Version 1.34

Version 1.34 is released!

New features:

• Exposure bracketing (Camera2 only).
• Screen flash to simulate flash for front cameras without flash.
• HDR now supports flash.

For Camera2 API, I've added an "alternative flash method" (under Settings/Photo settings). Unfortunately it still seems to be the case that many manufacturers have poor support for Camera2, with flash being one of the most problematic. This option enables a workaround (instead of the usual precapture/flash routines, we use torch mode).

I've added extra protection for recording videos. One of the saddest things for me to hear are (thankfully rare) stories of people who have recorded videos that turn out to be corrupted. I advise people to test video recording in Open Camera before using it for anything important (getting video recording to work across all Android devices in notoriously difficult, and in some cases the problems can be driver related). But two problems remain:

• Running out of storage. As far as I can tell, this is an Android bug - the MediaRecorder API doesn't give any error when storage runs out, so camera apps will happily think video recording is continuing to work. The resultant video file will be corrupt. Handly tools like MP4Fix Video Repair Tool can recover the file, but obviously only up until the point where you ran out of storage. Open Camera 1.34 now stops video recording when storage runs out - unfortunately this can only be supported for internal storage, and when not using Storage Access Framework.
• Running out of power. In theory this shouldn't be a problem - when a device runs out of power, Open Camera receives the command to shut down, so it stops video. However in some cases (if the device is lagging for some reason, or it's a particularly long video file), it can take several seconds to process the resultant video, and if that doesn't happen by the time the device powers off, there will be problems. Open Camera now stops the video in advance at 3% power. (You can turn this option off, under Settings/Video settings/"Critical battery check" if you prefer to run to the wire.)

The user interface also has some improvements, including: on-screen icons are now transparent and smoothly rotate when the device orientation changes; the popup-menu headings are now larger and in bold; new material design icons for Settings.

And a bunch of fixes (mostly Camera2 related).