How to take pictures at Disney - using only your phone!

Okay guys, I am a huge advocate of purchasing Memory Maker for your trip to WDW (or Photo Pass at Disneyland) - you get your ride pictures, dining pictures, magic shots, etc. and everyone can always be in the picture! But what if you are going for a short trip or multiple times in a year and you don't want to have that expense on every trip?

Here are some great tips on how to take great pictures at the World with only a cell phone!

1. Lock your focus and exposure BEFORE you want to take your picture.
Do you ever get hacked off that you keep missing the “perfect moment” because your camera is so dang…SLOW!? By the time you get it focused and exposed correctly, that smile, laugh, or moment is gone.

Well, there’s good news.

You just need to lock in your focus and exposure before hand. That way when you press the camera button on your phone, it snaps the pic IMMEDIATELY!

You lock focus and exposure by:

Pressing and holding on where you want the focus set to
Swiping up and down to adjust brightness

2. Know your phone’s sweet spot.
Your phone is like any camera/lens combo and has a certain type of pic is does really well, and lot of other pics it doesn’t do really well, or maybe just okay.

For example, iPhones are great for wide angle photography. After all, its lens is a 28mm lens equivalent. Translation: it’s a wide angle lens. Which means it’s best suited for landscape images, cityscapes, and photojournalism.

For portraits, you have to get up super close to your subject (i.e. the kiddos) and it can distort their image with the wide angle lens setting. So, when taking pics of your kids with an iPhone, “environmental” portraits are best. Meaning, stand far away enough from your kids to where you’re not distorting their face. This most likely means you’ll need to be at least a few steps away from your kid and you’ll have to then include some background.

3. Go back to the basics of composition
When you have a wide angle lens, it’s critical that you get a handle on the basics of composition. If you don’t, your pictures will just be info overload. If you do, you’ll craft pictures that draw the viewers eye to your subject.

These basics include:

The Rule of Thirds
Balance
Leading Lines
Negative Space
Perspective

Framing is so important! This allows for the viewer's eye to be drawn to the subject of what you are photographing! Fill the frame!

4. Go back to the basics of lighting
Similar to #2 but with lighting. You absolutely must learn a few key tricks to place your kiddo in soft, open, beautiful light with your iPhone.

Choose outdoor settings with open sky for a soft light backdrop. Direct sun can be used as an accent light source.

5. Use portrait mode
For those of you with an iPhone 7 Plus, 8 Plus, or X, you can place a big ole’ “exception” beside point #1 above. These iPhone versions actually have a second 50 mm lens on the rear facing camera. This gives your iPhone camera more reach (zoom), and thus less facial distortion for those “proper” portraits. In portrait mode, your iPhone will combine that 50mm lens with some auto-magical post processing to blur the background. The result: pics shot in portrait mode look a lot more like fancy camera pics vs. pics that you took on your phone!

Bonus Tip: EDIT your pics!
If you’re not doing a few simple edits to your pics, you’re leaving a TON of impact and improvement on the table.

If I showed you the “before edit” and “after edit” pics of the worlds best photographers, your jaw would drop. Whether you like it or not, editing is a huge part of creating amazing images.

But this is good news! Truth is, you’re probably already taking some amazing images, you just need to learn a few editing tricks! Like working in Instagram for various filter options and a Retouch app to remove extra people from your shot.