If you’re sticking with your iPhone 4, you need not be too jealous of the photography enhancements in the iPhone 4S.
That’s because iOS 5 brings a whole host of improvements to your iPhone 4′s camera and “Photos” app. We’ve taken a look at the exciting new features the update offers.
Double-tapping the home key now brings up a camera icon on the slide bar. Hit it and you’re straight into the Camera app.
You can now use the volume-up button to take a photo. This is a lot more intuitive than hitting the on-screen icon in certain positions.
As we’ve reported, the volume-up button to take a photo also works with Apple-certified headsets, giving you a remote shutter release option.
You can now browse through your saved photos by swiping left and right, an improvement on the old arrow keys.
[EDIT: You could swipe before, but now the arrow keys have gone. Sorry for any confusion.]
Arguably overdue, there’s the ability to create albums within the Photos app, rather than lumping all your pics and videos into the Camera Roll to sync and sort out later.
You can now pinch to zoom in (as well as use the old on-screen zoom bar).
Pressing and holding your finger on the iPhone’s screen lets you “lock” the auto focus and exposure balance on a particular area of the image. Besides creative uses, this is particularly handy for portraits.
You’ll see a new “Options” button when you’re in the Camera app. This is where you’ll find the HDR (High Dynamic Range) option as well as where to turn on the new “Grid” display.
The grid view will help with composition, whether that’s to ensure your image is level, or play by the rule-of-thirds guideline.
There’s improved switching between the Camera and Photos app. In addition to a blue icon to return to the camera, you can now swipe left to see a pic you’ve just snapped, then swipe right to return to shooting.
iOS 5 brings in-camera editing to the iPhone. The options are limited, but they are an improvement on none.
It’s a simple tool, but useful. One of the new edit options gives you the ability to rotate images in 90-degree increments.
The “Auto-Enhance” option will improve most photos by applying a kind of “auto-levels” edit to the image.
Getting rid of red-eye is now a simple tap-to-fix operation.
The crop option lets you chop down your pics before you post or share them. It also lets you rotate more subtly than the 90-degree option in the rotate tool.
In addition to freestyle crops, the Photos app offers various different ratios.
Finally, Apple has upped the sharing options in the Photos app, including the “Tweet” ability — part of iOS 5′s deeper Twitter integration.
