Features

Manual ISO, shutter and white balance, and autofocus too

Can I set ISO and shutter by hand, or does it have autofocus?

Log Cam: RAW 4K Video Camera lets you set ISO, shutter and white balance by hand. It also has autofocus and tap to focus for when you prefer not to. You can pick which of your phone’s lenses records. You can adjust focus, ISO and shutter while you record, so a shot that changes does not need a second attempt.

Both halves of that are deliberate. A camera that only shoots automatic cannot hold an exposure steady through a shot. A camera that only shoots manual is tiring when things move faster than you can turn a dial. Which one you want depends on the day, not on your experience. So the app does not decide it for you.

Manual exposure matters most when the scene misleads the meter. Point an automatic camera at a person in front of a window, and it exposes for the window. Walk from a bright street into a doorway, and it changes the exposure the whole way. On screen, the picture appears to breathe. Manual ISO and shutter fix the exposure to the subject and keep it there.

Shutter also sets motion blur, which is why the shutter angle convention exists. A shutter at about double the frame rate looks like film. A much faster shutter looks like a news broadcast.

Manual white balance does the same job for color. Automatic white balance is a guess about what in the frame is neutral. It revises the guess when the frame changes. So a shot that pans from daylight to a lamp shifts color partway through. A fixed Kelvin value stops that. Set the Kelvin value before you roll, because white balance does not adjust while you record.

With autofocus, the camera selects the focus distance and changes it as the distance changes. Handheld video is a constant small negotiation with autofocus. You lean in, your subject shifts their weight, and you follow them across a room.

Tap to focus is the other half. Autofocus finds the subject from the picture, so it is usually correct. It is also occasionally confident and wrong, and it selects the doorway behind a shoulder instead of the person. A tap tells the camera which one you meant, and that is faster than an argument with it.

Lens selection is your choice of which physical lens on the phone records. Each lens sees a different amount of the room. So the choice decides how much of the scene is in the shot. It also decides how close you stand to your subject. Which lenses you have depends on the phone.