How to take pictures in Spider-Man 2

A few times throughout the main story in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, you’ll be tasked with tapping into Peter Parker’s other skillset as a professional photographer. As with many mechanics in a game stuffed to the gills with them, taking pictures—either with the in-game camera or the robust Photo Mode—is somewhat glossed over in its first introduction.

Not to worry, however, as this comprehensive refresher will get you snapping Daily Bugle-worthy photos in no time.

How do you use the camera in Spider-Man 2?

As you play through Spider-Man 2, you’ll occasionally be tasked with taking a picture of something happening organically in the city. All you need to do in these situations is swipe up on the Dualsense controller’s central touchpad. Whichever Spider-Man you’re playing as will pull out his camera, letting you quickly take care of the Photo Ops dotted around the city. Using the in-game camera is not dissimilar to using your Web Shooters, as the aim and shoot buttons (L2 and R1, respectively) are identical. Just make sure you don’t mix these two gadgets up, lest you give some unsuspecting New Yorker a faceful of web fluid.

Although these Photo Ops add life to the world and provide you with a steady stream of City Tokens, there’s sadly no unique reward awaiting you once you’ve crossed all of them off, like there is for some of the other open-world diversions.

If you’re looking to create jaw-dropping in-game shots outside of the fairly barebones camera function, however, there’s also Photo Mode. Photo Mode is accessed through the pause menu as opposed to having its own dedicated button, and allows you to tweak a truly massive array of settings to create the Spider-Man scene of your dreams. You can swap between suits and suit styles on the fly, pause and unpause particle effects, move the camera freely to mess with perspective… and that’s just scratching the surface.

The more advanced options even allow you to freely place lights in the scene, vastly changing the composition of any particular shot. Combine that with the ability to apply filters, vignettes, and stickers, and you’re well on your way to composing a big screen-worthy screenshot, especially if you’re actually wearing one of the many suits pulled from a Spider-Man movie.

Now that you know all about the two photo functions in Spider-Man 2, you’re well on your way to making J. Jonah Jameson proud. Maybe if you impress him enough, he’ll stop slandering you on his podcast… maybe.