[Guide] Samsung Galaxy S3 Camera Usage Guide, Part 3: Limitations

Part 1:  Hardware and Features
Part 2: User Interface 
Part 3: Limitations
Part 4: Shooting Mode
Part 5: Scene Mode
Part 6: Summary and Conclusion

Limitations

Every camera has their own limitations, be it compact camera, DSLR, analogue, polaroid, lomo and of course, our phone camera. The first thing a photographer need to learn, is how to work within the limitations of their gears. You need to know what can your camera do, and what your camera can't do because each camera has their own strength and weaknesses, and don't expect your phone camera to be God when it comes to taking pictures. I believe everyone knows about how awful the quality of a phone camera especially for those who start using a camera phone since the 0.3MP era (not even VGA). As for the S3, it is capable of shooting most of daily snap shots that is required for any social networking needs like Facebook and twitter, and even some blogging needs as well.

So, let's run down on the limitations of this phone's camera. I will start with the auto mode, which is everything by default.

In Auto mode:

ISO: 80 (min), 1600 (max)

Shutter: 1/10000 sec (min), 1/17 sec (max)

Aperture: f2.6

Zoom: Digital Zoom up to x4

In Manual mode:

ISO: 100 (min), 800 (max)

Shutter: no Tv mode

Aperture: no Av mode

Zoom: Digital Zoom up to x4

Camera's real limitation

ISO: 80 (min), 1600 (max)

Shutter: 1/10000 sec (min), 1 sec (max)

Aperture: f2.6

Zoom: Digital Zoom up to x4

Shutter

The exposure of an image is determined by three main factors as described by the Exposure Triangle, i.e. the aperture, shutter speed and the ISO. Since the aperture of the Galaxy S3 is fixed at f2.6, the exposure can only be controlled by the other two factors.

The camera software will determine the exposure through it's metering settings, then it will choose the slowest shutter speed possible and then only bump up the ISO if the shutter speed is not enough to achieve a proper exposure of the image. it will not go below 1/17 to avoid hand shake that will create motion blur in your image, unless you purposely want that blur. This applies to most auto modes with the exception of Sport mode, Night mode and other low light modes.

Handshake

Do take note that the hand shake is more severe when holding in vertical position because the camera is located at the top part of the phone and when u tap the shutter button at the lower part of the camera, the camera will tilt forward even if you don't notice it. Any small movement near the datum point (the position near you hold your phone) will be amplified at the top end of the phone. 

Hence, it is more recommended to use horizontal position when shooting in low light because the camera position is at the same axis as the shutter button, which is at the middle of the phone. Besides that, in horizontal position, you can hold the phone more naturally with both hands, boosting better stability. Alternatively, you can enable the Anti Handshake function in the Settings. This function will provide 1-stop advantage by limiting the maximum shutter speed at 1/33 and bump up the ISO by 1-stop. In other words, you sacrifice the image quality for a better stability.

For example: a typical photo requires shutter speed of 1/17 sec and ISO-800 to achieve a proper exposure. But when the Anti Handshake function is turned on, the shutter speed will decrease to 1/33 sec while the ISO is bumped up to ISO-1600. Achieving a one-stop advantage to reduce hand shake.

ISO

ISO is what every photographer loves and hates the most. Bumping ISO enables us to achieve better exposure in low light conditions but on the other hand reduces sharpness and details and increases noise at the same time. The Galaxy S3 camera has a ISO range of ISO-80 to ISO-1600 with manual settings of ISO-100 to ISO-800 only. Sharpness and details are very well preserved up to ISO-400. Anything higher than ISO-400 then do expect degradation of image quality, which is expected.

Focus

The focusing in Galaxy S3's camera is pretty tricky. Basically it has three focusing mode, i.e. Auto, Macro and Face. Unlike conventional mechanism in older phones, the Galaxy S3's camera will prefocus before you as soon as you launch the camera app. The focusing speed depends very much on the subject distance and contrast. Focusing objects that are nearer to the camera in macro mode takes more time than usual. The camera often refuses to focus in low light because the contrast is not enough for it to lock a focus.

I believe the camera uses contrast detection for auto-focus similar to other digital cameras. A better read of different types of autofocus can be referred in the Wikipedia link below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autofocus

To simplify the understanding, the camera is unable to focus when the focus plane is too dull or in unicolor. Try point your camera to a white wall or a dark background, it will return a red bar indicating unable to focus. Now try move it away to focus on something more colourful or possesses more contrast, then you will see your camera is able to lock focus almost immediately.

In Galaxy S3, Samsung has boost about the ability of the camera to shoot with zero-shutter lag, thanks to ICS and similar to other new flagship smartphones. It is able to achieve this through pre-focus and the camera will take a picture regardless whether the focus is locked or not because it assumes that the focus is done beforehand. The camera will choose the middle point as it's main reference focus point and will refresh it every three seconds or when you move away from the subject. Sometimes when you move too much and the camera locked focus at the wrong subject, don't press the shutter button, let it refocus another time before doing so otherwise you will end up with an out of focus (OOF) image.

It is still recommended to use manual focus in order to achieve a higher success rate, especially when your subject is not in the middle of the frame. Gently tap on the screen to select the place you want to focus, give it some time to lock (more time if is macro) then you can take the picture by tapping the shutter button or using Voice Command. Do note that the focus point will refresh in three seconds and will be back to the middle position again, which is sometimes annoying as you need to manually tap the focus point again.

The auto pre-focus function is there to assist you, not to do everything for you. It works most of the time, but sometimes will also hit and miss. Hence, do check your gallery to make sure the image taken is satisfactory. Else, you can always use the Best Photo function, which still requires a good focus lock before firing the shutter.

Low Light

The camera will suffer focusing issue in low light with no contrast. If your flash is turned off, often you will not get any desirable image that is usable. To get better results, just turn on the flash and the camera will focus on the object with the assist light from the flash before taking the photo. In situations where a flash is not desirable in the photo or no flash is allowed or the assist beam from the flash is unable to help lock the focus, try provide some light source on the subject to let it lock the focus and quickly tap the shutter within three seconds otherwise the focus will refresh itself again.

However, if the situation is really that difficult for the camera to focus, then might as well just forget about taking a picture under that condition and use a proper camera for it. If no other options available, then use the flash.

Flash

Missing your Xenon flash from the Sony Ericsson era? Well, the Galaxy S3 still doesn't come with any proper flash and only equipped with a LED light as a flash. Good thing to note that the LED flash is more diffused and brighter when compared to S2.

Lens

The lens is equipped with an aperture value of f2.6, which is not the fastest lens around but is still considerably fast. With only 2/3 stops losing out to the HTC One X (f2.0) and 1/3 stops to the iPhone 4S (f2.4). The aperture value on S3 is only slightly better than the Galaxy S2 (f2.65). I also noticed that the lens is wider than the Galaxy S2 with a focal length of 3.7mm which equates to about 16mm on a 1.6x crop factor or around 25mm on full frame.

Storage and RAM

In Part I I mentioned about the option to choose the path of storage for the photos. However, in Burst Mode (and Best Photo), the phone storage is the only option available. Even thou you have manually set the photo storage to external SD card, but once you switch to Burst Mode, it will automatically assign the phone as the storage medium. The reason behind this is because the Burst Mode requires high speed buffer for all the photos taken during the Burst Mode. An external SD card is not capable of catering such high speed writing, and to be safe, the phone will use the phone storage instead even thou you might have a Class 10 card inside. When you are done with the Burst Mode and revert back to Single Shot, the phone will automatically change the storage path back to the memory card.

One thing I notice during the Burst Mode is that the speed of capturing photos decreases as it approaches 20. It gets slower as the phone's memory is filled up with all these temporary files, which is understandable. Even my entry level DSLR is not capable of doing constant fps as I fire continuous shutter. You will notice the widgets and app shortcuts in your home screen will reload when you press the home button after the Burst Mode due to the phone's memory being used up by the continuous shutters previously. It will take some time for it to reload and please do not scream that your uber expensive phone lags. It's just reloading its widget, not lagging.

Proceed to Part 4: Shooting Mode

[Guide] Samsung Galaxy S3 Camera Usage Guide, Part 2: User Interface

Part 1:  Hardware and Features
Part 2: User Interface 
Part 3: Limitations
Part 4: Shooting Mode
Part 5: Scene Mode
Part 6: Summary and Conclusion

The U.I. (User Interface)

Update: "Wand" Effect 13-07-2012

The user interface in the Galaxy S3 is similar to all other Samsung phones and tablets. It is more complicated compared to phones from other manufactures by  the look of it, with many settings and buttons all around the screen, making people rather panic on what to choose. Unlike other phones from other companies which has simpler user interface and cleaner view, the Samsung variant of camera interface offers more power user features where you can set the settings on the left panel.

On the screen, you will notice a few icons located at the upper right corner. In my phone, I have activated Voice Command, hence you will notice an icon of a speaking man as shown in the picture. Next to it you will see an icon of a power cable, indicating your phone is being charged if you are connecting your phone to the charger during that time. An icon of storage path is located at the far right where it will show a sign of a phone if the phone is selected as the storage path or a memory card icon if the storage path is set to the external SD card. If you have Wifi-Direct enabled in your phone settings, then you will also able to notice the Wifi-Direct icon for Share Shot feature.

The camera also offers a 4x digital zoom and can be accessed via the volume rocker located at the side of the phone.

I will start explaining from the left column and then to the right. Basically these settings are very basic and most of them are self-explanatory. Nevertheless, I will still run down once for those who want to know more.

Basically the first four icons on the left columns are the Setting shortcuts and customizable to suit your need. Hence, I will directly start off with the Setting icon.

Edit Shortcuts

 
The first option you will see in the Settings is the Edit shortcuts option. Tapping on it will bring you to a menu where you can simply drag and drop your most used settings for the ease of quick selection. Settings available to swap include Self Portrait,Flash, Shooting Mode, Auto Focus, Scene Mode, Exposure Value, Time, Effects, Resolution, White Balance, ISO, Metering, Auto Contrast, Outdoor Visibility and Guidelines.

 The instruction is pretty straight forward and I believe everyone should be able to understand how to swap the icons. Just choose four quick settings that you need most.

Self Portrait
Well, this setting is pretty self explanatory. It means changing the camera from the back camera, to the front facing camera. In this Self Portrait mode, there are a few options disabled. Flash, Scene Mode, Auto Focus, ISO, Anti-Handshake, Metering and Auto Contrast are among the settings that are disabled in this mode. However, you will notice that "Save as flipped" option is now available where you can flip the image instead of seeing a mirror self picture.

Flash

This Setting has three option to choose and it is similar to any other digital cameras. You can either disable the flash, or enable it, or set it to Auto to let the camera decide whether to flash or not. Unfortunately, there is no red eye reduction option in this case.

One thing to note that, the flash equipped in the Galaxy S3 is very bright and more diffused. It gives a more natural exposure of the scene instead of a washed out image of white terror. It is still a LED light unfortunately, but having a LED flash light gives the advantage of lower power consumption and able to lit it all the time and use it as a flash light as well. The LED light can also be turned on during video recording and this is an added advantage for video recording in low light condition, even thou it may not help much. Compared to a Xenon flash which requires a pre-charge before firing and consumes more battery, I would say LED light is still the preferred choice for flash.

Shooting Mode

 

The Galaxy S3's camera offers many different shooting modes as you can see in the drop down menu above. Something worth mentioning is that the Scene Mode will be disabled if any Shooting Mode is selected except for None and Buddy Photo Share. More details about each Shooting Mode is discussed further in Part 4: Shooting Mode.


Scene Mode

The camera software offers a total of 13 Scene Modes for various scenes and the functions or attributes of each mode is discussed in Part 5: Scene Mode.

Exposure Value

 

Exposure Value, or simply EV is a manual compensation setting for exposure when your camera metering fails to calculate the exposure correctly. For example, when you are shooting a dark object, especially when the whole frame is covered by it, your camera will think that you are shooting in the dark and automatically increases the ISO or shutter speed to allow more light. Resulting your image tend to wash out and your black looks like brown or any brighter colours. Similar scenario when you are shooting something very bright, like in the snow where everything is white. Your camera will think that you are shooting something bright and then lowers down the exposure, resulting your snow scene becomes very dark and dull.

This is a common problem for all digital cameras because the metering A.I. in the software is not as clever as our human brain where we can adjust different exposures independently. That's is why we often see our pictures came out different from what our actual eye sees. Despite attempts of improving the metering method and having better dynamic range for sensors. Digital cameras will still fail to get correct exposures sometimes and this is when the EV function slots in where users can manually increase or decrease the exposure value. In this camera phone, the EV range allowable is ±2.0 stops of light as shown in the picture above.

Read more about EV: Wikipedia

Focus Mode

There are three focus mode available for the Galaxy S3's camera and similar to any other cameras, which is the Auto-Focus, Macro and Face Detection. Auto focus is usually the fastest because it usually focuses at the infinity and close to infinity. Macro focus is slower because the object is nearer and it need to lock on a precise position before a picture is taken. Face detection works by detecting any human face and focuses on it, good for portrait or group photos because the camera will only focus on the center of the frame by default, which is sometimes not the position of the subject is located.

Update:
The Face Detection focus mode has been removed after updated to the recent firmware LFB/LF1. It is now only available in Shooting Mode only.

Timer

Timer is pretty much straight forward, instead of taking a picture as soon as you tap the button, you can also set a count down timer for the shutter. Typically used when taking group picture where you need to setup the camera and then let it count down for some time so that you have time to get into position. Timer can also be used to reduce handshake where you can set a 2 second timer and then tap the shutter button and hold your phone stable. Other than that, timer can be also use for self portrait where you set the count down timer on and then you take your time to pose for it.

Options of 2, 5 and 10 seconds are available.

Effects

The Effects available in the Galaxy S3's camera is rather disappointing with only three effects available, that is Negative, Black and White, and Sepia. The camera app in HTC One X offers more choices in this particular settings. Even thou such effect are widely available in third party camera apps such as Instagram, Paper Camera etc., it is still preferred if Samsung could add in more filters to make it an ultimate camera app where everything is available in one.

Update:

Looks like Samsung has answered to my call. The recent firmware update includes an upgrade to the camera software. Instead of just 3 effects available, Samsung has topped up the number to a whopping 11 effects, given the name "Wand". Detailed description of this update can be found in my recent post regarding the update here.

11 filters were included into this current update:

1. Negative
2. Black and White
3. Sepia
4. Washed Out
5. Cold Vintage
6. Warm Vintage
7. Posterise
8. Solarise
9. Blue Point
10. Green Point
11. Red-Yellow Point

 

 

Most of these filters are pretty self explanatory and I will let the sample pictures to do the talking instead.

However, this effects don't work with the front facing camera. Only the default effects like Negative, B&W and Sepia is working. All the effects are available for video recording thou.

Resolution

The Galaxy S3 comes with a 8.0 Megapixel camera similar to many other high end smartphones on the market. I personally do feel that 8.0 Megapixel is very sufficient for a phone. Even with my DSLR, I often shoot at 8.0 Megapixel to save storage space. I felt that instead of pumping the megapixel, manufactures should focus on the sensor's capability to deal with noise and colours, as well as lens quality.

There are total of 6 available options for resolution and I would recommend to leave it at default of 8.0 Megapixel since the image is compressed small enough that will not hurt our storage. Furthermore, smaller megapixel means lesser noise as well.

White Balance

I believe many people are familiar with this term, "White Balance". Often people get very funny colour with their pictures especially inside restaurant where you see everyone suddenly becomes yellow man. It is always advisable to set your white balance correctly beforehand to avoid heavy post processing, and as expected, there is no RAW output from our camera here.

Four options of preset White Balance settings are available and unfortunately there is no manual White Balance option available.

ISO

ISO is the light sensitivity of the sensor. The higher the ISO, the brighter your image (given that aperture and shutter speed is kept constant), at the same time introduces more noise. ISO is measured by stops and every stop doubles the light amount. Light sensitivity of a sensor is increased by increasing the current supplied to each pixel to capture light. The higher the current, the hotter the pixel becomes and quality starts to degrade, hence noise is introduced.

In the camera Settings, the ISO can be set manually from ISO-100 until ISO-800. While in Auto Mode, the ISO can range from ISO-80 until ISO-1600.

Metering

Metering is a term used to describe how a digital camera evaluate the light intensity and thus adjusting the exposure. There are three method available in the Galaxy S3's camera, with Centre-weighted being the most commonly used one. For normal users, I will recommend you to leave this by default if you don't understand how metering works.

Centre-weighted average metering is the best because it evaluates the overall brightness of the frame and then gives more attention to the centre. This metering mode is the preset for all digital cameras and usually will get the exposures correctly most of the time. Spot metering measures the brightness only at one spot, which is the middle in this case and it ignores everything else within the frame. This mode is usually used when the exposure of your subject is critial, e.g. portrait shots where the exposure of the face is more important than the surroundings. Matrix metering measures the average brightness across the whole frame by dividing into sub-zones.

Outdoor Visibility

Turning on this function will change the screen brightness and font to facilitate viewing under the sun. However, sometimes even with this function on, I still find it hard to get a good look at the screen. Probably due to the strong sun rays in Malaysia. No other choice but to cover the screen with something else if you wish to have a good look of the screen under hot sun.

Anti Shake

Anti Shake is a function to reduce the risk of handshake by increasing shutter speed. This anti shake feature is different from what we understands from DSLR where the image stabilisation or the vibration compensation is done by hardware, a mechanism in the lens or camera body that detects movement and then compensates by counter reacting to the motion. 

The Anti Shake function in the Galaxy S3 is a software feature instead of a hardware feature. It offers only one stop of vibration compensation by increasing the shutter speed by one stop and then increases the ISO for one stop as well. In order words, you are sacrificing image quality for better stabilisation.

Auto Contrast

Auto Contrast is a feature where the camera will automatically corrects some exposure errors for you. When this function is enabled, users are no longer able to alter the Exposure Value. With Auto Contrast On, you will notice a better contrast of shadow and highlights in your picture. I will try to get a sample picture to show the differences.

Guidelines

Guidelines is similar to any other digital camera where the frame will be divided into 9 zones as shown in the picture below. These lines are there to assist the composition of the picture for those who emphasize on picture composition theories like the rule of third.

Casual users usually won't bother about composition and will definitely turn off this feature because the lines are getting in their way of taking pictures.

Image Quality

In the Galaxy S3's camera, it provides more power user options than other phone camera app. It even provides the compression options where we can select between Normal, Fine and Superfine. By default, the Image Quality is set to Fine and you can manually change it within the settings to any other options available. The better the image quality, the bigger the file size. However, more details and sharpness can be retained.

I set my camera to be on Superfine by default now.

GPS Tag

GPS tag will tag your photo according to location for those who wants to pin point where their photos are taken. Usually used by travelers to track down their picture locations for documentary purposes.

Storage

Last but not least, the storage path option for users to choose where their photos will be saved. All the photos can be saved in the memory card except during Burst Mode where the camera requires the fast writing speed of the internal storage to accomplish to task.

Video/Still Mode

The right column has fewer icons compared to the left column. Users can toggle between video mode or still mode by switching the button up or down. Still pictures can be taken while doing video recording as well by simply tapping the shutter button icon.

Shutter Button

The shutter button is the trigger for the phone to take a picture and is aligned at the middle of the phone together with the camera lens.

Gallery Preview

The Gallery Preview located at the bottom left shows the last taken picture and also offers a short cut into the Gallery app.

This is the end of the User Interface introduction. Please proceed to the next part to understand about the limitations of this camera phone in Part 3: Limitations.

[Guide] Samsung Galaxy S3 Camera Usage Guide, Part 1: Hardware and Feature

A comprehensive yet easy guide for Samsung Galaxy S3 camera review

Disclaimer: This is not a professional review and all the findings and opinions are based on my own experience only.

Part 1:  Hardware and Features
Part 2: User Interface 
Part 3: Limitations
Part 4: Shooting Mode
Part 5: Scene Mode
Part 6: Summary and Conclusion

Preface

So, we have heard all the good stuff about the improved camera feature in the new Samsung Galaxy S3. So how high is it able to stand against all the other competitors and also how well it is able to perform as claimed?

This time, Samsung boast about the camera's ability too, but not as much as the phones from other brands (hint hint the A and the H), until their ads looks like promoting a camera instead of a phone. Hardware wise, it has an upgraded sensor with BIS (Backside Illuminated Sensor) which claimed to be able to increase light sensitivity to achieve better low light performance. The same 8MP sensor is claimed to be identical to what used in Sony Xperia and iPhone 4S as published in various tech blogs.

However, I won't be doing any comparison because I myself do not own all these phones. Instead, I will comment on how to maximize out the potential of the camera in S3 to bring out the best picture (not the Best Picture function) from it.

Hardware

As mentioned previously, the Samsung Galaxy S3 has an upgraded BIS sensor from its predecessor, the Galaxy S2. Even thou both phones have the same megapixel count, but the difference in sensor will translate into difference in colour rendering and light sensitivity. 

The lens itself is a very slight improve in terms of aperture value when compared to S2, i.e. from f2.65 to f2.6, a very marginal improve. As compared to iPhone 4S's f2.4, and HTC One X f2.0, it clearly shows that the S3 is lacking behind and will not be as a fast shooter as the other two phones mentioned, and it is up to the sensor to increase light sensitivity and image processor to handle with the noise reduction to counter to shortfall of 1/3 or 2/3 stops of light. The smaller aperture size has proven to take its toll in low light shootings in my test and will be explained in detail later.

Taking the aperture value aside, I noticed that the sharpness of this new lens is improved when compared to S2. The old Galaxy S2 has a pretty sharp lens already, and with the S3 equipped with a sharper lens, it is no doubt a great news for its users like me. Even thou most of the sharpness came from sharpening process in its post processing, I still find it very acceptable for those who aren't that picky. In fact, it's a phone camera we are talking about here. Any serious shooting will definitely resort back to a proper camera.

The front facing camera has a lower megapixel count than S2, i.e 1.9MP vs 2.0MP. However, the new FFC is also equipped with a BIS and the output quality is much better than S2. The lower of 0.1MP count equates to better quality pictures, it's considered as an upgrade for me.

Features

Following other phone manufacture's footsteps and also taking advantage of the camera features in ICS. The Samsung Galaxy S3 also possesses the zero-shutter lag (almost!) shooting and Burst Mode.

Burst Mode
The Burst Mode can take up to 20 pictures at 3.3fps, that means it takes 6 seconds to take 20 continuous pictures. The Burst Mode will require the user to tap on the screen until all 20 pictures are taken or the user can lift their finger as long as he/she thinks that the number of frames is enough. While in Burst Mode, there is an option to select the Best Photo function.

When to use?
- Fast action scenes when you need to capture every moment that is happening. 
- Doesn't have time to filter the pictures on the spot and want to pick the best picture later. 

Tips?
- Make sure the camera has prefocused at the correct position to avoid disappointed images where the camera focuses at the wrong place.
- Try avoid panning with Burst Mode in low light. Anything shot in low light requires slower shutter speed. Any movement of the camera or the subject will result in a blur image.
- Recommended when have good lighting.

Best Photo

In Best Photo, instead of long tapping the shutter button, the user will only required to tap once then the phone will burst for 8 pictures instead of 20 pictures and it will automatically select the photo which it thinks the best according to its preset judging criteria, which sometimes a hit and miss unfortunately. Nevertheless, the user can always save the other 7 pictures individually if they think they want to keep those as well.

When to use?
- Instead of a set of similar pictures, you just need one best image. Saving storage and time to manually delete the pictures one by one. 
- Wanna take a portrait in low light but afraid of hand shake? It helps reducing hand shake because you just need to tap the shutter button once and choose the best one later.
- Wanna camwhore by taking 8 continuous pictures? Use best photo and save all the 8 pictures. Why use Best Photo instead of Busrt Mode? Because Burst Mode requires your finger to be on the shutter button during the whole capturing process, which is inconvenient for posing.

Tips?
- Make sure the camera has pre-focused at the correct position to avoid disappointed images where the camera focuses at the wrong place.

Some social features such as Share Shot, Buddy Photo Share and Face Tagging are some convenient features that can be used to improve the user experience.

Share Shot
Share Shot enables you to share the pictures taken by you to other Galaxy S3 users via Wifi-Direct connection setup prior to it. Meaning to say, you can setup the Share Shot via Wifi-Direct with your friends or family who owns a Galaxy S3 as well before a party or a tour. Any photos taken by you will be automatically shared to their phone as long as the Wifi-Direct connection is active, and any photos taken by them will also appear in your phone as well. This eliminates the process of sending the photos later on after the party or tour. Everything is happening at the same time as the event. No more meeting up later to review pictures and wait for turns to send via bluetooth or cloud storage.

When to use?
- Going to an event or a party with a gang of friends who have Galaxy S3 as well and would like to share all the pictures taken on that time without the trouble of sending it manually at a time later.

Tips?
- None

Buddy Photo Share
Buddy Photo Share is a feature where the phone will allow you to send the picture to the people within the picture via any method available, i.e. email. It will detect and try to recognise any faces within the picture and then prompt you whether it is the correct person tagged. After confirmation, then options will be available under the face tag to share the picture to those respective people.

When to use?
- When you want instant access to sharing via email. It's a short cut to send pictures directly to the people within the picture. Not a feature that I will use often.

Tips?
- None 

Face Tagging
Face Tagging is another feature where the phone will try to detect faces and tries to recognise the identity of the person tagged via the past history of matching the face with people within your contact list. The Face Tagging feature can be disable manually if you dislike your pictures appears with ugly yellow boxes around people's faces.

When to use?
- Tagging and addressing friends within your contact list to facilitate other features like Buddy Photo Share.

Tips?
- None

Voice Command
Voice Command is another useful feature here. Instead of tapping on the shutter button, users can use Voice Command like "smile", "cheese", "shoot" or "capture" to order the phone to take a picture. This feature can be enabled in Settings > Language and input > Voice cmd. This features comes in handy in some occasions, I used it a lot when I'm afraid of handshake during low light, or I can use my voice as a remote control during a group shot, where the phone will be place away from me. Instead of setting the timer and wait for 10 seconds, I simply asked everyone to say cheese and the camera snaps! Then comes the moment of pride when everyone has a shocking expression on their face as if they just witness magic!

The Voice Command also helps a lot in camwhoring mode, where I believe girls will like it a lot. The front facing camera is often used by girls to self portrait and often they faced a problem to tap on the shutter button while holding the phone due to the lack of a physical shutter button. Often they have to risk dropping the phone by holding the phone with two fingers and tries to tap the button with another finger, or simply use two hands in order to self snap, which will destroy their posing. The Voice Command gives an advantage to them because they just need to simply shout out the command and the phone will take a picture for them after 1 sec, which is enough for them to re-pose their mouth expression (if any!).

However, the Voice Command is a hit and miss feature due to the clarity of our voice. For example, my cousin wanted to try out the Voice Command, but when she said "shoot!" a few times but the phone did not respond, then she mumbled "shit you!" then it snaps! So, make your voice command clear!

When to use?
- As a remote control during a group shot instead of using the 10 second timer.
- Avoid hand shake from tapping the shutter button.
- Camwhoring mode where you can pose freely with another hand.

Tips?
- You need to speak clearly or any command that your phone recognizes after you are familiar with it.
- You need to wait 1 second after the phone gets your command. This enables reposing in 1 second for those who need it.

Proceed to Part 2: User Interface