're capturing a photo. Sometimes it does take a second, but you'll see a little stylized f for the aperture appear in that lower left-hand corner when capturing a spatial photo and regular Live Photo at the same time. You'll notice you captured a portrait and Live Photo at the same time. Inside the Photos app, by that icon here in the corner, it's got that F value or that F stylized aperture as well as Live, and if you tap that drop-down, you can change the different Live modes or turn Portrait on and off. So if we turn on Portrait, you can see it's going to blur out the messy background a little bit more, pull out my son's face. If we go back, turn that off; we can just stick with a Live Photo. So you do have those options, which I very much like here in the stock photo app. To gain quick access to the gallery, you can tap on the thumbnail in the lower left-hand corner; it's a photo we just took. To swap the cameras around, tap the little circle icon in that bottom right-hand side; turn it back around this way. We talked about the modes, all of that here at the top; you have several different options to choose from. First is your flash; you can turn it on or off. If you hold it, it'll actually give you one more option: Auto, on, or off. Just tap that to release it. The next one is Shared Library; if you are using the Shared Library, you can shoot to that Shared Library directly or turn it off and just save it to your personal Library. We have our exposure listed right after that; you can turn that up or down with the little wheel at the bottom, change the brightness; tap that to release it. Here you have your photo mode; I have this HyMax on, which you can just leave, turn off or on, and then Live Photos on or off. We also have, new, the Photographic Styles; we will come back to those. There are more controls though. So if you tap on that little carrot icon in the center, it brings up this tool tray at the bottom. So first, flash, same controls as above; you have your Live Photos on, off, or Auto, similar to above; your Photographic Styles; you have your aspect ratio, Square, 6:9, 4:3; we have our exposure again; we mentioned that; we drop it back to zero; we have our timers; you now have off, three, five, or 10 seconds to choose from for timers; and then our Shared Library, so Library, shared, or personal libraries. One mode that you're not seeing right now is Night mode. So if I cover this up a little bit, you'll see a new icon appear in the status bar, that top; that is for Night mode shots. So it only happens when it gets dark enough to enable, cuz you don't want it the rest of the time. So I can turn it on or off from the top, but I can also access it from the bottom. Now when it's here, you can change how much time; now this is going to be based on the movement of your phone, the movement of your subject, and how dark it is. When it's enabled, it's yellow like that you see right now; it's only 1 second cuz it's not that dark inside of that camera, but if I tried to get a little bit darker, it can give you up to, I think, 30 seconds, which is going to be a long exposure shot for maybe shooting up at a night sky, anything like that. And it also depends on how much your phone is moving; if your phone is bouncing around, it doesn't want to give you a long exposure that's like 30 seconds cuz you're not going to be able to hold your hand still that long. But you'll only see that appear just like that when it gets dark enough, and just tap it to turn it off if you don't want to use that Night shot; it might just use the flash instead, or you'll have a slightly blurry or grainy image.

One thing you may notice in some of my shots here is that little level that appears on the screen. I find this very handy; it appears when I'm trying to like level my phone; it gets close, and then it'll lock in, boom, yellow, when my phone is perfectly level. Works in both orientations; if I switch it here, you can see it pops up, tries to lock in, and gives me that little L, level, yellow lever when I actually approach level. I think it's very handy when shooting images just to make sure everything is lined up. You can turn it off in settings if you want; you can also turn on a grid if you want to look for proper composure. iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max can take macro photos; essentially what it's using is that Ultra-wide lens, which has that very close focal distance; you can see like on the pad of my finger. So we bring something close like this little flower; it can get really close to that and take these macro photos. Here are some macro photos of bugs that I've taken; they're they're absolutely crazy; they look super duper cool. Now you may not always want to use macro photos though. If we go into our camera settings, you can turn on the macro control, so you can toggle this on or off. I believe it is off by default, but you'll notice when we get something that is very close to the lens and it jumps into macro, there will be a toggle in the corner that shows a little flower. If I turn that on, all of a sudden, that's going to jump into focus; it's going to focus on your macro shot. If you turn that off, it won't automatically do that; you can switch to the Ultra-wide and get really close, essentially simulating the same thing, but you have to do that manually versus just turning on that macro shot if you want to use it. So you can turn that on or off; it'll automatically jump into that; that it's annoying; you can use that toggle to turn it off, which is what I prefer.

Let's talk about some of the different formats that you may want to shoot in. So here we're going to go into camera settings and then go to formats. So there's High Efficiency and Most Compatible. High Efficiency are going to be smaller files; the Most Compatible be your typical JPEGs. You can also choose how high or how big to make your photos by photo mode. By default is at 12 megapixels; I usually shoot in 24; they do take up more space, but I feel give a little bit more resolution to work with. If we go back again, we can turn on ProRAW. So here we have ProRAW and resolution control; you can choose all of these different options: so the HyMax, ProRAW, ProRAW Max; there's also ProRAW formats for JPEG, lossless JPEG, lossless JPEG XL, and JPEG XL LLY. These are my personal settings; I stick with HyMax most of the time. ProRAW is great if you want to shoot in like full 48 megapixel; switch it to that, but I often shoot that HyMax because it gives me a lot of the benefits of ProRAW but a slightly smaller file size. So I stick with there and Most Compatible with JPEG, lossless losses if I'm shooting there. When you have any of those enabled, you can turn them on or off from up here in that top menu bar as I mentioned early on. So if I tap that and now shooting in that HyMax, I think gives me the best resolution and uh size, but if you hold it, you can choose between like HyMax; there's RAW 12, RAW Max; this is the one if you want like the best high resolution, most data in your shot; that's what you'd stick with. For most people, if you would just want lightly high resolution, go with that HyMax.

Now let's talk a little bit about video. Just to get out of the way, yes, there is a ProRes option, similar to how we have it for the ProRes or the ProRAW photos; you have ProRes video that you can shoot on the Pros. You can see all the colors basically been stripped out of this cuz it's going to be more or less added in post where you can do your color grading. So all of that kind of just drains from the photo, but you have your ProRes log, uh, ProRes log that you can turn on or off there. You also have Action mode; it's this toggle here; this does require a little bit of light; you can work in lower light settings with this; there's a toggle in settings; highest resolution this can record is 2.8K at 60 frames per second; 2.8K at probably 30 is uh going to be common for most people, but you can do 24, 25, 30 as well. So I usually keep it at 2.8K, 30 frames per second. This is if you're chasing your toddler around, you're chasing your dog around, you're bouncing a lot, and you really want it stabilized and smooth; that's where you use Action mode. Finally, there on the right, you have your resolutions you can choose from: so 4K or HD are your basic options; then you can choose your frames per second; this can go all up to 120 frames per second, which is different than slow-mo. So slow-mo is a dedicated shot here; you can do 1080 at 240, but if you're in regular video mode, you can do 4K at 120 frames per second. For most people, sticking at like 24 or 30, 30 is going to be your most common; 4K 30 for video. If you go into the settings for camera, you do have options for recording video; you have these different ones; you can turn on; nothing really needs to change on those; uh, you can also hide PAL formats for most people; there's enhanced stabilization, which does require a little bit more light but works for cinematic mode, so I keep this one toggled on; there's the Action mode lower light; I also turn off HDR video; most of you can leave HDR on; the reason I turn it off is cuz it's hard to edit between something like what I'm shooting here, which is SDR, standard, or HDR, and if I'm combining footage, it gets messy, so I usually toggle this off when I'm combining my footage, but most people can just go ahead and leave HDR on. Other than that, you have your locking your white balance, which can also be handy if you're moving your camera around a lot and your color palette, your color spectrum seems to shift. But these are the settings that I use for my camera here on the iPhone 16 Pro while recording video.

Now Apple has new options for the audio; so it's recording the audio right now; there may be some background tapping noises going on; you could be filming in a restaurant, out on a city street; there's environmental noises going on, anything like that. Now this is going to be a terrible demo, but I'm at least showing you how to edit this. So we're going to go in here to the Photos app to edit; tap on my editing button there; and aside from your standard video and adjustments, there's this new one for Audio Mix; it'll actually be able to change between standard audio, focusing on what's in frame, so what's just right here; this will basically be what is heard on your microphone or your camera; there is Studio, Studio, which simultaneously focuses on what's in frame and turns off everything else; it makes it sound like it was recorded in a studio, on a sound stage, so it gets eerily silent without any background noise happening; or Cinematic mode, which keeps your audio right in front but also gives you surrounding audio on your other channels, so it puts your dialogue on.

Your Center Channel and puts the rest of the audio on your surround sound so it's more cinematic. It's really cool; these audio mixes are very, very neat. I think this is an amazing feature, and I'm really excited to see what people do with this. But yeah, you have to, so far, edit it kind of in the Photos app; there's not much control for this outside of that on Final Cut or anything, at least not yet.

To make sure you're getting spatial audio, go ahead and go into your camera settings again. Then go down here to record sound. You have options for spatial, stereo, or mono. I say always keep it in spatial. You at least have that data, even if you don't play with that mix at all. It just sounds better, in my opinion, and you can still turn it into stereo if you had to. There's no reason not to do that; it just takes up a little bit more data. Other options allow audio playback and when noise reduction; leave those on.

The last thing I'll briefly mention is Cinematic mode. So, Cinematic mode: you have one and two times Zoom. I can go ahead and start recording here. You'll notice this plant in the foreground is in focus, but I can also tap on something in the background and shift focus to that. And when I want, I can move focus back up here to the plant. So I've recorded that video about 10 seconds long. If I tap on it and go into the Photos app to actually edit that, we go here, Photos app. When I'm here in the Photos app, you can see it is marked as cinematic. Let's go ahead and pause and tap on that to edit.

Now there's a lot of stuff that you can do with a cinematic video, and some of it you can do on your iPhone, and you can do some on your computer as well, inside Final Cut. But basically, you can see those different points throughout the video where the focus changes with those little dots. You can actually change this after the fact. So as we go through, I can pull the focus back up here to the plant, and it adds another focus change in there. So those are focus tools, but Cinematic mode is essentially portrait mode for video. You get that background blur. You can actually go up here to the top and change how much blur you have on that background, so you can make it super sharp, super blurry, whatever you'd like to do. But you have a lot of control over those things. You can also play with the other settings on this video just like any other. But Cinematic mode: portrait mode, but for video.

So that's it; that's everything you need to know to master the camera app on iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max. Let me know your favorite of these tips down below in the comments; otherwise, subscribe, and I'll see you in the next video.