From the course: Photography Foundations: Mobile Photography

Basic settings

From the course: Photography Foundations: Mobile Photography

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Basic settings

- Hi. I'm here with this rock. A typical camera app doesn't have the features that I'm used to on an SLR or mirrorless camera. Now, I have to say that the only times I've missed a shot with my phone have not been because of a lack of features, but because the features that I have were not configured properly. A lot of the features in a camera app are for special use cases, not for every day. It's important to recognize these features as such and get into the habit of deactivating them as soon as you're done using them. Otherwise, they might get in your way on your next shot. For example, it is a rare occasion that you'll need the flash on your phone. In fact, if you're using it a lot, if you're using the flash a lot, then it's possible you're not using it correctly. We'll cover flash in more detail later. Since it's not an especially common tool, it's a good idea to switch your flash from Auto mode to Off. When you need it you can turn it back on manually, then deactivate it as soon as you're finished. This will keep it from ruining your shots when you don't want it there. Similarly, if your camera app has an HDR feature it's a good idea to switch that off. On the iPhone I find there are times when the built-in HDR feature is very useful, but I also find that I leave it on all the time. It usually messes up more images than it improves, so I leave it turned off until I know that I need it. The iPhone has a Live Photos feature, which shoots a still image with a second or two of video. Personally, I never use this feature, but if you do, that's fine. I doubt, though, that it's an effect that you want on most of your photos, so it's another one to turn off until you need it. You can see here that I've already turned it off. That's how rarely I use it. On the stock iPhone camera app there are two ways to turn these features off. You can use the switches that I've been using, or you can open up this stuff down here. This gives me the option of putting some features like flash and Live Photos into an Auto mode where the camera decides whether the feature should be activated or not. Now, personally, I find there's no reason to trust these Auto modes. Just turn the feature off completely and recognize that you can always activate it again if you needed to. Now, not all features on the stock camera app for this iPhone 11 Pro are sticky. For example, if I switch it from the regular lens to the 2X lens and take some shots, and then put the phone away, when I next go to the camera app, it will be set back to the normal camera. Now, this is neither good nor bad. What's important is that you figure out which settings stick and which change, and try to keep those in mind. Finally, there are features that you might find yourself changing regularly, but that can be hard to find a good default position for. Aspect ratio, for example. While I usually keep my phone set in the default four to three aspect ratio, there are times when I find myself on a square shooting jag. So, I will switch it to square and leave it there for a while. Fortunately that's a feature that's easy to change, and it's easy to see how it's set. The viewfinder shows me the aspect ratio, so it won't likely take you by surprise if you have it set a particular way. The thing that bugs me the most about the stock camera app on the iPhone, and the thing that has caused me to miss a lot of shots, is this mechanism right here. This lets you change from shooting still photos of one kind to shooting videos of many different kinds. It's very easy to accidentally change from one mode to another through simple camera handling. There have been times when I've gotten my phone out, and in the process of getting into position and getting the shot framed, I've accidentally bumped this little slider with a knuckle or something, and not known that I'd made a change. And then I press the shutter release only to find that I'm now shooting video. And by the time I get things reconfigured, I've usually missed the shot. The only thing you can do about this sort of problem is be aware that it's possible, and keep your eyes open to it. Spend some time with your camera interface and see if there are any accidental pitfalls that you might find yourself falling into. Finally, while the position of the shutter button is usually pretty obvious, what may not be obvious is that on some phones there are alternative shutter buttons. For example, on all iPhones you can use the volume up button to trip the shutter. I use this far more than the on-screen button, because it means I can hold the phone steady with both hands and get to the button, or even use the phone one-handed and still trip the shutter. Now, if you're not using an iPhone, do some searching to find out if any of the hardware buttons on your phone can be used to trigger the camera shutter. In the rest of this chapter we're going to look at how to use your various camera features to solve the typical problems that you'll face in everyday shooting.

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