This is Technology Bytes, episode 84 for October 13th, 2024.
Technology Bytes is a microcast where I share brief bites on interesting technology.
Enjoy, and here we go.
So this week I’m going back to the iPhone 16 Pro Max that I purchased.
And I’m going to talk a little bit more about the camera control, the new button that Apple put on their phones.
All of them, not just the pros, it’s all of the 16s have this.
And it’s interesting.
I’ve read a number of articles, lots of different feelings about this camera control.
And from a personal perspective, I like the idea of this button.
One of the things I’ve talked about previously is that I had a digital DSLR.
So, well, I just duplicated that, but anyway.
I used it quite a bit when my kids were in school for sports, I had good lenses, fast lenses, so that I could capture their sporting events in the relatively low light of a gym and still get good video, even from it and good pictures as well, and so I enjoyed that part of photography and in the manual nature of some of that, I would go on some nature walks with my wife and I’ve talked about that as well and taking pictures and just enjoying our time together and the manual control of the camera at that point was something that I really enjoyed doing.
So I liked the idea of this button taking me back to that manual control function without all of the additional gear, my camera bag was quite heavy.
So, you know, it’s just a matter of planning, but the phone that I always carry, the camera therefore that I always carry, having this more of a manual feel of control to it really is something that I thought I would really like.
And in reality is that I do like it.
I’m still trying to figure out how to learn it.
I’ll talk a little bit more about that as we progress.
So the one thing that you get with the camera control button is control without touching your screen.
And so that’s kind of nice, except that some have pointed out that there may be more fine control on the screen than you might get from sliding your hand or finger, I mean, across this little button, once you’ve selected the things that you want to change.
And so, I don’t know, that might be true, but I still like the idea of the button.
I like the idea of the manual control.
I like the idea of there being a physical place where you can control all the aspects that Apple lets you of the camera that’s in your hand.
So then the question is, can it be useful?
So I was at an event the other night, my niece, grand niece, no, I don’t know.
It’s my nephew’s daughter, whatever that link is.
Is that my, I don’t even know.
I’m not going to figure it out.
Anyway, she’s playing volleyball.
So again, I’m in a gym with whatever light is available there.
And that’s when I realized that Apple doesn’t give you control of the shutter speed, and I think I knew that, but I wasn’t really paying that much attention.
But it did allow me to do things with the camera control button, zooming in, zooming out, taking some video and, um, yeah, side note, being able to pause video while you’re in the video app.
Uh, that’s something Apple should have done a very long time ago.
So anyway, back to the button.
So the speed of use, changing things, you know, access to different parts of the camera function, I think that’s all pretty good, but in reality, this is a manual control function for the camera on the phone.
And if you have done any type of photography, you know, the speed.
At which you would set a DSLR up to take a picture that you want to be able to capture an event is not something that is often done quickly, you will set up a camera for action that you know, you want to capture, make sure the light is correct.
Make sure you’re gathering the information that you need to make a good picture, but that setup takes time to get exactly what you want.
And then as the action occurs, you’re taking multiple shots of whatever the, the event is in that one setting.
And then if the conditions change, you go back and change your settings again.
Most people shoot in automatic mode and, and that’s fine.
You get great pictures that way.
But for those of us who enjoy fiddling, I guess, and, and getting different types of photos from that, I think that using that camera control button offers some of that same effect.
So then the next question is why, why would you want to use this camera control button, because I think, and I may be wrong here, I probably need to do a little more research, but I think in the post-processing of a photo, you can do and apply all of the effects of what you get using the camera button.
So you could go back and then make the picture look exactly like you like it to.
If that’s true, then yeah, maybe the camera button doesn’t add a whole lot, except to give you what you want in the moment.
So that if you want to share a picture, if you want to show people what you’ve done, you have a picture that is exactly like you, or at least very close to what you want it to be.
And, and so in the after processing, which I don’t do much of because I’m lazy, but in the after processing, the, the, that process takes much less time because you’re starting from a point of a picture and an effect, lighting, angles of all those things that you wanted when you took the picture, I realize you can do some of that in the post-processing, but that means you are waiting to be able to share something you captured and something that you like until you can get that post-processing done.
So I guess there’s a balance there.
So when, when do you use the camera control button versus when do you do everything after the fact?
Well, I think in photography, and I’m not a good photographer by any means, even, even though I enjoy it, it doesn’t mean I’m super good at it.
I really enjoy basketball, but I’m not playing in the NBA.
That is similar to photography, but I enjoy using the control and feeling like I have some control of what I want my pictures to be, because as I said, I do.
I am a little bit lazy when it comes to post-processing and I’d like to be able to just say, this is the picture that I wanted.
This is the picture that I took, but you know, post-processing is, is nice to make a picture exactly like you want it.
So there is one area in the camera control that makes me a little bit nervous and I haven’t quite figured it all out yet.
There are settings that you can do to change things, but when you set up a photo for what you want it to be, effects, colors, lighting, all of those things, and you take the picture, then when you come back to your camera app, do all of those settings stay where you set them, sometimes that’s what you want because you’re still in that same environment, but maybe not having your camera active the whole time, and so that makes sense.
But sometimes you’ve left the area, you’ve gone to another thing, maybe it’s even the next day, and you just want to take the camera and take a picture.
And then you realize that it’s not doing its auto magic work.
And so you’re ending up with pictures that you don’t really like.
I think there’s a way to say in the camera function, don’t maintain my settings, always go back to, I don’t know if you want to call it auto mode.
I need to do a little more research on that to see exactly how it works.
I’m sorry that I don’t have that information during this microcast, but yeah, gives me something to talk about next time.
The other thing that comes to mind is that that button is now available for many people, um, in other words, everyone that makes a camera app has access to how that button works, and so I think in that there’s going to be some opportunities in other third party apps to make that button do more than it might do in the camera app that Apple makes.
I don’t spend a lot of money on third party apps.
I like to stay in the Apple environment, so I’m not sure I’ll see that, but I’ll definitely be reading about it.
And I know there’s great camera apps.
Halide is one that comes to mind and there are numerous ones that people like to use.
And so that is going to change how that button works and what’s available to us.
The other thing is that it’s a button that’s available to Apple’s engineers as well.
And they’ve already made changes to it.
They’ve made some changes, um, that just are interesting.
They weren’t there at the beginning.
So you can change what camera lens you want to be using.
Uh, the three that are on the one side of the phone, but now they’ve added the one that’s on the facing side of the phone.
So you can actually change your camera real quickly to a lens that’s doing the selfie pictures or whatever lens you want to call that.
So there are going to be improvements to how this button works over time.
I was reading something in the beta version and when you, you know, press the button to activate the settings, there’s a little bar that shows up underneath there, um, no one knows why it’s there.
Um, why do you want to touch your screen again after they’ve put this camera control button on?
Anyway, lots of opportunities, I think in the future to see, um, what can be done with that button through third party apps and also what Apple engineers choose to do with it as well.
But the overall aspect of the button, I really like, I just need to learn how to use it better.
Make sure I understand how it works when I want to take a picture just in the auto mode, when I used to take my DSLR and just turn the little button to auto.
I really think I need that on this Apple or this camera control button from Apple.
And maybe that’s something they will add.
So anyway, at the beginning, just initial thoughts as I use it.
It’s only been in my hands for a week plus.
Um, I like the idea.
I like where it has the potential to go.
And I actually like using it because it feels like I have more control of the photos that I want to take.
Well, that’s all I have for today.
As always, I want to thank you for listening to the TechnologyBytes microcast, and I look forward to the next time we are together taking another bite of technology.
