Manual exposure control with iPhone?

[pixmedic]

"Warranty" is actually derived from the Latin Warrantus which means "of weaklings" or "for weaklings" and later evolved into a word for lady's undergarments in Pompei.

and there you have it... Thats how Best Buy sells all of their performance service plans. im always a fan of anything involving lady's undergarments.

 

[pixmedic]

also...
i only read the last page of this thread...
did someone say that there ISN'T a way to do manual exposure on an iphone?
doesnt really matter, we have Galaxy S3's anyway.

 

[rexbobcat]

Heheheh. I don't know how serious this video is but still....heheheh

Flame war, start, now.

Why Apple Clearly Thinks You're Stupid | Cracked.com

 

[nycphotography]

I can't watcht he video from here... no sound... but it just occurred to me that statistically, in general terms, we ARE stupid.

It's only when being considered as individuals in specific sub contexts where we might become un-stupid.

Consider that consumer cars have to be drivable by "everyone". They have to be very accomodating of stupid moves. Race cars only have to be driven by a few hundred people w/ specialized knowledge and skills, so they can have adaptations like separate front and rear brakes, high ratio steering wheels, butterfly shifters, stall converters, etc. A race car doesn't _have_ to accomodate stupidity.

Put "us" in one of those cars, and we'll be stupid as hell.

Mass market products have to accommodate our stupidity.

But good ones with a open interfacing principle, will also allow room for those us who have special niche skills to do more.

The problem with the iPhone, ipod, ipad, and Apple consumer devices, is that they intentionally omit the standard open interface hooks that let you do more if you know more, where other devices include those standard interfaces by default.

Two examples:

1) I can't interface with the stuff on my ipod, iphone or ipad using a standard USB/SMB interface and the file system explorer built into Windows, OS/X, AND Linux. This is the same standard interface that works on EVERY other device, every card reader, every external storage device made by every manufacturer for every environment. On the planet. Except for Apple.

2) I can't plug an SD card (or even some other kind of proprietary memory card) into my ipod, iphone or ipad so that I can swap in different work contexts at will. For example different portfolios on different cards, so I can just hand it to a client and not have to worry if they open the wrong portfolio :-o because they've been removed from the device. Of course this works with (almost) every other device on the planet. Except for Apple.

This refusal to provide standard interfaces is not accidental, it's intentional.

Of course, I'm just uneducated, otherwise I wouldn't expect an Apple device to work with standard open interfaces.

 

[amolitor]

Think this through. Why wouldn't Apple build an API for the camera that allowed full manual controls? Suppose that they did.

1) Someone builds a wundercamera app that's Full Manual Only.
2) Some idiot techno worship web site like gizmodo publishes a garbled article explaining how Full Manual Only is the best camera app in the world.
3) 3,000,000 iPhone fans download it and start taking horrible black pictures, or overexposed messes, or whatever, because they haven't got a clue.
4) 2,999,999 people jump onto the internet message boards ranting about how the new iPhone camera is a disaster. The other guy is sick today.

But on the UP side, the 3 people who give a crap about a full manual camera app for their iPhone are super happy.

Why would Apple sign up for this? That would be idiotic. Now, perhaps they didn't think it through this way, but it's plausible.

 

[nycphotography]

When it comes to full manual camera controls, I don't think it's the typical Apple ego+politics+profiteering. They don't have a camera product line to not want to cannibalize. Rather, it's most likely a simple lack of competence in understanding cameras and the potential of what should be possible w/ an extendable software enabled camera.

With SD Cards and File Manager interfaces, it's driven by a far more sinister motivation.

As to idiots complaining about iphone pictures because they're using a different camera app... idiot users can always still use the built in app. As pessimistic as I tend to be about the average Joe, even the average Joe intuitively understands that he has two different camera apps installed, just like he has 4 different sudoku apps.

 

[o hey tyler]

Think this through. Why wouldn't Apple build an API for the camera that allowed full manual controls? Suppose that they did.

1) Someone builds a wundercamera app that's Full Manual Only.
2) Some idiot techno worship web site like gizmodo publishes a garbled article explaining how Full Manual Only is the best camera app in the world.
3) 3,000,000 iPhone fans download it and start taking horrible black pictures, or overexposed messes, or whatever, because they haven't got a clue.
4) 2,999,999 people jump onto the internet message boards ranting about how the new iPhone camera is a disaster. The other guy is sick today.

But on the UP side, the 3 people who give a crap about a full manual camera app for their iPhone are super happy.

Why would Apple sign up for this? That would be idiotic. Now, perhaps they didn't think it through this way, but it's plausible.

You type this out like there's never been a bad app to hit the App Store.... It happens, quite regularly. I have an iPhone and have read the reviews for multiple apps. Just because apple is so stringent with what they allow in to the App Store doesn't mean that they're all high quality, and they certainly don't account for people not knowing what to do with a particular app or how to work it properly.

If people read the description prior to downloading then they should know what to expect. If they don't, and decide to write a review saying "this camera app sucks! I can only take completely black photos or completely white." Then they're idiots, because they didn't read what they were getting into.

However if you learn to read a light meter, like one on the iPhone display, you'd be able to work the camera quite well. As reading a light meter and getting in the +/-2 stops range is easier than most iOS or android based mobile games.

 

[amolitor]

Sure there have been bad things in the App Store. My point is, why would Apple deliberately design the iPhone's software to pretty much guarantee ANOTHER one?

 

[pixmedic]

Sure there have been bad things in the App Store. My point is, why would Apple deliberately design the iPhone's software to pretty much guarantee ANOTHER one?

because they know people will buy it anyway, then buy the new one.

 

[o hey tyler]

Sure there have been bad things in the App Store. My point is, why would Apple deliberately design the iPhone's software to pretty much guarantee ANOTHER one?

Just because you think that people are too stupid to take a proper exposure doesn't mean that they actually are.

 

[pixmedic]

 

[Mully]

^^^^^^^^ thanks too funny!

 

[jake337]

I just downloaded "proshot" for my HTC Windows phone 8x and it allows you to change shutter speed from 1/2 to 1/8000 and iso from 100 to 3200. Has manual WB override, manual focus override, and three modes; Auto, Program, Shutter and custom. It also has options for a level, histogram and grid lines on screen.


Now I'm not sure if it actually changing shutter speed or not, or if it is using some software trickery.

I do have a question though???

Shouldn't the usable shutter speed be roughly 2 times the focal length? I'm pretty sure to get 28mm FF equivalent FOV in this small of a sensor the actual focal length of these cell phone cams should be extremely wide like 7mm or something? So 1/15 should technically be able to give you sharp images right? I think ergonomics that allow so much camera shake is the problem here.

But this doesn't take into account taking snaps of children though. Much higher shutterspeed needed for sure.

So after playing with the app a bit it does seem to actually work, but only in between ISO100-800.

 

[amolitor]

Sure there have been bad things in the App Store. My point is, why would Apple deliberately design the iPhone's software to pretty much guarantee ANOTHER one?

Just because you think that people are too stupid to take a proper exposure doesn't mean that they actually are.

Oh, I see your point. I disagree with it, but ok.

 

[Majeed Badizadegan]

Amolitor, as long as this imaginary app defaulted in Auto mode, with the options available for the power user to manually control exposure, wouldn't that prevent most of the confusion?