Ahola Development Blog

Silver B&W Camera has manual focus option you can use when autofocus does not work the way you like. Touch button M and then select Focus. If your device has more lenses than the single wide angle lens you first need to select a supported lens. iOS devices allow manual focus when wide angle lens or tele lens is in use.

You may let the autofocus system first focus to subject you want and then touch the Auto switch do disable autofocus and freeze the focus distance. You can then frame the photo the way you like.

If the target is close by but so small that autofocus does not detect it you can use something bigger to help focus. Even your own hand if you manage to place it on the right distance.

And of course you can use the focus slider and use the camera preview to focus your subject.

Note that you can move the manual settings window by touching its top frame and moving your finger.

There is one important thing to remember about manual focus. You may want to focus to infinity when shooting distant objects or scenery. Be aware that the rightmost position of the focus slider may not be the infinity. Typically lens focus system extends beyond infinity. This guarantees that lens can focus to infinity but does not define physical position for the infinity. So when manually moving the focus slider to focus to infinity carefully check the preview window and don’t simply move the slider to the right end.

Silver B&W Camera supports RAW and ProRAW (since version 3.1) formats. RAW and ProRAW images are combined with JPEG or HEIC photos as a single image file. 

By default a JPEG or HEIC version is shown and shared if send to others. The RAW and ProRAW versions remain in the background and needs specific actions to be accessed.

You can use Mac computer and Photos app to extract separate RAW or ProRAW and JPEG or HEIC files.

Or you can use iOS app like A Photo Tool to select whether you want to access the RAW format or normal photo format of the file.

We have a short video to show how everything is done. See it here on YouTube.

Silver B&W Camera has features to adjust exposure – that is lightness or darkness of the photo.

Simplest is the Exposure Bias setting. Touch M button to show the manual modes dialog. First item on the left is Exposure +/-. This setting works in combination with autoexposure. You just tell the automatic that you want the photo to be lighter or darker.

Example is a sunny day when everything is lit brightly but your main target is in the shadow. Add some positive exposure bias to make your main target more visible. Remember to watch out the overall exposure so that you don’t make the background too light.

You can close the manual settings dialog and the exposure bias setting remains in effect. Small letter B on the camera view reminds that bias setting is on.