How to zoom on the iPhone 8 Plus camera

By Christine Chan
last updated

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Digital zoom is never going to be great — you're essentially just cropping and enlarging pixels from the original photo. But, more often than not, we use digital zooms when composing iPhone images — especially if we're shooting a subject from far away.

Thanks to its multi-camera system, the iPhone 8 Plus and onward devices offer up to 2x optical and up-to-10x digital zoom when composing your images — and better still, that zoom is now a one-handed circular swipe. Here's how it works!

How to use photographic zoom on iPhone 8 Plus and later

Note: Portrait mode doesn't currently support zoom, since both lenses are already active and engaged.

  1. Open the Camera app and swipe to the Photo, Square, or Pano option.
  2. Tap on the 1x button and swipe to the left to increase zoom, swipe right to decrease. You can increase up to 10x in Photo or Square, and up to 2x in Pano.
  3. To return to 1x, tap again on the zoom button.

Note: You can also quickly switch between 1x and 2x zoom with a single tap of the zoom button.

With the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro models, there is a new Ultra Wide lens in the camera so you can even zoom out to .5x, in addition to the normal 1x Wide and 2x (Pro models only) Telephoto lenses. You can still tap and swipe on these magnification levels to fine-tune your zoom level with the zoom dial.

How to use the camera on the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro

How to use zoom with video on iPhone 8 Plus and later

  1. Open the Camera app and swipe to the Video or Slo-Mo option.
  2. Tap on the 1x button and swipe to the left to increase zoom, swipe right to decrease. You can increase up to 3x in Video or Slo-Mo, or up to 2x in Time-Lapse.
  3. To return to 1x, tap again on the zoom button.

Questions?

Let us know in the comments.

Updated September 2019: Updated for iOS 13 and iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro. Serenity Caldwell contributed to an earlier version of this guide.

Christine Chan
Christine Chan

Christine Romero-Chan was formerly a Senior Editor for iMore. She has been writing about technology, specifically Apple, for over a decade at a variety of websites. She is currently part of the Digital Trends team, and has been using Apple’s smartphone since the original iPhone back in 2007. While her main speciality is the iPhone, she also covers Apple Watch, iPad, and Mac when needed.

When she isn’t writing about Apple, Christine can often be found at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, as she is a passholder and obsessed with all things Disney, especially Star Wars. Christine also enjoys coffee, food, photography, mechanical keyboards, and spending as much time with her new daughter as possible.

2 Comments
  • I believe you have to hold the 1x button to do this. Tapping merely toggles between 1x and 2x...at least that's my experience trying this.
  • Had a play with a Note 8 at a Samsung pop up store yesterday and the method of zooming is really quite nifty (you hold down the shutter icon and move up or down / left and right, depending on phone orientation). Much more convenient and easy to use than the iPhone system so I really hope Apple copy it in the future.