iPhone Photo Double Exposure Trick

A How To

The End of the World

Do you notice that in "The End of the World" there seem to be two of everything? The most interesting focal point is the two suns that seem to be split by the horizon.

These pictures have not been retouched. I have only cropped and rotated them.

To make this effect you need to put the iPhone camera into HDR mode. HDR mode causes the phone to take two images at different brightness levels and then combine them together. The phone takes one image that keys off of the shadows and another image that is optimized for the bright parts. Then they are merged.

Use this tutorial for turning on HDR.

iPhone HDR menu

But what if you move the camera at the precise moment between the shots. That is the secret to this trick.

Leaping

My technique in the pictures of the ocean sunset is to twist the phone to the left or right as I press the shutter button. Most of my shots are just a blurry mess or they look just fine because I did not move quick enough.

This will produce angles in the photo. I have tried an up and down motion but they are just not that interesting as I tended to get just horizontal blurring.

But then sometimes they come out perfect as in Leaping. You can see the wave lines sticking up and the sun is a swirl.

I do look like a fool on the beach twisting my phone around however.

Naples Sunset Bend

This one Naples Sunset Bend is more subtle. The twisting of the phone just leaves a bend in the horizontal lines of the photo.

Firebird

Another trick is to take photos of moving objects. Like sparks from fireworks. You can see that in these fireworks shots there is lots of movement and double images. The HDR really brings out the effect of the smoke and the trail of the sparks flying.

Bang Blue

Dual Fountain

Orange Rocket

Melting Sun

Hopefully you can try this trick out on your HDR camera or smartphone. Give it a try and post what your results are. I would like to see if it works on other smartphones with HDR. Try it with moving vehicles or perhaps out the window of a moving car.

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