How to do it, step by step
- Clean the mirror and check what is behind you Wipe the glass so autofocus has nothing to lock onto at the near plane. Then look at the reflection, not at yourself, and move anything distracting out of the background.
- Turn the flash off and pick your lens Set flash to off. Use 1x for head-to-toe and 2x for waist-up. Do not use 0.5x unless the mirror is small and you have no room to step back.
- Stand about a metre back and angle your body One metre from the glass gives an effective two metres of subject distance. Turn roughly 45 degrees to the mirror with your weight on the back foot.
- Lock focus and exposure on your reflected face Tap and hold on your face in the reflection until AE/AF LOCK appears, then drag up to add about +0.3 to +0.7 EV if the room is lit from above.
- Hold the phone at chest height, off to one side Keep the phone out of the centre of your body and keep it vertical, with its back parallel to the mirror so verticals stay straight. Look at the lens, not at your own eyes.
- Shoot ten frames, then flip the keeper if needed Move slightly between frames rather than holding one pose. Afterwards, if any text is visible and reversed, flip the photo horizontally in Photos under Edit, Crop.
Which lens, and how far back to stand
A mirror doubles the distance. Your reflection sits as far behind the glass as you stand in front of it, so if you are one metre from the mirror the lens is focusing and framing something two metres away. Every framing decision follows from that.
At 1x (the 24mm-equivalent main camera) a subject at an effective two metres fills the frame from head to toe with room to spare. That is the full-length mirror selfie, and 1x is almost always the right answer. Step back to a metre and a half and you get more room and more of the space around you.
For waist-up, do not walk closer. Switch to 2x from the same spot. At an effective two metres the 2x lens covers about a metre and a half of height, which is head to knee, and it renders your face with far less perspective exaggeration than getting close on a wide lens.
Avoid 0.5x. The ultra-wide covers roughly five metres of height at that effective distance, so you end up small in the middle of a lot of bathroom, and the rectilinear correction the phone applies to a 13mm lens stretches anything in the outer fifth of the frame. If you stand off-centre, that stretch lands on your hip and your leg.
Why your phone focuses on the wrong thing
Autofocus has two plausible targets: the mirror surface, which is a metre away and covered in dust and fingerprints, and your reflection, which is two metres away. Phones frequently pick the glass. The result is a photo where the smudges are sharp and your face is soft, which is subtle enough that you only notice it later.
Two habits stop it. Clean the mirror first, because a clean mirror gives autofocus almost nothing to lock onto at the near plane. Then tap and hold on your reflected face until the yellow box pulses and AE/AF LOCK appears at the top of the viewfinder. That pins both focus and exposure at your face and stops the camera hunting between planes as you move.
With the lock on, drag up or down on the screen to adjust exposure. Bathrooms and changing rooms are usually lit from directly above, which underexposes faces, so a nudge of about +0.3 to +0.7 EV is normal. Lock it once and shoot ten frames rather than re-metering on every shot.
The flash blowout, and the two ways to fix it
A mirror is a specular surface, so the angle the flash arrives at is the angle it leaves at. Point the back of the phone straight at the mirror and the flash beam comes back along the same axis, straight into the lens, roughly a centimetre from where it left. You get a white disc where your phone should be and a flat, colourless face behind it.
Fix one: turn the flash off. This is the right answer nine times out of ten. If the room is dim, brace your elbows against your ribs and let Night mode run for one to two seconds. You are standing still, so a braced hand-held exposure at that length is achievable.
Fix two: break the angle. If you want the hard flash look, turn your body and the phone about 15 to 20 degrees off perpendicular to the mirror. The reflected beam then leaves at 15 to 20 degrees on the other side and misses the lens entirely, so you keep the flash on your body and lose the hotspot. This is why the classic flash mirror selfie is shot from an angle rather than square on.
Everything in the photo is backwards, and when that matters
A mirror reverses left and right. The rear camera records that reflection faithfully, so any writing in the frame comes out mirrored: the slogan on your shirt, the brand on a shopping bag, the gym sign behind you, the clock. Most people never notice until someone else does.
Flipping the photo horizontally undoes it. In Photos, open Edit, tap Crop, then the flip icon at the top left. Text becomes legible and your body reads the way other people actually see you rather than the way you see yourself in a mirror.
The catch is that flipping is not free. Faces are asymmetric, and you are used to your mirrored face, so the flipped version can look subtly unfamiliar to you while looking completely normal to everyone else. The practical rule: flip when there is readable text in the frame, leave it alone when there is not. ShutterAI's Mirror Mode does this at capture, detecting reversed text and un-flipping the frame before you ever see it.
Where the phone goes, and what your body does
Hold the phone at chest to shoulder height and off to one side, not flat against your sternum. Flat against the chest hides your torso behind the phone and points the lens slightly upward at your face. Held out to the side, the phone becomes a small object in the frame rather than a mask.
Angle your body about 45 degrees to the glass with your weight on your back foot and the front knee soft. Square-on to a mirror reads as wide because the mirror gives you no perspective help at all. Leave a visible gap between your free arm and your ribs so your waist has an edge.
Look at the phone, not at your own eyes in the reflection. Looking at yourself is a giveaway and it puts your gaze in a slightly wrong place. Keep your chin pushed forward and dropped a fraction, which lengthens the line between jaw and neck.
Common mistakes and the fix for each
| What went wrong | Why | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| White blob in the middle | Flash reflecting back on-axis | Flash off, or turn 15 to 20 degrees off square |
| Face soft, mirror sharp | Focus locked to the glass | Clean the mirror, tap and hold on your reflection |
| Legs look short and wide | 0.5x edge stretch, or phone tilted down | Use 1x, keep the phone vertical and level |
| Face too dark | Overhead lighting fooling the meter | Lock exposure on your face, add +0.3 to +0.7 EV |
| Shirt slogan reads backwards | Mirrors reverse left and right | Flip horizontally in Photos, Edit, Crop |
| Grainy and smeared | Night mode fired hand-held and unbraced | Brace elbows against ribs, or find more light |
Questions people ask
How do you take a good mirror selfie?
Clean the mirror, turn the flash off, shoot at 1x from about a metre back, and tap and hold on your reflection until AE/AF LOCK appears. Angle your body 45 degrees to the glass and hold the phone at chest height, off to one side.
How do I stop the flash reflecting in a mirror selfie?
Either turn the flash off and rely on room light with Night mode, or turn the phone and your body 15 to 20 degrees off perpendicular to the mirror. A mirror reflects at the same angle it receives, so an off-axis flash bounces past the lens instead of into it.
Why is my mirror selfie backwards?
Because a mirror reverses left and right and the rear camera records that reflection as it is. Any text in the frame will be mirrored. Flip the photo horizontally in Photos under Edit, then Crop, to make it readable.
Should I use 0.5x for mirror selfies?
Usually not. The ultra-wide is far too wide at mirror distances and the correction it applies stretches anything near the frame edges, which is what makes hips and legs look wrong. Use 1x, or 2x for waist-up.
Why is my face blurry in mirror selfies?
The camera focused on the mirror surface rather than your reflection, which is twice as far away. Clean the glass and tap and hold on your reflected face to lock focus there.