With horse racing season in full swing in Dubai, want to know how to take great shots at the Dubai World Cup or capture those fantastic fireworks that we’ll be spoilt with? If you have an iPhone in your pocket, there’s good news. People take phenomenal photos and videos with their phones every day. Whether you’ve been using your iPhone camera to document everyday life or are just discovering the charm of using it as a tool for creative photography, here’s a selection of tips for you.
Look for the light
Light is the fundamental element of photography, and Dubai has no shortage of light, even at night. What you should look out for, though, is the quality of the light and the direction it is coming from. The quality of the light is not the intensity but rather the colour — that, combined with the direction, can add significant drama to your image. To capture the beauty of the horses, keep in mind what colour and direction of light that is illuminating your scene.
Use a flash during the day
Flash is generally considered to be the bane of photography (not the off-camera flash, though), but your iPhone flash can be useful in extreme conditions by providing a fill-light. When there is strong contrast and harsh shadows — particularly on the face — forcing your iPhone flash to fire will illuminate those shadows and even the skin tones.
Create Live Photos
Want to bring your photos to life? Relive moments of excitement from race day simply by pressing a Live Photo. At the heart of a Live Photo is a beautiful 12‑megapixel photo. But together with that photo are the moments just before and after it was taken, captured with movement and sound. You can bring those moments to life anytime simply by pressing anywhere on the photo.
Consider all angles
At Meydan, we’re sometimes taking photos from either the grandstand or down on the race track close to the racing action. Remember that you’ll probably get a more interesting shot by lowering your angle, getting up high and shooting directly down or shooting straight up – depending on where you are positioned.
Always use the rule of thirds – Use the Grid
The “rule of thirds” is a simple concept where the mind discerns a photograph in “thirds”. You can mentally imagine the image split into three sections — or turn on the grid feature on the iPhone. Either way, the point of the rule of thirds is that you would want your point of interest or subject to be in one of those thirds — in particular, the intersecting points are where your eyes look for a subject first. Keep that in mind when you’re framing, and whether you’re taking a horizontal or vertical photo, do your best to keep your subject at the intersecting points. Alternatively, if your subject fills in a significant portion of your frame, compose it in such a way that it’s filling one or two thirds of the image.
Automatically adjust your exposure
At nights approaches at the Dubai World Cup, you can tap the camera screen at certain points to manipulate the light in the photo. You can also adjust the brightness and the exposure by scrolling your finger up and down on the screen. Playing with these exposure adjustments is key in getting the best light in your photo.
Turn on HDR (High Dynamic Range) when shooting the sky
Sunset in Dubai is always a hard time to shoot because you want to capture as much detail in the foreground as possible, but you want to capture as much of the colour and the sky as well in the background. In order to capture as much detail in both the background and the foreground, you can turn on the HDR function on the iPhone. HDR stands for “high dynamic range”, and it allows the iPhone to take multiple exposures of the scene and blend them together to equally expose all elements in the image.
Choose the best pic in “Burst mode”
The iPhone can shoot 10 images per second — but why would you do that? Simple: in a fast-moving race, you never really know when is the perfect moment to take a photo. By enabling burst mode, you can shoot 10 images in a second and then you can choose which is the best image to keep. The iPhone does a fantastic job in recommending one of the photos for you, but you can always go back and select a different one, especially if you’re being creative or experimental.
Consider distance
Often you’ll find yourself some distance from what you want to photograph, and it’s tempting to use the zoom, but it’s recommended not to. The iPhone’s digital zoom, while good, is never as good as zooming in with your feet — like anyone who uses prime lenses on a DSLR, the best way to zoom is to walk in closer to the subject instead of losing out on quality through the digital zoom.
Use your headphones, volume buttons and Apple Watch to take pictures
We get into the habit of taking photos by tapping the button on the app, but depending on how you’re holding the phone, there are more ergonomic ways to take a photo. For example, you can use the volume buttons on the iPhone or the headphones to take a photo. Alternatively, if you have an Apple Watch, you can remotely connect to the iPhone’s camera and take a photo even if you’re a few metres away. It makes for great self portraits without having it look like a selfie.
Panoramic photos don’t have to be horizontal
How many times have you stood at the bottom of the Burj Khalifa and wanted to shoot it in all its glory? Well now you can with a vertical panoramic photo on your iPhone. The Pano feature behaves exactly the same way as when you’re shooting a horizontal scene, you keep the arrow close to the line and you keep the iPhone moving until you capture the entire Burj.
Always save your camera roll at full size after editing
Most social networks will compress your image if you upload direct via an editing app. Save to your camera roll first to ensure the highest quality file.
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