The one super simple but overlooked way to improve your iPhone photos

It's so weird. People are obsessed with getting the best possible photos from their iPhone, researching all sorts of tips and tricks, and trying out the myriad of different photography apps that are available.

But there's one thing that's so easily overlooked.

Something that as a photographer using a mirrorless camera I do all the time.

That's clean my lens.

Yup, it's that simple.

I noticed the other day that my iPhone photos looked washed out and had a weird, ugly streak of light going across the photos.

I started to wonder if this was a bug with the iOS update.

Or maybe something I'd done to the settings.

Then it struck me what I'd do if my Sony mirrorless started to do this — I'd clean the lens!

Yes, I'd clean the lens.

And it's worth noting that my Sony lenses live with lens caps on until they are used, and I clean them regularly, and I don't put my fingers on them on or store them for days on end in my pocket.

So, I flipped my iPhone on and oh my…

Smudges, fingerprints, dirt, hairs, and other random schmoo.

Ugh!

How to clean your iPhone lenses

Now, it's easy to take a t-shirt to the lenses and use that to clean them, but I wouldn't dream of doing that to my other camera lenses.

So I did the right thing and used a proper lens wipe. My lens cleaners of choice are the Zeiss lens wipes. They're high-quality wipes that I can buy in bulk and deliver good results.

And it made a big difference. The photos were more vivid and the awful streak of light across the image was gone.

Smartphone camera lenses are designed to put up with a lot of abuse and still deliver awesome photos. But they can't change the laws of physics, and dirt and muck on the lens will have quite an adverse effect on the quality of the output.