What’s new in Camera FV-5 version 5
The main highlights of 2 years of development for a complete rewrite of the app
New interface
The most evident change is the new user interface. It’s modern. It’s clean. It has everything within reach of your fingers, no matter how you hold the phone. It support natively portrait and landscape operation for everything that is displayed. And it is customizable: you can choose which buttons show up in the top/left side of the screen!
New gestures
Zoom with the shutter button
The shutter button learnt a new trick: now you can press and drag it along the side of the screen to zoom in and out. Neat! Of course you can still pinch to zoom.
New slide-to-exposure-compensation
For something so common like exposure compensation, you can now simply swipe on the viewfinder to adjust the exposure compensation.
Full-screen viewfinder
A new full-screen viewfinder mode has been implemented. Unlike the previous wide-screen viewfinder option, that didn’t always work and only stretched the viewfinder on one side, the full-screen viewfinder option will actually cover the whole screen, leaving the controls on top, and respecting the grids and/or cropping guides if you have them enabled.
Camera switch button
A new camera switch button is shown whenever the app detects the phone has more than one camera to offer for a particular direction (front or back). It also shows the relative multiplication factor of its focal length (0.5x, 1x, 2x, etc). By tapping it switches to the next camera (longer focal length, or if already there, back to the shortest), and very fast! Long-pressing the button will switch to the previous camera.
New RGB-stacked histogram
If you need red-green-blue histogram, but want the compactness of the luminance-only histogram, now you can get the best of both!
Quick access to all manual photographic parameters
ISO, exposure, metering, focus and white balance, are all within finger-reach, no two-hands operation needed. Also, you can now switch from one parameter to another without having to close the previous first. When changing parameters like metering modes or white balance modes you can preview the effect and change presets again without having to reopen the parameter again.
New manual white balance mode
If none of the white balance presets suit the photo, on compatible devices, there’s a new manual white balance mode, where you can dial in the precise color temperature.
Instantaneous exposure bracketing capture
This one is big. On compatible devices, the exposure bracketing feature will capture all photos instantaneously. Even with 5 photos and in JPEG+DNG capture (10 photos in total), a modern device will take only around 300 milliseconds in total. Of course everything will be saved in the background, and you can continue shooting normally.
Volume keys can be used to take photos by default
In all previous versions of Camera FV-5 the volume keys controlled, well, the volume, by default. This does not make sense, and now by default both keys are mapped to the shutter button. Of course you can change that and map any other parameter, or if you prefer, still control the volume.
Better support for Bluetooth remotes
Now the app brings support for many more Bluetooth remotes by default, without you having to configure anything. After pairing, it just works.
New integrated gallery, also with thumbnail list
The new integrated gallery is faster, has more sharing options, and can display EXIF information too. If you long-press the thumbnail of the last taken photo in the main interface, you are presented with a thumbnail list instead, so you can quickly browse to a photo you took a while ago without having to scroll for minutes.
New settings screen
The new settings screen is cleaner, you can quickly switch among pages by swiping horizontally. Pages have generally fewer elements, and if you need to dive deeper into the settings there are plenty of sub-pages. Most of the settings you know and love from previous versions are still there, and most of them still where they used to.
Faster performance
The app starts way faster than before, and app components load asynchronously, you can take photos faster than ever. Switching between cameras (between rear or front cameras) is way faster than before. The histogram doesn’t slow the app a single millisecond and you can comfortably have it displayed all the time.
DNG (RAW) and JPEG photos are now saved from the same capture
In all previous versions of the app, if raw capture in DNG was enabled, two captures were being done in quick succession, one for the JPEG output, and another for DNG. This didn’t matter in most occasions, but in some situations (like on fast moving subjects), you caught the moment in the JPEG and didn’t on the DNG or vice-versa. Now this is not a problem anymore. A single capture is taken, and the same data is used as the basis for both outputs.
Support for screens with notches
Devices nowadays don’t have often perfectly rectangular screens, and Camera FV-5 is now able to take advantage of them. In full-screen viewfinder mode, the camera preview stretches behind all the screen, and controls lay out around the screen cutouts, maximizing screen utilization.
Better RTL support
Now right-to-left languages (like Arabic or Hebrew) are 100% supported, with all interfaces supporting horizontal mirroring. The translations for those languages is still a work in progress, you can contribute if you want to this effort on the localization page.
Better accessibility
The app can now be controlled with directional input devices, and it integrates with screen readers like TalkBack and reads out loud important camera events, like when the capture is finished or when you need to keep the device still. We aren’t completely done with this, and we are still working to make Camera FV-5 the most accessible camera app for Android. Please send us your suggestions to support@camerafv5.com.
Camera FV-5 version 5 represents a completely new chapter in the app’s history, as it was rebuilt from the ground up with focus on performance, usability and establishing a perfect base on which we can build the next awesome features that are yet to come! Don’t forget to let us know what you think about this new version by dropping us a line to support@camerafv5.com. If you want to contribute to our localization efforts, please go to the localization page. Enjoy!
