How to Customize Camera Control on Your iPhone

Are you getting all you can out of the button on the top right of your iPhone 16, 17, and 18 series? The button is the phone’s camera control, which can be customized to support your mobile photography workflow.

To clear up any confusion, the camera control refers to the capacitive button on the right side of your iPhone, which understands a number of gestures, including single and double click and swipe gestures. You use it to open the camera, take photos, record videos and work with the advanced photography settings on your iPhone.

Perfect for one-handed photography, Camera Control’s standard inputs are:

• Click the button once to start the camera.
• Swipe to use different photography tools like exposure or zoom while in the app
• Click again to take the picture.
• Long press to record video.
• Double-click to launch Visual Intelligence, which lets you use the camera to ask Siri questions about your surroundings.

You can change the default behavior and Settings > Camera > Camera Control. This will bring you to a window of many options, including two important sections that you should explore first: Start Camera in the controlsin addition to some smaller tweaks.

For Start Cameratouch Camera to choose which supported app opens when you press the Camera Control button. The camera is enabled by default, but you will find other options when the appropriate app is installed. These can include Instagram, which turns your iPhone into an instant story creation tool, Code Scanner to scan QR codes, or Magnifier, which turns your iPhone into a high-powered digital magnifying glass. You may also see other third-party apps, some of which may be grayed out from full support.

Those controls Section contains a number of settings you should explore, including Camera adjustments. When enabled, this makes camera control even more useful. When your camera app is active, light presses or swipes on the button let you explore the camera options and adjustments.

Personalize lets you decide which gestures the camera control supports during that mode, including support for light presses and swipes. It also allows you to enable and disable the six adjustments potentially supported by Camera Control, which include:

• Zoom
• danger
• depth
• cameras
• Styles
• tone

Tap to enable and disable the tick next to the function, or press and hold the burger icon (three horizontal lines) next to each item to move it to your preferred order. In the future, when you take a photo, you can swipe the camera control to move through the various adjustments in the order you define.

Along with the features referenced above, the camera control also allows:

• Single click or double click: Double click may be best to avoid accidental camera activations.
• Requires Screen On: When enabled, this toggle-based control prevents accidental camera activation when your iPhone is locked.
• Lock focus and exposure: When this is active, the camera control will maintain focus and exposure as long as you continue to touch it.
• Start Visual Intelligence: When active, press and hold the camera button to open Visual Intelligence, which lets you ask Siri about your surroundings.

There are several additional customizations available and Settings > Accessibility > Camera Control. Here you can disable the button completely and define the force and speed required for the button to respond to a press, by switching between Default, Slow down in the More slowly.

I have noticed button behavior too Slow down helps the camera accidentally open when I’m handling my device, and trimming camera adjustments to zoom, exposure, and styles helps me focus on the image, not the controls I don’t use often.

That’s the point of Camera Control, really – configure it to support your workflow while making it much, much easier to take photos, videos and use Visual Intelligence with one hand.