I have a 4 year old first generation iPhone SE, nothing special. If I wanted to take close up shots using the built in camera I found it very frustrating. Not only does the colour temperature shift around but focussing is an exercise in brain damage. Because the depth of field is only a few millimetres and the autofocus will never focus on what you select, the only solution was to try and get the camera to focus on something that I guess is as close as it can focus and then lock the focus and then try to get the bit I want in focus.
Alternatively I would take a series of shots with the focus locked while moving successively further away. This is because when shooting top down on a seedling it's impossible to stop the camera locking on the background so I'd estimate the distance and then back off. It was so difficult that I didn't even bother with colour balance or exposure too much.
Not any more, say goodbye to photoshoot on camera phone blues with...wait for it... Camera M. This is possibly the best app I have ever bought, it is magical and amazing giving you total and complete control over focus, exposure and colour balance all separately and it means I can now shoot tight in shots with my ordinary little camera phone that are useful to me for future reference and I can do it with such ease that it is now fun instead of infuriating.
It's now possible for me to lock the colour balance so that it is perfect, then do an EV correction on the exposure, then actually set the focus to its closest possible range and then with all this locked in, I can use a built in magnifier to simply move into my area of interest and take the shot with exactly what I want in focus. There's a lot more that this app can do with more advanced phones with multiple lenses, but for easy and simple macro shots with an ordinary camera phone, it's brilliant.
Below are a couple of shots that would be impossible without this app.
Alternatively I would take a series of shots with the focus locked while moving successively further away. This is because when shooting top down on a seedling it's impossible to stop the camera locking on the background so I'd estimate the distance and then back off. It was so difficult that I didn't even bother with colour balance or exposure too much.
Not any more, say goodbye to photoshoot on camera phone blues with...wait for it... Camera M. This is possibly the best app I have ever bought, it is magical and amazing giving you total and complete control over focus, exposure and colour balance all separately and it means I can now shoot tight in shots with my ordinary little camera phone that are useful to me for future reference and I can do it with such ease that it is now fun instead of infuriating.
It's now possible for me to lock the colour balance so that it is perfect, then do an EV correction on the exposure, then actually set the focus to its closest possible range and then with all this locked in, I can use a built in magnifier to simply move into my area of interest and take the shot with exactly what I want in focus. There's a lot more that this app can do with more advanced phones with multiple lenses, but for easy and simple macro shots with an ordinary camera phone, it's brilliant.
Below are a couple of shots that would be impossible without this app.
Last edited: