I've never been interested in photography personally, but I got a phone that has a good camera now, and I've been having a lot of fun with it. What kind of settings should I look for to get better action shots?

[–] Shadow@lemmy.ca 15 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

An app that allows manual control, and then increasing the shutter speed to avoid blur.

Phone cameras aren't generally the best at action shots, they have too much delay. It's easier to record slowmo and pick out frames, but then image quality suffers.

[–] Biskii@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 weeks ago

Thank you!

[–] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

What kind of phone?

[–] Biskii@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

Pixel 7 Pro

If it matters, GrapheneOS with Google Camera app that has no network access

[–] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I checked out the camera specs. Couple tips if you like:

You'll want to turn on full manual settings, which I'm pretty sure you should be able to do. In the camera app, enable Pro Controls in settings. Then you can manually tweak shutter speed, ISO, and focus right from the viewfinder.
Shutter speed is the big one — set it to 1/1000s or faster to freeze motion.
ISO: keep it low for better quality. 100–400 if it’s bright, 800–1600 if it’s darker. (ISO basically is how sensitive to light you want the camera sensor to be. If too sensitive (too high), photos can get grainy.)
Focus: use continuous autofocus if you can, or pre-focus on where the action will happen. Pixel 7 I believe has burst shutter mode, which would be ideal.
Aperture on Pixel 7 is fixed at f/1.85, so nothing you can do there, but it's a good large opening that is suitable for action shots.
Increase exposure a little if the scene looks too dark.

If you want even more control, third party camera apps typically let you lock in all you manual setting preferences. I use ProCamera, but I have an iPhone.

[–] Biskii@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Woah, this is amazing. As a complete newb I appreciate this so much! I will try to mess with it when I take my dog out to play later

Edit: this helped so much! I'm still practicing, but I was able to take some pretty good pictures of my dog playing catch. Thank you again for helping me, I'm starting to really enjoy this

[–] _g_be@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Another thing you can do: if you like the way a certain photo of yours has come out, go to the advanced info of the picture and look at the settings the camera picked out. The Google photos app does this, not sure about the built-in GrapheneOS viewer

[–] Biskii@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 week ago

Oh, great tip! I'm using the Google photo app with out network as well. As much as I don't want any of their shit, the camera has features I really like. I don't know if any other app can use the macro zoom, but I'd love to be pointed in the right direction if there is