Phone camera settings that matter for a headshot

Phone camera apps have a lot of buttons and almost none of them matter for a portrait. Four things do, and they are the same idea on every phone even though the menus differ.

1. Use the rear camera

The front camera is the worse sensor on essentially every phone, with a wider lens and less detail. It exists for video calls.

More importantly, using the front camera pushes you toward holding the phone at arm’s length, and that short distance is what enlarges whatever is nearest the lens, usually your nose. The rear camera forces you to solve that, because you have to prop it up or hand it over.

If you are shooting alone, prop the phone and use a timer. We went through the whole solo setup separately.

2. Use the telephoto lens, from further away

Most phones now have two or three rear lenses: an ultra-wide, a main, and often a 2x, 3x or 5x telephoto. In the app these show as 0.5x, 1x, 2x, 3x.

For a face, use the longest optical one you have, and stand back so the frame fills properly. Roughly two metres for a head-and-shoulders crop on a 2x.

The reason is not the lens being flattering in itself. It is that a longer lens makes you stand further away to fill the frame, and distance is what fixes facial proportions. You could get the identical result by shooting at 1x from two metres and cropping in afterwards.

One thing to watch: past the optical lenses, phones switch to digital zoom, which is just cropping with extra processing and often looks mushy on skin. If your phone has a 3x lens, 3x is real and 6x is not. Stay at or below the highest optical figure and crop later if you need tighter.

3. Lock focus and exposure on your eye

Tap your eye on the screen. That tells the camera to focus there, which is the only place focus must be correct in a portrait.

Then hold the tap for a second. On most phones that locks focus and exposure so they stop drifting between frames, which matters a lot when you are shooting a burst or using a timer and moving in and out of the frame. On an iPhone this shows as AE/AF LOCK. On most Android camera apps a lock icon or a padlock appears.

While you are there, most phones let you drag a slider up or down after tapping to adjust brightness. If your face is looking dark against a bright window, nudge it up. If the forehead is glaring, nudge it down. Getting this roughly right in camera is much better than fixing it later, because a blown highlight has no detail to recover.

4. Turn the flash off, and the beauty filters too

The built-in flash is tiny and sits right beside the lens, which is the worst possible position: flat light, hard shadow on the wall behind you, shiny forehead. Off.

Beauty and smoothing filters are the other one to find and disable. Several phones apply skin smoothing by default on the front camera, sometimes without saying so clearly. The problem is that it happens before the file is written, so the texture is gone permanently, and anything you do afterwards is working from an already-flattened image. If your selfies look oddly plastic, this is usually why. Look for “beauty”, “smooth skin”, “face retouch” or similar in the camera settings.

Portrait mode: take one of each

Portrait mode estimates depth and blurs the background. When it works it looks great, and it fails at exactly the same place every time: the boundary around hair, glasses arms and anything held toward the camera.

So take one frame with it and one without, from the same position. If the hair edge is clean, keep the portrait version. If it has gone rubbery or eaten strands, use the normal one and let the background be handled another way. More on how that blur actually works.

Two settings worth changing once

Format. iPhones default to HEIC, which is efficient and not accepted everywhere, including some upload forms. If you keep hitting rejected uploads, switch to “Most Compatible” in the camera settings to get JPGs.

Resolution. Shoot at the highest your phone offers. Detail can be discarded later; it cannot be invented. A profile photo only needs about 1000 pixels in the end, but you want room to crop into.

What none of this fixes

Settings cannot supply light and cannot supply distance. A photo taken at arm’s length under a ceiling light with perfect settings is worse than one taken two metres from a window with the defaults.

So the order is: window, distance, then these four settings, then shoot forty frames.

Once you have them, run your favourite through the generator for the background, the studio lighting and the crop. It takes about four seconds and runs in your browser.

Frequently asked questions

What camera setting is best for a headshot?

Rear camera, longest optical lens, tap and hold to lock focus and exposure on your eye, flash and beauty filters off.

Is 2x or 3x better for portraits?

Use the longest optical lens your phone has and stand back far enough to fill the frame. Avoid digital zoom past that, which just crops and softens.

Should I use portrait mode for a headshot?

Take one with and one without. It usually looks good and it fails around hair, so having the plain version as a fallback costs nothing.

Why do my selfies look smoothed?

Many phones apply skin smoothing to the front camera by default. It is applied before the file is saved, so the texture is gone for good. Turn it off in the camera settings.

Does a newer phone take better headshots?

Marginally, and far less than light and distance do. A five-year-old phone by a window beats the newest phone under a ceiling light.