One of the coolest pieces of technology, in my opinion, is portrait mode on an iPhone. (Other phones may call this feature something like live focus, bokeh mode, or lens blur.) But as fun as this technology is, I’m sure we’ve all taken a portrait mode photo that turned out a blurry mess and convinced us this feature was a waste of money. Fear not! This blog post will teach you some simple tools to get the most out of portrait mode and level up your smartphone photography.

 First, let’s talk through some portrait mode settings.

I have an iPhone, so we’ll use that for our examples. Other phones typically have similar features, just maybe in a different location or with a little different look.

You’ll notice on my iPhone, the top left corner has a little cursive f. This stands for f stop, or aperture. Next, you’ll notice in the bottom left on my camera that I can toggle through different lenses. I am using an iPhone 12 Pro, which has three different lenses (technically four if you count the selfie camera).

You can use both of these buttons to toggle through different settings.

What is f/stop and how do I use it?

F stop is what changes the depth of focus in your photos. To put it simply, f stop determines how blurry the background of your photo is.

This Instagram Reel I made helps explain.

You’ll notice as the aperture reaches a higher bottom number, like f/16, the background is more in focus. When the f stop is at a lower bottom number, like f/2.4, the background is blurrier. (Now to really confuse you, the f stop is written as a fraction, so technically it’s 1/16 and would be smaller than 1/2.4, buttttt that’s more math than we really need to know.)

Why does portrait mode always tell me to move further away?

Sometimes our phone will default to your zoom lens, in which case taking a photo of a subject close to you will not work so well. Here’s where you can toggle through the 1x, 2.5x or .5x lens to adjust using the button found in the bottom left corner on my phone. Not all phones have all of those options, and some phones will refer to different lenses with different names, but that will give you the basic idea.

And there you have it! Two helpful tools for better portrait mode photos. Practice makes progress, so get out there and try these tips out! Leave a comment and let me know what you think!