Hey, I'm pretty new to my G4, and I was wondering how to get the most out of my camera.
I haven't downloaded any camera apps or anything, and just use the stock one. For pictures I take, I just leave the settings on auto, seeing as I don't know a whole lot about photography. How could I tweak the custom settings to work better under different circumstances and just get a better picture in general?
The automatic settings will give you great picture under most circumstances. Playing around with the manual settings will involve knowledge of basic photography concepts around ISO, shutter speed, etc. If you want to get into those, YouTube is the best place to start with tutorials
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Depends how you define better picture. in low light the slowest shutter will be 1/9. is this the best picture at that light ? no. A slower shutter with a lower ISO will get a cleaner shot and will display more. But to use a shutter slower than 1/9 requires you to stabilise the camera some how.
a tripod is one way if you use slow shutters that run into seconds. The G4 can go up to 30 seconds. But to improve over auto's 1/9 a 2 second will improve things noticeably.
on the other side you sometimes want a faster shutter to freeze motion. A slower shutter creates blur and auto might not pick a fast enough shutter. The camera has no idea what you are taking a photo of just a rough guess. If the light isn't enough you will have to pick a higher iso to compensate. If its in daylight then only a faster shutter that might be in the thousandths of a second is required.
other times you want to fix the focus or auto focus won't manage it, this is where manual focus comes into it.
white balance determines the colour, auto white balance does a good enough job but at times can get it wrong, if it looks too cold for your liking a warmer white balance will add yellow. If it looks too warm a colder setting will add blue.
A simple tip is to tap on the screen on your subject before shooting. It will focus there, and it will also set the exposure based on that area. Making your subject sharp, and properly exposed.
But it only holds those settings for maybe 2 seconds, so take the picture quickly after you tap on the screen. Wait too long, and it goes back to assuming you want the center of the frame.
I do this even if my subject is in the middle, as I prefer to let it finish focusing before taking the picture. If it focuses wrong, I may notice it on the screen before shooting.
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There's a couple of options in the camera app that aren't entirely self-explanatory. Anyone able to shed any light?
Anti-shake: The manual says, "reduces image blur due to the movement of the subject of the photo or hand movement." Any ideas why this is disabled by default? Are there any downsides to reducing shake?
Auto contrast: The manual says, "provides a clear image even under backlight circumstances where intensity of illumination can vary excessively." Does anyone have any idea what this is doing? Is this HDR?
Outdoor visibility: The manual says, "allows you to take better pictures when outdoors." Anyone know if this does anything besides just make the screen colors brighter?
Anyone have any ideas?
Anti-Shake is an option to use to help reduce the effects of the camera moving while shooting a picture. I see no downsides to enabling it unless you like blurry pictures. It might reduce battery life a tiny bit more while using the camera.
Think of it as mouse smoothing in games, if you do that sort of thing.
Auto contrast is a nice feature (if it works well) that adjusts the pictures light levels in case of a dark subject and a bright background, or vice versa. It should help to make a better overal balanced picture.
Outdoor visibility has to do with the LCD screen itself. If you are outside on a bright day you want that on. It makes sure the backlight is on full and the colors are bright so you can more easily see the screen.
-cloudy days
-indoor poor light
-light/sun behind you.
Usually they (surprisingly) are slightly darker than I'd like. Not a big photo guy but been using this camera a lot. Its great.
1.What kind of settings adjustments on the camera do you guys use for those conditions without getting a grainy result?
Thanks
I went into the scenes and I choose the indoor/party setting and the lighting is improved. It is under the settings I believe. They have ones for indoor, outdoor, sunset, sunrise, etc. It seems to automatically adjust the camera settings
The camera app is ridiculous. It's the one thing that may keep me away from switching to an aosp ROM.
I'm running CM9, and it's been great mostly. Last night I was trying to take some video in a reasonably lit room. Not too bright, not too dark, just a room you'd be sitting in. Well, the preview in the camera app looked good, subject was easily visible, colors looked ok. As soon as I hit record though, it seems to close the iris down or change the exposure to "normal" viewing, which caused the image to become much darker. I'd like to be able to have the camera record with an exposure set at the levels the preview uses. Can someone recommend a video camera app with better controls for that sort of thing? Or tell me how to change the exposure on the video camera mode of the built in app? I didn't see a way to do so.
Thanks!
With both the stock camera app and Camera FV5, it seems like if I want to fix either the shutter speed or ISO, the app would force me to manually pick the value for the other as well. I just want to be able to pick a high enough ISO or fast enough shutter speed so that when I take pictures of my kids, they won't be all blurry. Tinkering with both ISO and shutter speed myself usually isn't an option when taking pictures of them because they rarely stop for my photos (I would have missed the moment I want to capture by the time I get the settings right). Is there an app that can automatically set one of ISO or shutter speed when I have the other value fixed? This seems like a no brainer but not sure why none of the apps I have implements this. If the app can figure out all the values when it's on auto everything, taking out one of the variables should just make it easier to do the math.
Pro shot is capable of this, you can have two custom settings with, for example, shutter=1/100s and the other with shutter=1/30s and auto iso
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.riseupgames.proshot2
I have tried various modes available in default camera app, and i believe if one needs best shot, you need to tweak some settings and that can be done in manual mode. I am not a pro and i am not able to figure out what are the best settings i need to adjust for getting nice picture. So i would like to ask experts here how i can use manual mode.
Please also suggest, in which environment the settings you suggest applies like low light, outdoor etc...
i'm not that pro regarding to camera but here are few things you could keep in mind:
1. The lower the iso the better the quality of the picture. So you might want to get it as low as possible.
2. If you don't want to sacrifice quality, lower the shutter speed. I usually lower it to the point my shaking hands are able to hold the device still, then raise the iso if the picture is still too dark. If it's a moving object, the faster the object, the higher the shutter speed you need to capture the object, so raise the shutter speed accordingly.
3. Another way to brighten your picture is raising the exposure value (EV)
4. WB is for tone, depends on the conditions of the light around you when you are in the middle of taking picture, the picture you take might have a different color than the actual scene, so adjust it so that you can get the tone as natural as possible, or adjust to your taste of tone
5. Try all the possible setting one by one, its more fun than getting told how to do them by someone else.
There is no best option, use tripod set you camera based on light etc and you will get a great shot
http://myzen.asus.com/2016/01/13/use-the-zenfone-2s-manual-mode-to-take-better-pictures/