My phone hates spiders. it refuses to focus on them, and only focuses on what is behind them even if i perfectly center to image on the spider as it hangs in its web. Any tips for making the picture focus on foreground rather than background?
I wish my iphone xs max camera, which i bought more than anything for its camera for Inat, had a “spider mode.”
try holding your hand or a piece of paper or book behind the web, close-ish to the spider. Then when taking photo, move the phone around slightly until it locks to the spider. Trying to get too close can be an issue too, as most phones are setup to take photos of people and scenery (the designers obviously weren’t iNatters!). It is better to have a less zoomed in shot than a super close up but blurry, as we can digitally zoom in to see the detail in most cases.
Some phones also let you lock the focus by pressing and holding. If you have this feature, lock the focus on a dummy object at the desired distance – e.g. a sheet of paper-- and then you can move your phone over to photograph the spider – in focus!
Does iPhone have a manual mode? If so there should be a macro mode. Found this link:https://www.imore.com/heres-how-take-fantastic-macro-shots-your-iPhone, it mentions “Use AE/AF lock for a clear shot”. Another link: https://snapsnapsnap.photos/how-to-shoot-close-up-and-macro-photography-with-your-iphone/
Install Camera+ (or Camera+ 2) on your iPhone. It has a macro mode (the little flower icon) that makes shooting bug photos on an iPhone 100x easier. In particular it makes the camera favor focusing on near objects rather than the background.
Any recommendations for macro picture apps on Android?
I use Camera that came loaded on my phone. It is ver 6.2.18.2 available from Google play Store. When you have it active, the is an “A” inside a camera body at the top of the screen, select it and then choose “manual”. A row of options appear down the right side of the screen. Pick the top one that seems to be a viewfinder. An arc appears across the top of the screen. This is a manual focus, a flower appears about 1/5th of the way from the left. Select there and it puts it into macro mode. A flower should appear mid, top center of screen, if an “M” appears, you slightly missed.
The Moment - Pro Camera app has a tab called Auto F. If you click it a slider comes up that allows you to manually focus. It also has focus peaking where green dots show what’s in focus.
Welcome to the forum, @thomasbarbin! Thanks, everyone, for the tips…I’ve learned a lot of highly useful things.
My version of the default Android Camera app doesn’t have manual focus nor can I find any way to enable it, so I downloaded a free camera app called Open Camera which does have it. I don’t think the image quality is as good as the default app though, at least in low light.
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