Picture Size

A list of all available picture sizes for your phone. Includes: Aspect ratio e.g 4:3 – (width:height in landscape).
Megapixels e.g. 1M

Fast picture option – uses the preview resolution and takes instant shots without focusing. Good for moving objects or fast burst mode. Not high resolution.

Suggestion: Use highest available resolution to get most detail in your pictures. You can always reduce the resolution by editing a photo.

Default setting is the maximum resolution.

Scene mode

Options vary according to phone capability.
Scene modes may override flash and other settings.
Settings appear as icons on controller.

Auto = no scene mode
Off= No scene mode
Auto ASD = auto scene detection (your phone may determine what scene mode the picture requires)

Suggestion: Preselect appropriate scene mode for events e.g. beach outing or party

Self timer

Set the timer to delay taking the picture. Suggestion: Use for group photographs so everyone can be in the picture

Burst mode

Off= 1 x

Shutter = The camera will take pictures as fast as possible while the shutter button is pressed
Suggestion – use with Fast picture setting (Under Picture size) for very fast bursts.

Focus mode

These settings control where the how the camera focuses.

Auto: camera will always focus on centre of shot before taking picture.

Infinity – Fixed focus on far away objects. Use for landscapes.

Macro – Autofocus on near objects for close ups. May focus faster on closer objects than Auto but usually has the same range of focus distances.

Fixed – Similar to infinity setting – no specific focus across shot

Continuous – Camera  searches constantly to find best focus. Will refocus if button pressed while not in focus.

Continuous video – Same as continuous but doesn’t change focus as aggressively – This is the default mode for video to avoid the focus mechanism causing audible noise on the video.

Flash Mode

This setting controls how the flash fires

Auto – Flash only fires in low light

Off – Flash never fires

On – Flash always fires

Torch – Flash can be used a torch

Redeye – Flash fires twice to reduce Red Eye (only available on some models)

Chromaflash

Some devices have a mode where the camera takes two photos, one with the flash off, and one with it on. The photos are combined to give better colors.

Exposure

Controls exposure compensation

Negative values will make your photos darker
Positive values will make your photos lighter

Exposure Bracketing

Allows you to take 5 or 7 shots at different exposures

Use this if you want to create exposure bracketed photos for a desktop application such as Photomatix

Exposure bracketing uses the HDR Overexposure setting for the maximum exposure compensation value. It also uses the HDR time between shots setting.

The first shot will always have zero exposure compensation followed by 4 or 6 bracketed shots.

White Balance

Different lighting conditions can affect the colour balance in photos so white balancing is necessary.  The default Auto White balance setting tries to detect the white balance by finding white pixels in the photo but this doesn’t always work correctly.

Focus duration

Tap to focus – length of time that focus is valid before returning to original value. Use infinity to try to keep the focus after taking a photo.

Touch to capture

Tap screen to take photo. This setting overrides the tap to focus setting.

Suggestion: Use as preference to pushing the button.

Store location

This setting stores the physical location of where pictures have been taken. Requires GPS/Wifi or cell tower access. Enables you to sort photos in gallery by location.

Suggestion: Use to record holidays or trips.

JPEG quality

This determines how compressed the photos are and how much storage they take up.
Normal: Low quality/ high compression
Superfine: Default – high quality but large file size
Use normal to fit more photos on SD card when you don’t mind slightly lower quality photos.

Effects

Varies by device.
Usually includes:
Mono = Black and white
Negative = inverts image
Sepia = toned pics

Suggestion: To give yourself the most editing options, take pics with NO effects then apply effects with the editor

Zebra patterning

Gives patterns of black and white stripes on preview screen showing where image is overexposed.

Only appears if Open GLES-2.0 is selected in the “Other Settings” tab.

Suggestion: Use to make sure your pics won’t be blown out (over exposed).

Zebra threshold

Sets the threshold of exposure where zebra patterns are shown.

Suggestion: Adjust on your device until zebra patterns work well.

Metering

Change how the exposure and white balance are calculated. This setting varies by device and may show many different settings.

Metering Area

Change the area used for exposure and white balance.

Auto – the default, let the camera library decide.
Spot – use a small area in the centre of the frame
Centre – use a large area in the centre of the frame
Frame Average – use the whole frame.

ISO

Varies by device.

ISO determines the balance between shutter speed and gain.
Shutter speed = the amount of time light gets into the device (exposure)
Gain = Amplification of sensor data

Low ISO e.g. 100 = Long exposure + low gain = low noise but possibly motion blur.

High ISO e.g. 800 = Short exposure + high gain = sharp photo but high noise (grainy).

Auto – device selects best option for low noise and acceptable motion blur.

Suggestion: Use low ISO in low light when the camera is steady (e.g. on a  tripod) as it give less noise.

Use high ISO  to capture fast moving images in action shots

Low Light Mode

(Only for full camera2 devices and version 6.7+ of the app)

This mode takes multiple frames and combines them to reduce image noise in low light with high ISO. It’s not the same as increasing the exposure time because our advanced algorithm finds  similar pixels in the frames to combine.

Hold the phone still for best results.

Flash will be disabled in this mode.

Low Light Frames

How many frames to use in low light mode (3-15), default is 5.

Auto Low Light Mode

Automatically switch on low light mode if ISO is larger than 1000.

Anti-banding

Depending on country’s mains frequency fluorescent light or TV screens may flicker in preview.

Auto: uses frequency of mains voltage (based on firmware default or current location) to remove flickering in preview.

Suggestion: If roaming check mains frequency of visiting country.

Scene Detection

Some devices allow auto detection of the scene mode, this setting doesn’t always work well (or at all!)

Preview Framerate

This controls how fast the preview is refreshed.
Fast: e.g. 30 gives a smooth display
Slow: e.g. 10 is better for low light

Setting does not necessarily affect the picture taken
Default: usually the range of your phone

Preview size

Resolution of screen preview image.
Sets width by height pixels in landscape view.
Default – depends on aspect ratio of your pictures
Suggestion: Keep on default.

LG Camera Mode

Devices made by LG have a special camera mode that exposes extra features such as slow motion video. This mode also usually allows the shutter sound to be disabled.

Samsung Camera Mode

Devices made by Samsung have a special camera mode that exposes extra features such as pause during video recording. Use this setting if you want these features to appear.

Zero Shutter Lag (ZSL)

This is a special camera mode where the camera is continuously taking full sized photos and stores a number of shots in a circular buffer. When you press the shutter button, you get the photo from the instant the button was pressed (or even before). With ZSL the preview never stops when you take a photo and it’s much faster between shots. If you enable this setting and the preview freezes when you take a photo then ZSL is not supported on your device. With ZSL enabled on some phones the flash doesn’t work correctly because the photo has already been taken. Most recent Samsung phones have good support for ZSL and it is highly recommended.

Denoise

Some devices have the option of applying a denoise filter to each photo (usually using wavelets).

Memory Color Enhancement

This setting appears on some Qualcomm devices, it modifies the colors to match known objects, e.g. faces.

OIS Mode

The LG G2/3 have this setting which lets you change how the Optical Image Stabilisation works.

Lens Shading

The camera system software automatically corrects for the fact that pixels near the edge will be darker than those in the center. This setting can disable the correction. It’s not recommended that you switch this off.

Redeye Reduction

Some devices have a setting to fire the flash twice to help reduce red eye.

Brightness

Change the brightness in the scene, this is different to exposure compensation because it is applied after the shot is taken. This setting is not available on all devices and using it is not recommended.

Contrast

Change the contrast – not available on all devices.

Saturation

Change the colour saturation – not available on all devices and not functional on some devices.

Sharpness

Sharpen the shot using a simple unsharp mask. This setting is not available on all devices and is performed by the camera library. Some manufacturers have a default sharpness setting which may be too aggressive.

Face detection

On/Off

Will focus on face in shot rather than centre of pic. Draws circle around face in preview.

Suggestion: Use to take pics of people

Extra Parameters

Allows the entry of custom camera parameters in the format:

parameter1=value1;parameter2=value2 …

Only use this setting if you know how exactly to use it because it may stop the app from starting correctly.