With the iOS 18 update, Apple added new features to almost all of its built-in apps, including the Camera app. The iOS 18 Camera app includes a few small but useful improvements for timed photos, portraits, and more.

Timers

Along with the existing 3-second and 10-second timers, there's now an added 5-second timer that provides more flexibility.

Flash Settings

Flash settings can be adjusted by touching and holding on the flash button in the Camera app. It brings up Auto, On, and Off options.

These settings could be accessed in the flash options when tapping on the carrot to get to different photo controls, but a long press is quicker. A tap still turns flash off and on.

Music When Taking Photos and Videos

When you're taking a video music playing on your iPhone will no longer be paused and will continue playing. In the Settings app, there's an "Allow Audio Playback" toggle that you can turn on that ensures music will continue playing on the iPhone's speaker when a video is recording.

In prior versions of iOS, using the Camera app to capture video automatically paused any audio playing.

Apple also says that music will continue to play via Bluetooth connections when capturing a photo or video.

Next-Generation Portrait Enhancements

On the iPhone 15 and later models, iOS 18 adds Portrait Lighting controls and support for Night mode portraits when in Photos mode.

For context, Apple last year added next-generation Portraits functionality that automatically captures portrait information when using the standard photo taking mode. Previously, you needed to use the specific Portrait mode to get a Portrait shot, but that's no longer the case.

The new feature lets you take a photo without changing modes, and then choose to add depth of field Portrait effects afterward.