Technical Camera 1.6 : Keeping the Lowest ISO

Technical Camera 1.6 introduced a new option, Keep Lowest ISO. But let’s start with a little background information.

Multiple cameras on an iPhone usually have different ISO ranges. For example on the iPhone 11 Pro Max, the ultra wide camera’s ISO range is 21-2010, while the wide camera’s range is 32-3070. The telephoto camera is capable of ISO values identical to the ultra wide.

The difference on the high end of these ranges doesn’t really matter as everything above ISO 400 tends to produce unacceptable results for serious photography, and ISOs above 1600 are pretty much useless.

But the low end is different. You have to use the lowest ISO possible to get the highest image quality. And switching between cameras having a different lowest ISO value in manual ISO mode was a bit of a pain, as you had to adjust the manually set value every time.

This is no longer the case in version 1.6. If you turn the Keep Lowest ISO option on in the menu, the app will automatically set the lowest possible ISO on the camera you switched to, given that you had the lowest ISO set on the camera you’re switching from. Please note that this works only in manual ISO mode. And that’s it. A pretty simple but highly effective feature for those pursuing the highest possible image quality even in mobile photography.

Celebrating 140,000 Wonderful ShutterCount Customers

I’m proud to announce that ShutterCount just passed the 140,000 customer mark. People in more than 120 countries rely on this app to measure the number of shutter actuations on Canon, Nikon and Pentax cameras. Thank you for helping to make ShutterCount the gold standard!

Launched almost exactly six years ago in October 2013, ShutterCount was the first shutter count reader for Macs. It supported Canon cameras only at that time. But we didn’t sit on our laurels, and in April 2016 launched the first (and to my knowledge the still only) shutter count reader for iPhone and iPad: ShutterCount Mobile. Canon has changed the way its cameras work, and we were the first on the world to support this new way in ShutterCount 3, available since June 2017. This release also brought Nikon and Pentax support, and the ability – again as a first – to count and graphically display live view actuations separately. Mirrorless cameras from Canon introduced a new counting mechanism, and ShutterCount was the first app to include support in October 2018.

With an app having such a widespread user base, it is inevitable that some people will have problems. During the last six years we had helped several hundreds people. From pre-purchase questions to actual problem solving. They helped to shape the various resources we offer today to get the most out of the app: the Getting Started Guide, my step-by-step pairing guide, as well as a handful of instruction videos. Thank you!

Unfortunately there are a few people who doesn’t allow us to help: doesn’t read/watch the instructions, and doesn’t contact us for help. And usually end up leaving a bad review based on their beliefs how the app should work. It’s really hard to shepherd them back to the correct way, but we take it as a challenge and continuously improve both in app-messages and our guides.

Again, thank you all for this wonderful journey!

Artist’s Viewfinder 6.3 Released

Continuing today’s iOS 13 compatibility updates, version 6.3 of the Mark II Artist’s Viewfinder is now available on the App Store. It brings full iOS 13 support (again, you must update to this version if you are using iOS 13). Dark Mode is supported in the menu, but the main screen’s color theme is still controlled with the Toolbar Theme preference in the menu.

Along a few new cameras, there’s a notable new feature: Zoom to Active Frame.

Once it’s turned on in the menu, double or triple tapping a frame will not just set the mask or highlight, but will also zoom to the active frame so that it fits the screen (that is, the whole active frame becomes visible, at the largest possible size where the whole frame is on the screen). Clearing the mask or highlight will change the zoom level back to where it was before activating the frame (the original zoom level). There are a few things to keep in mind, though.

If the active frame is too small (it would need a higher zoom level than the maximum possible) or too large (smaller zoom level than possible), then it may not fit the whole screen. This may happen with long telephoto or ultra wide lenses.


Viewfinder forgets the original zoom level (and will not revert to it when the mask or highlight is cleared) if you:

  • 
manually change the zoom level after the app zoomed into the active frame;
  • switch between the wide and tele cameras on the phone; or
  • toggle Wide Mode.

When you activate another frame while still in a previously activated one, the display will change to reflect your new activation. The original zoom level will not change in this case, so clearing the active frame will bring you back to the zoom level used before the first frame activation.

Optical image stabilization and exposure simulation described in my previous posts for Technical Camera are also present in this app (since they share the underlying capture engine).

The Viewfinder Handbook was also updated to reflect the new features.

This update is free for existing users. New users can purchase the app in the App Store.

Technical Camera 1.4 : Exposure Simulation

Technical Camera did support longer exposures (up to a given device’s capabilities, which is usually in the 0.5s-1s range) from day one. And live view frame rate followed the exposure time, resulting in substantial lag when longer exposures were used.

To resolve this issue, version 1.4 introduces exposure simulation.

It works exactly the same way your regular camera’s live view does: we simulate the brightness of longer exposures by increasing ISO instead of dropping the shutter speed. The result is a fluid, high frame rate live view feed under all circumstances.

There’s a limitation, though, that you should be aware of. When light levels drop, simulation may end up showing a darker image when the actual (non-simulated) exposure would also use a very high ISO. Practically this isn’t a big deal, since very high ISOs are unusable on a phone.

Update 10/2/2019: While it’s a version 1.5 feature, the exposure simulation warning should also be mentioned here. It appears when the simulation can no longer show the actual exposure, because it hit the high ISO limit.

In this case an orange dot starts to blink once a second.

Exposure simulation is always on, no way to disable it.

Version 1.4 is a free update for existing Technical Camera owners. New users can purchase the app in the App Store.