How to Check iPhone Camera Orientation When Taking Photos or Videos

The iPhone camera can take photos in vertical orientation or horizontal orientation. Typically it’s pretty obvious when you’re taking a photo in either landscape or portrait orientation because the iPhone is physically rotated to one side or another, but sometimes it may not be clear. Maybe orientation lock is enabled on iPhone, or maybe you’re taking a picture of something up in the sky, down on the ground, or at an angle.

Whether you’re capturing a photo or you are recording a video, this article will show you how to quickly determine what the iPhone camera orientation is before taking a photo. And yes, this same iPhone trick works to check iPad camera orientation as well as iPod touch.

How to Determine Camera Orientation on iPhone or iPad Before Taking Photos or Videos

1. Open the Camera app on iPhone or iPad
2. Direct the camera at the subject of the picture or video
3. Pay attention to the options in Camera app, the text of “HDR” and “1x” should be aligned with the orientation you want to snap the photo or video in



4. If the orientation is off, physically rotate the iPhone or iPad until it matches the desired orientation and confirm again by looking at the Camera options

Take the photo as usual with the orientation that you want.

You’ll notice the other Camera options will also rotate as the camera of iPhone or IPad rotates, but since they aren’t lettered or words it may not be as identifiable for all users to use those as a reference. But if using the other symbols works for you, that’s great too.

Basically, just remember to look for the text on the iPhone camera screen. If it’s oriented as landscape or portrait as you intend it to be, you’re good to go. If it’s not oriented with what you want your picture orientation to be, then you know you’ll want to rotate the camera again, or you’ll have to rotate the picture after the fact.

Here are a few examples of what this can look like on the Camera app on iPhone. For example, here’s an iPhone screenshot that shows iPhone camera is oriented horizontally in landscape mode (along with the iPhone itself):

And here’s an example of an iPhone screenshot showing the iPhone camera is oriented vertically into portrait orientation despite the iPhone being oriented horizontally, as you can see this is easy to determine by the “1x” and “HDR” text being rotated:

Not all hope is lost if you snap a photo in the wrong orientation though.

Remember, even if the camera orientation is wrong, you can always rotate the picture after the fact by using the Photos app “Edit” feature to rotate the image.

You can even rotate a video on iPhone or iPad with iMovie, so if you captured a video in the wrong orientation then don’t worry, you can fix that afterwards too.