At first glance, Camera FV-5 can seem like an ugly, Early Learning Centre version of an Android camera app. Big, bulky icons aren’t really where it’s at in the world of smartphones.
However, give it a bit of time and you’ll see that it’s actually pretty special. The Camera FV-5 approach is based on that of higher-end dedicated cameras – DSLRs, for the most part.
It puts photographic settings at your fingertips, not hipster-style filters. We’re talking about things like ISO, white balance, exposure compensation and metering.
Camera FV-5 also shows you the exact settings the phone used just after you take a shot too, letting you learn a bit more about how it behaves in different conditions.
Dive deeper into the settings up on the left side of the screen and there’s more too. There’s manual bracketing, where multiple shots are taken at different exposure settings, and a good deal of control over control over the shutter speed.
As well as being able to choose exactly how long the shutter stays open, up to several seconds, you can use ‘controlled’ shutter speed modes that skew the automatic settings towards longer or shorter exposure times.
If you want an app to turn your phone into a platform to learn a bit more about photography – perhaps with a view to buying a DSLR in the future – Camera FV-5 is excellent. A no-nonsense approach forces you to think a bit more about what your camera is doing. And, just like a dedicated camera, you can really muck it up if you apply settings without thinking.
We did find the app a little bit buggy in use, but this could have been down to the phone as much as the app. As it fiddles quite a bit with the phone’s cameras hardware, there’s likely to be the odd clash. Persevere, though, as there’s a lot to learn here.
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