Shooting RAW on your iPhone

There is a plethora of underwater housings available for iPhones and Androids. Most have the ability to fit either a macro lens or a wide-angle/fisheye lens to get you closer to your subject, but their results have been limited by both the inability to synchronize effectively with off-board flash and the difficulty in getting the image colors right.

Serious underwater photographers shoot RAW files on their expensive cameras because they can then adjust color and exposure on a laptop, meaning they don't have to get things perfect during a short dive.

Now, you can do that on your phone. Apps are available that will allow you to disable the in-device image signal processing and record the RAW data. Some favorites include Obscura, Manual, and ProCamera, which will work with iOS10 to shoot RAW files:

You open the app and tap on the settings button, turning on the 'Save RAW' toggle. You usually have the option to save RAW and jpegs simultaneously. There are many different RAW standards, and each camera manufacturer has its own, but Apple has chosen to use the ubiquitous Adobe .DNG format for iOS10.