Full-Manual Mode - Exposure, White Balance & FocusUpdated 9 months ago

While it’s often a safe bet to use the app in Full-Auto and get a good shot, there are situation when you might want more control over your shot. That’s where Fjorden Camera shines!  

Switch between Full-Manual and Full-Auto

Tap on each of the parameters in the Capture Setting area to manually adjust Exposure Compensation, Shutter Speed, ISO, White Balance or Focus Distance. 

With the Fjorden Grip connected, press the Control Dial to cycle through the parameters and rotate the dial to adjust the parameter value. The selected parameter will have a yellow dial indicator next to it. 

Press & hold the Control Dial to reset the selected parameter to Auto.

EXPOSURE

By default, your iPhone will automatically try to find the best settings for an evenly exposed photo, but in particular lighting conditions, that might not be what you’d want. Use the EV, SS & ISO sliders to get a perfectly exposed photo in any situation.

EV - Exposure Compensation

You can adjust exposure compensation in 0.5 increments by either using the EV Slider or by rotating the Control Dial on the Fjorden Grip. 

Tap & Hold the EV label to reset Exposure Compensation to 0.0.

Exposure Compensation (EV) controls the brightness of your scene and overrides the camera’s Auto-Exposure measurements. Manually adjusting EV can be useful or necessary in very bright or very contrasting environments. 

Because cameras measure the light reflected off subjects and are standardised on “middle gray” or “18% gray”, when pointed at a very light object they adjust exposure the opposite way, making the image too dark. The same applies the opposite way when pointed at a dark subject. 

Shutter Speed & ISO

Shutter Speed & ISO are independently adjustable with the app in Manual Mode. If you manually set one of the two, the other one will also lock its value until you adjust or reset it.

Tap & Hold either SS or ISO to reset both to Auto.

Shutter Speed represents the amount of time the camera takes to capture a photo and it’s measured in fractions of a second.

A lower value means a faster shutter speed, which results in less motion blur, but also less light. On the opposite end, a higher value means a slower shutter speed, which means more time to capture light, but also more time for things to move in your frame. 

ISO dictates how reactive is your camera to light. High ISO values generate a lot of noise, resulting in diminished picture quality. 

FOCUS MODES

By default, Fjorden Camera will try to focus on subjects closest to the lens and the center Viewfinder. You can also Auto-Focus on a subject by tapping it in the Viewfinder. 

From the Focus Settings, you can enable Face Tracking which will auto-focus on faces found in your frame. The app will prioritise faces that are closest to the camera and the center of the Viewfinder.

Use the Focus slider to manually adjust the focus distance. 

For better control when focusing manually, turn on Focus Peaking. This will highlight the edges of the subject in focus. 

Tap & hold the Focus Peaking icon to change the color of the highlighted edges. 

WHITE BALANCE

You can manually adjust White Balance to any of the presets or use the Kelvin slider for even more precision. This can be useful under studio lighting, where you might know precisely the Kelvin value of the studio lights, or when trying to be creative with the look of your shot.

White Balance is how the camera compensates for the color of the light source to provide an accurate reproduction of the colors in the scene. 

When shooting in daylight or under white light, the colors in our image would likely match the colors in the scene. However, we typically photograph in less ideal lighting conditions, that influence the color reflected by objects. 

For example, the flame from a candle emits a yellowish red color and will make objects around it look “warmer”, while fluorescent lights have a slight blue color and make everything look “colder”. The variation in the color of a light source is referred to as “color temperature” and is measured in Kelvin units (e.g. daylight is typically between 5500 and 6500 Kelvin). 

Fjorden Camera will figure out the lighting conditions and automatically set the White Balance value accordingly in order to capture a neutral (or balanced) color temperature, rather than too warm or too cold.