Camera FV-5

# Other settings

# Geotagging

Geolocation information can be added on photographs being taken, so that you can remember where you took them afterwards. This information is saved on the EXIF metadata, therefore it will only work with JPEG images (PNG images do not support EXIF metadata). If you are shooting in RAW, the location information will also be stored into the DNG metadata.

To enable geotagging, be sure to enable the option Geotagging in the application settings (tab Basic). If you are using Android 6 or higher, and if it is the first time you enable the option, you will need to grant permission to the app to access the location services.

GPS and location services

The location of your device comes from GPS and similar services in order countries/regions of the world. However, using these positioning technologies, the acquisition of the first location is quite slow. For this purpose, if you have Google Services installed, Camera FV-5 will use additional Google services to get the device location faster. Those services use positioning using cellular tower triangulation, as well as WiFi positioning.

Geotagging and privacy

Using geotagging has its privacy implications. Therefore it is disabled by default. First of all, Camera FV-5 itself doesn't collect your location. However, in order to get the location information faster, Google might process your location. Also, you have to be mindful of sharing photos with third party services with location information, as those services will know when and where these photos were taken, and might reveal private locations. Therefore, consider the privacy implications of geotagging before enabling the feature.

# Taking pictures by tapping on the viewfinder

There's an option to take photos by simply tapping on the viewfinder: touch capture. To enable or disable touch capture, you need a button on the screen that is not shown by default (the buttons shown on the left of the viewfinder if you hold the device in landscape orientation). To show the button, go to Settings > Viewfinder > User interface buttons, disable at least a button you don't need, and enable the button Touch capture Touch capture (there a limit on how many buttons fit on the screen). Once the Touch capture Touch capture button is enabled, you will see it on the main screen, and tapping on it will enable or disable the option. When the option is enabled, you can simply tap on the viewfinder to take photographs.

# Focus settings

When taking pictures with the automatic, macro and touch focus modes, the camera by default will wait for focus confirmation before taking a photo. After the focus confirmation, it will only take the photo if the focus was reported as successful. You can however customize this behavior.

Under Settings > Camera tab you will find two options:

  • Focus before capturing. On by default, this will control whether or not autofocus will be triggered before capturing a shot on those focus modes. When the option is enabled, the autofocus routine will be called and the app will wait for focus confirmation. If disabled, the camera will immediately capture the shot, therefore you need to refocus first if the focus distance changed, otherwise the photograph might come out of focus.

  • Allow taking a photo without focus. If the previous option is enabled, and after focusing the routine returns as unsuccessful (the subject couldn't be properly focused), there's the possibility of continuing with the capture or not. By default the capture will be aborted (the option is disabled), but if the option is enabled, the photo will be taken nonetheless.

# Picture sizes and compression settings

There are a couple of settings that affect the resolution and the size of the resulting pictures.

  • Image resolution (Settings > Basic tab). Here the picture size for regular photographs can be selected. Of course the list of individual resolutions depend on the device and the currently selected camera. On each resolution, you se can see the pixel dimensions (with and height), the megapixel count and the aspect ratio (the relation between the width and the height). Larger images take more storage, but you will usually want to shoot at the largest resolution available if you have the possibility, as pictures will retain the most detail. By default, the highest resolution for each camera is chosen, but you can configure each camera of your device (if your device has more than one camera) individually.

Maximum resolution for very large image sensors

On some devices, specially those with exceptionally high resolutions (48 MP, 64 MP, 108 MP or larger), the maximum resolution available in the app might be smaller than that (usually by a factor of 4 for 48 and 64 MP sensors, and by a factor of 9 on 108 MP and larger sensors). This is due to two main reasons:

  • The manufacturer of the device does not offer those native resolutions to third party apps like Camera FV-5. If Camera FV-5 cannot see the maximum native resolution, most likely all third-party apps are affected, not just Camera FV-5.
  • Those larger sensors are usually not based on a bayer filter, but use a Quad Bayer or Nonacell array, which are design to combine 4 and 9 photoreceptors into one respectively. This offers some benefits like single-shot HDR and less noise, but they offer those benefits only if using a fourth or a nineth of the resolution. The native camera might offer the option to shoot at the native resolution, but often this resorts to interpolation algorithms (therefore the resulting resolution is not equivalent to a sensor of the same resolution using traditional bayer arrays) and none of the intendeded benefits apply.

  • File format (Settings > Image tab). Here you can choose the compression method: JPEG (default and recommended) and PNG (lossless, but takes much longer to compress without perceptible visual differences compared to JPEG). The JPEG file format is recommended as a good tradeoff between file sizes and picture quality.

  • JPEG quality level (Settings > Image tab). A quality level of 100 offers the best quality (default), while 90-95 still offer almost no picture degradation while compressing more.

  • Embed thumbnail in JPEG and JPEG thumbnail quality level (both in Settings > Image tab). A thumbnail of the picture itself can be embedded inside the main image as metadata to make picture browsing faster (by not having to decode the whole image when just a thumbnail is needed), however, it increases the overall size of the image (the increase is very small). The quality of the thumbnail can be adjusted as well.

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