Several recommendations that would make the app more user-friendly
Camera app for Android.
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I would like to offer a few suggestions to your Open Camera app which would make it even easier to use:
(1) Firstly, I would appreciate if the popup up menu would stay open and not close by itself whenever a setting is changed. I’ll give you an example where this becomes pertinent:
Let’s say I have the follow settings: “No flash, HDR mode, f/1.5 aperture”, and I want to switch to this: “Flash, Standard mode, f/2.4 aperture”. Now, I would have to press the popup menu button again and again as it would close immediately every time one of these settings is changed.
(2) Another good feature would be to make the popup menu longer. I often need to change the resolution, aperture, flash, and alternate between Standard and HDR modes. The “Aperture” selection is right below “Camera resolution”, but the popup menu is too short to show it, so I must frequently scroll up and down to check and adjust the aperture and other settings. So, if the popup menu can be made longer, or even as long as possible, then more functions can be seen.
(3) Speaking of the aperture, it would be nice if the preview also shows which f-stop the camera is in, so I don’t have to keep checking the popup menu to make sure the aperture is in the right f-stop.
(4) As for the “Camera resolution” in the popup menu, using only the left and right arrows is a bit cumbersome to switch amongst small and large resolutions. I think it’s OK to retain the left and right arrow buttons, but I was thinking, maybe using the space in between these two arrows to create a button that will expand the selection to facilitate the access to other resolutions, similar to the behavior you have for “White balance” and “Color effect” in the popup menu. So, for example, let’s say I have the following displayed under Camera resolution: “< 1920 x 1080 (2.07MP) >”, and I press the portion in between these two arrows (i.e. the text itself), then a list of resolutions can expand below it, which I can select from. This way, I can quickly jump to another resolution, say, 3264 x 2448 (7.99 MP), without having to press the arrows a dozen times.
(5) Another change would be not to have the icons extend all the way to the edges of the screen, but to leave some gap to avoid accidentally pressing on them. I use the “Icons along top” setting for the UI placement and, from time to time, I would accidentally press the Settings, Gallery and Exposure icons, and even randomly on the Zoom slider, when I hold the phone either horizontally or vertically. So, a small gap between the icons and edges of the screen is preferable.
(6) When a video is being recorded, the Settings and Gallery icons should both be hidden or disabled as they act like stop buttons. That is, when they’re pressed, they stop the recording prematurely and go to either the Settings or the Gallery. I mean, the video icon should technically be the only button that stops the recording and nothing else.
(7) I like the feature how you can lock the screen when recording video, but it would be nice to have an additional button on the screen that locks the screen after it becomes unlocked. A lot of times, the screen accidentally gets unlocked, or that I need to change a few settings whilst recording the video (like adjusting the zoom level, changing the exposure levels, etc.), and so it would be great to have a button that can relock the screen when the video is recording.
(8) An option to hide the Pause button for videos would be nice. The pause button sometimes causes issues with the recordings so I prefer not to have it there to avoid accidentally pressing on it.
(9) For the Exposure compensation slider, it’ll be good to have a button that can reset the exposure to zero (this can probably be put next to the “+ and -” buttons of the slider). The values change by 0.1 so it often takes a lot of presses to return the value back to zero.
In any case, many thanks for your time and effort for creating this useful utility.
I second with you in regards of the point (9). The EV reset function could be mapped to a long tap action on the EV button ( the -/+ button that opens the exposure dialog). In addition, it would be an improvement if the -/+ button would be shown red in colour only when the dialog has some manual setting(s), and blue in colour only when the dialog is in full auto.
To the point (4), all item in the popup menu cold have the left and right arrows, and all items could behave so that they expand to show their list when the item is tapped.
I doubt Mark will do anything. He hasn’t done anything significant in the past few versions anyway.
Rather arrogant from you, here is the changelog: https://opencamera.org.uk/history.html
Thanks to the other comment for pointing out what has been added for recent versions, but just to add: Bear in mind that what's not important to some people is important to other people (e.g. full support for portrait vs landscape orientations had become one of the most requested features), and I have to choose amongst the huge number of requests I get.
Also some changes may be unimportant to users, but are required due to Google's ongoing changes to Android and Google Play policy (e.g. scoped storage, or the pointless emoji policy).
Currently I'm working on camera extensions (night sight, bokeh etc) and improved multi camera support.
What phones has an aperture?
afaik galaxy S9 and S10
Yes, i ended up googling it.. i though Sony was the first one, with their Xperia Pro 1.
In Sony Xperia Pro 1 the main camera module has 12 million sub-pixels and aperture spec is a range from f/2.0 to f/4.0. So, an "enormous" one whole f-stop. Totally insignificant, but dumdums will buy, because of numbers.
In real camera (objective) the f/stop range extends from the full opening down to typically f/32, normally by half f-stops. (A full f-stop is a ratio of 2:1).
All models have a hole as an aperture, only a few have adjustable aperture, it is adjusted by a mechanical diaphragm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaphragm_(optics) . In Samsung the adjustment is absolutely insignificant, only a half of an f-stop.
Only a few models have a fake aperture control in the GUI, the effect is created by software.
Only a few models have an extra depth-of-field camera module, with no fake aperture control in the GUI, the extra camera module is only active in a defined shooting mode (portrait). The result image is calculated by software, combining the main camera and the extra camera images, the effect is an image that mimics the result of shorter depth-of-field setup (camera+objective). The extra camera module makes everything what is behind the in-focus subject somewhat blurred. The extra camera module is the same module as the main camera module, but has lesser number of sub-pixels (because for this purpose less is well enough or even better) , its focus follows the main camera but with an offset that shortens its focus distance. This is available in Xiaomi that I have, the effect is nothing to be bragged about, unless one is shooting portraits of mouses or other such tiny creatures. (portrait photo shows mainly the face, a passport photo is typical portrait).
1: I see what you mean, although there's a balance as for just changing one option (e.g. flash), keeping it open would mean three clicks instead of two. Also some features change what other features are available (e.g., some photo modes), although in theory the new popup menu could be reconstructed whilst still keeping it open.
2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9: I've added to my TODO.
5: Can you post a screenshot please? What device is this?
I own the Samsung Galaxy S10, and it has a curved bezel, which means the edges become more sensitive to touches. When I saw the option to have the UI placement have icons along the top, I opted for that so the icons wouldn’t be bunched up on one side of the screen, making it easier to press the correct buttons.
But when I prepare a shot, particularly in landscape, sometimes my fingers would brush along these icons accidentally and, most of the time, the culprits are the Settings and Gallery icons, but sometimes the Exposure compensation icon and the Zoom slider as those are also right along the edges.
So, my point with (5) is perhaps to have an extra space between the border of each icon and the edges of the screen to prevent accidental presses.
removed cache and data in remote sice selfie didnt work selftimer 3 images.now infi ity and manual focus gone. google play only showomg standard version. i am on different smartphone other dont have these why you explained nokia 2.2 here andr.11
These are all valid and reasonable ideas. I support them.