Shooting Live Photos

In this lesson for Photography with the Camera app for the iPhone we look at how we take live photos. When we take a live photo we are also capturing 1.5 seconds of video before and after the photo. We can edit these live photos to set which frame we want as the key photo and we can also apply various affects. We look at all these features in this lesson.

What is a Live Photo
When you take a photo using the Live Photos feature in the Camera app on the iPhone, your iPhone will actually take 1.5 seconds of video before your photo and 1.5 seconds of video after your photo. How does it take video before you take your photo? Your camera is always capturing video as long as the camera app is open. This is how it can take a photo so fast as it’s already capturing the moment before you tap the shutter button. So, when you take a live photo, you can actually view it as a 3 second video which includes that 1.5 seconds of video before your photo and 1.5 seconds of video after your photo.

Taking a Live Photo
To take a photo using Live Photo, make sure you have Live Photo turned on. If your camera supports it, not all iPhones support this feature, you’ll see it in the center of your preview at the top. tap on the icon that looks like a target. It will turn yellow when active. Not just aim your camera at what you want a photo of. Make sure you hold it still, as you are capturing video. When you are ready, tap the shutter button like normal. When you do, you’ll also be capturing video before and after the photo.

Viewing a Live Photo
To view the video of a live photo, open the photo like normal, you’ll see your photo. Now use 3D touch to view the view. Gently press down on your display, when you do this, you’ll see the video.

Choosing a Key Photo
We can choose which frame in the 3 second video we want as our key photo, the key photo being the one we see when we view it as a photo. To do that, you go up to edit in the upper right hand corner, when you do this, you’ll see a film strip at the bottom of your photo. This film strip has all the video. One of these frames will have a white square, this is the current key photo. Just drag that square to the left and right to select a different key photo. Once you have the frame highlighted, select Make Key Photo above the little strip at the bottom. That photo will not be the Key Photo.

Applying Effects
We can also apply effects to a Live Photo. These effects include Loop, Bounce, and Long Exposure. To apply an effect, swipe up on the live photo as you are looking at it. If your iPhone supports effects, not all of them do, you’ll be able to select one of these three effects and apply it to your Live Photo.

See this lesson in Action
If you want to see how this works in action, I show you how this all works in the video above.

Download Tutorial
If you’d like to download this tutorial, you can find it in the iBook Store. You can also join the site and download the tutorial.