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Other Advantages of Halide app with iPhone 14 pro/max?
- Thread starter Truefan31
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I can't comment about picture quality, as I'm still using my XR and will be picking up my 14 Pro Max this weekend, so I'll just comment about the usability side of things for now. I'll reply after I take some sample shots around.
Halide (and its competitors) allow you to adjust parameters that the stock app doesn't. These are parameters you can usually modify in dedicated cameras. Features Halide has that the stock app doesn't, or features that improve on the stock app:
Manually adjust shutter speed
If you can change the shutter speed - that is, how long the sensor is exposed to light - then you can come up with the blurry motion shots, or on the other end, capture some more details of a running animal.
AF/MF (auto-focus/manual focus), and focus not tied to exposure
Let's use this random image I found on google for reference. There are scenes when you have your subject up front with a background behind. Sometimes you want everything to be sharp. Sometimes you want the subject to stand out and everything behind to be blurry. Sometimes you want it the other way around. On the stock app, you can tap what you want to emphasize, but this is a bit fiddly; the app does not keep focus, and shaking will make it lose focus.
On top of that, the stock app also assumes that when you tap on something dark, it needs to jack up the brightness (in photography speak, it's called "exposure").
On Halide, when you enable manual focusing, there's a slide you can drag to manually set the focus, AND you can set it so that exposure doesn't change.
Focus peaking
Another visual aid. This is relevant to manual focus mentioned above. Focus peaking is a feature that highlights the edges or parts of objects that are the most in-focus. A common use-case for this is if you're taking macro shots of flowers or insects, and you want to really dial in the focus on a specific part.
WB (white balance)
More visuals. Depending on how your surroundings are lit, there can be a certain tint over what you're trying to capture. You might've had some photos that look too blue (also called "cold") or too orange (also called "warm"). By adjusting the white balance, you can counteract the coldness or warmness of your photo to make the colors look more natural.
The stock app does this automatically, but sometimes auto doesn't work out. Halide lets you adjust the WB as you see fit.
Halide (and its competitors) allow you to adjust parameters that the stock app doesn't. These are parameters you can usually modify in dedicated cameras. Features Halide has that the stock app doesn't, or features that improve on the stock app:
Manually adjust shutter speed
If you can change the shutter speed - that is, how long the sensor is exposed to light - then you can come up with the blurry motion shots, or on the other end, capture some more details of a running animal.
AF/MF (auto-focus/manual focus), and focus not tied to exposure
Let's use this random image I found on google for reference. There are scenes when you have your subject up front with a background behind. Sometimes you want everything to be sharp. Sometimes you want the subject to stand out and everything behind to be blurry. Sometimes you want it the other way around. On the stock app, you can tap what you want to emphasize, but this is a bit fiddly; the app does not keep focus, and shaking will make it lose focus.
On top of that, the stock app also assumes that when you tap on something dark, it needs to jack up the brightness (in photography speak, it's called "exposure").
On Halide, when you enable manual focusing, there's a slide you can drag to manually set the focus, AND you can set it so that exposure doesn't change.
Focus peaking
Another visual aid. This is relevant to manual focus mentioned above. Focus peaking is a feature that highlights the edges or parts of objects that are the most in-focus. A common use-case for this is if you're taking macro shots of flowers or insects, and you want to really dial in the focus on a specific part.
WB (white balance)
More visuals. Depending on how your surroundings are lit, there can be a certain tint over what you're trying to capture. You might've had some photos that look too blue (also called "cold") or too orange (also called "warm"). By adjusting the white balance, you can counteract the coldness or warmness of your photo to make the colors look more natural.
The stock app does this automatically, but sometimes auto doesn't work out. Halide lets you adjust the WB as you see fit.
The 48mp HEIC files from the Halide app are better than those on the stock app at 12mp. They use less space than a raw file but give a great amount of detail and area captured so you can crop etc easier with a better end result.
Correct - the stock app only saves RAW at 48mp. But that means if you want 48mp, you have to also make a huge file that takes more space. In Halide, you can take the JPEG/HEIC compressed photos like normal, but set it to use 48MP. Smaller files, more MP. Apple doesn’t currently offer that.
You can covert the RAW files from the stock camera to heif. I've been torn on buying Halide, been looking at it for a few weeks.
Also, with the ability to launch it directly from the lock screen now (via the widget), that's one less disadvantage it has compared to the default camera app.
Also, I believe Halide lets you toggle between both options within the app. With the stock camera app, I think you have to go into the settings app to manually turn it on. I think I get why Apple chose to do this - most people won't need to take 48mp photos, and doing so will only just result in oversized images hogging storage space on your device.
You can read on the full details in this article here.
Halide adds iPhone 14 Pro features in latest update - 9to5Mac
With the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max now widely available, the folks at Halide are out with...
9to5mac.com
It sounds like a very nice camera app for iPhone 14 pro users with a desire for higher res images and who don't mind shelling out the extra money.
The easiest way at least for me is using this shortcut https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/887fbd3e28574492a1568079e56037b8
I bought this app a few years ago, and this thread reminded me of how good it could be with the new pro cameras. Seems I now need to subscribe to get the features 🥺
I bought version 1 years ago and was eligible for some unlocks on version 2. There should be some features that are available from the get-go; the features I mentioned earlier in this thread are definitely available without paying extra.
I installed it and it said my free upgrade period had ended, and I should now sub. I deleted it there and then - perhaps a bit hasty
To be honest, I don’t know what I’m missing out on at the moment, but I haven’t activated my 14PM just yet (I picked it up a couple hours ago and got a full-body skin for it, so it’s drying). Maybe the extra hardware may trigger something in the app.
Not sure if you are aware, but on the stock app if you press and hold on a spot it will go into Focus lock. You then then slide up and down to adjust exposure. Really good for when taking focus into bright lights.
I use to use Halide a long time ago but for me I always captured better pictures with less effort with the stock app. Sure you have more control with Halide, but for me they didn’t yield better results. At one time, 3rd part cameras didn’t have access to the OIS of the camera. Not sure if that’s the case anymore but at the time it made a difference on the iPhone X/iPhone 12 telephoto lens. So I gave up on 3rd party camers and have just learned to use the stock app.
You can access Halide from the lock screen as it has a widget.
Halide is expensive and they say it’s free forever but I’ll believe it when I see it. I gave up on Darkroom when it turned into a sub or outrageous one time fee. I paid for Halide as a one shot deal and it pissed me off at the cost. Now all I wonder is if they will keep their promise and not come up with Halide 3 and say I’m locked out.
Halide is expensive and they say it’s free forever but I’ll believe it when I see it. I gave up on Darkroom when it turned into a sub or outrageous one time fee. I paid for Halide as a one shot deal and it pissed me off at the cost. Now all I wonder is if they will keep their promise and not come up with Halide 3 and say I’m locked out.
Thanks for the reminder.
I think regarding Halide, it may depend a lot on what a person likes to snap. I like toy photography as it lets me combine photography with my hobby of assembling plastic models, and I find the lack of manual controls in the stock app to be limiting at times.
But when I’m out, then I too use the stock app more often than not.
Thanks for posting this. This looks like a viable alternative to paying for Halide (for me).
I must be a little slow this morning... Can you tell me how to run this on my Macbook Pro once I have it downloaded into my Shortcuts App? I can run this on my phone since it shows up in the SHARE options, but I can't figure out how to invoke it from the Mac.
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Best feature of Halide is you can disable HDR, Deep Fusion, etc. and not have the stock app's oversharpening, "oil painting" noise reduction, unwanted lens changes, etc. without having to use ProRaw and edit and convert to jpg or heic.
The option is "Enable Smartest Processing" in the capture settings of Halide.
Also check out the ProCamera app by Cocologics, in capture quality settings you can select "highly detailed" with Apple's processing or "natural" or unprocessed.
Both apps let you shoot 48MP jpeg or heic without using raw.
The option is "Enable Smartest Processing" in the capture settings of Halide.
Also check out the ProCamera app by Cocologics, in capture quality settings you can select "highly detailed" with Apple's processing or "natural" or unprocessed.
Both apps let you shoot 48MP jpeg or heic without using raw.
Halide takes 48 MP HEIFs / JPEGs much faster than the stock camera takes 48 MP ProRAWs. 48 MP ProRAWs are slooowww to take. That’s the main advantage of using Halide, in addition to not needing to convert.
On the 13 Pro models if you've already got the basic Halide app you'll unlikely notice too much difference. Where it is improved is with the 48MP HEIC file ability, improved pro raw etc.
However their editing app Darkroom has come a long way and I'd recommend to try, especially now they've opened up the custom preset profiles so film looks can be used, tweaked etc...