Portrait Mode

If you are looking for a way to make your photos of friends and family pop a little this holiday season, you might try using this tried-and-true professional photographic technique that’s been incorporated into your iPhone camera.
 
I was talking with a friend the other day about the Portrait mode feature on their iPhone and was surprised to find out they didn’t know what it was. I had assumed everyone was as excited about this feature that Apple introduced a few years back that replicates the photographic technique known as Depth of Field. I was happy to tell him about it and I thought maybe if you are unfamiliar with it you would like to know about it too.
 
Depth of Field is a technique that employs a limited range of focus, so while the subject in your frame is sharp, the background and foreground is soft focused. This has a pleasing aesthetic look to it as well as bringing all the attention of a viewer to your subject, which is what you want in a portrait.
 
In a traditional camera, this is accomplished optically, by opening up the aperture of the lens (as well as getting close to the subject and/or using a telephoto lens). The iPhone does it by digital means which they call Portrait Mode in the camera settings.
 
Simply set it on Portrait mode, Natural Light and voilà, a beautiful portrait with a soft background, highlighting your portrait and group subjects. The closer you get to your subject(s), the more pronounced the effect. You can even use it in Front-Facing mode to do a Selfie.
 
There are some other settings within Portrait mode you can play around with, but I generally stick with Natural Light. You can also adjust the level of soft-focus by clicking on the circled f in the upper right corner of the camera.
 
Play around with it and see if your photos, whether at holiday time or other times, don’t look a lot more professional with Portrait mode.