5 Reasons You Should Be Using Lightroom Mobile’s Built-in Camera
Lightroom Mobile’s built-in camera is one kick butt little app — it’s one of the most underrated parts of Lightroom Mobile, and that’s why today I wanted to share “5 Reasons You Should Be Using Lightroom Mobile’s Built-in Camera”
When you shoot with it, your photos are automatically sync’d back to your desktop, and to your other mobile devices as well (i.e. your iPad or Android tablet).
It has a built-in level, so you visually straighten your shot before you take it (see below #2 — that broken white line turns yellow and straight when your image is level).
It has a live highlight clipping warning (it uses the “zebra” warning technique to let you know which areas are clipping). Seen above at #3 — those black and white zebra’d areas up at the top center are clipping.
It has the easiest to use Exposure Compensation ever — just tap on the screen and swipe left or right to darken or brighten before you take the shot. No trying to hit a tiny little scroll that is hit/miss most of the time. You’ll wonder why every camera app doesn’t do it like this (well, if they have exposure compensation in the first place)
It has Live Shooting Filters — you can see a preview of what applying various built-in effects filters would look like before you even take the shot. It’s like “pre-processing” instead of “post-processing.”
Give the Lightroom Mobile camera a try this week, and by Friday, you’ll be using it as your main camera from now on — it’s that much better. 🙂
Hope you have an awesome Monday to kick off your week!
Best,
-Scott
P.S. I posted the images (and the story) from my shoot at the Atlanta Falcons new stadium, including my game coverage of the Falcons/Packers game over on Adobe Spark Page. That stadium is just incredible! Here’s the link if you’ve got a sec.
I am occasionally using the inbuilt camera on the app on my Samsung S10. It works great on the default camera, but it seems impossible to access any of the two other cameras, the super-wide and the tele cameras on this phone.
Are there any workarounds or hidden selection commands that could solve this issue?
Nice post. Thanks for this article.
I get only a B&W shooting version. I hope I am only naive and someone can show me a path to the right adjustments.
I’m afraid though, it can’t be dine. I dowloaded the app again and opens in B&W. The selfie mode shows color. It is the free edition. How can this be…????!!!!
And one reason NOT to use it ….
Yesterday I thought I would give the LR CC camera a try on my Huawei P20 Pro and took several dozen 40 megapixel JPGs. Of course, there the pics were on my desktop LR CC when I got home. Plus point for convenience
BUT: they were quite severely reduced in quality. In a comparison, I took pics the same subject with the LR CC camera and the built-in camera software. No comparison, the built-in pics were MUCH better looking. And a third smaller in bytes.
Experimented. Rejected!
The lightroom camera crops the shot substantially compared to what is seen in the viewfinder on my Android phone. This makes it unstable.
Anyone else find this?
Can you tell me how to sync to my desktop and laptop. LR tells me that I can only sync to one or the other.
Re #1: that also happens on the builtin camera app if you have iCloud Library turned on
Re #4: also works this way in the builtin camera app (only swipe up-down instead of left-right which seems more natural to me)
Re #5: also works this way in the builtin camera app
Sorry, you did not convince me to start using Lightroom Mobile instead of the default iPhone camera app. The fact that the latter is way easier accessible from a locked phone is more important to me.
There are two things that stop me using the built-in app. Firstly, Lightroom Mobile syncs to my Lightroom photos on my Mac, and secondly, the built-in app doesn’t shoot in RAW.
Has anyone reviewed the Iphone X10 camera?
One of the big talking points about the iPhone X is the ‘lip’ at the top of the phone, where a section of the ‘all-screen’ display was cut out to place the cameras.
The True Depth camera at the top is needed for Face ID, so it makes sense that a small portion would need to be kept for all the technology – but it does ruin the aesthetic somewhat.
Thank you for the feedback interesting.
Lightroom mobile camera only takes one shot with a bluetooth selfie stick. Subsequent clicks triggers the volume control. Google’s stock camera app works on multiple photos via bluetooth trigger.
Other than this, I now use Lightroom mobile exclusively for food photography.
OK, before we talk about Lightroom mobile at all, I can’t get past this whole “Selfie Stick” thing. LOL!! 😉
Yeah, it’s not just a “selfie stick” thing, though. It’s the remote bluetooth shutter fob to avoid camera shake and/or movement, just like on the big dog camera. And it’s highly annoying that LR Mobile on my Android that has DNG, but still requires a touch to the, usually not tripod mounted, phone.
I’m surprised you didn’t list the most important reason: you can shoot RAW (DNG) on the iPhone 6s and newer phones.
Because most folks don’t have a phone that shoots RAW – but all these tips work on everybody’s phone 🙂
I heard rumors it can capture RAW on android – is that so?
I can’t help but question this comment” you’ll be using it as your main camera from now on — it’s that much better. ” With the size of a phone lens and the fact that many folks carry the phone in their pocket subjected to all sorts of things and just the fact that a sensor and optics of a camera can be so much better…Thanks for any response.
Yes, DNG support actually came to Android first. Excerpted from Adobe’s Help doc (https://helpx.adobe.com/mobile-apps/help/lightroom-mobile-faq.html):
“Beginning with version 2.0, Lightroom for mobile supports DNG raw image capture on devices running Android versions 5.0 (Lollipop) and later. However, this capability is available only on those devices that support capturing DNG raw images. Support for DNG capture is enabled/set solely by the device manufacturers.
To check if your device supports DNG capture:
– First ensure that the latest version of the Lightroom app is installed on your mobile device.
– In the Collections view, tap () icon at the upper-left corner of the screen to bring up the sidebar menu.
– In the menu, tap Device Info & Storage > Device Info.
– Check whether DNG Capture Supported displays Yes or No. If it displays Yes, you can capture raw images using the in-app camera.”
Thanks, Rob – you’re the star!
If your camera already supports shooting in RAW (so it’s a new Samsung or iPhone or one of the handful of phones that support RAW), then yes, it will shoot RAW. It’s really based on the phone. Hope that helps.