ProShot camera app.

[RiseUpGames]

I've had the app for a while, but just started looking at it in detail. I have a question about HDR. I understand that this combines 3 separate EV values into one photo. I assume if there is any movement of the camera or the subject that the quality will suffer.
Given this, is there any way you see the individual images or do you just get the composite?
Thanks.

1) No need to hold the button, just press it once and it'll do it's thing
2) Yes, it's best to keep the camera still, although it still does perform an auto-aligning algorithm
3) Hmm, if you have "Save Originals" enabled in Settings it's supposed to save the individual images, but I just checked and it doesn't for HDR. I'll add that to my bugs list. For now, if you want the individual images, select "Bracket only" from the HDR menu. In a future version (hopefully v5.3) I will move this so that we can have bracket exposure in any mode, like a real camera.

 

[tallarob]

Thanks. I have a Nokia Icon. Will I still get a high res image along with the 5 mp when using HDR?

 

[RiseUpGames]

Thanks. I have a Nokia Icon. Will I still get a high res image along with the 5 mp when using HDR?

Unfortunately not. The 5MP limitation for HDR on certain devices is purposeful, due to memory issues. Preparing three uncompressed 20MP images for an HDR merge requires at a bare minimum 240MB RAM. ProShot itself requires ~100MB. Then during the actual merge process, Nokia's imaging SDK needs at least an additional 80MB RAM for a swap buffer. Finally, if someone wants to use a ProShot filter on that HDR image, ProShot will need at least another 80MB RAM for a swap buffer, which brings the total to over 500MB RAM. These devices come with 2GB RAM, but Windows Phone apps are only given about 380MB of memory to work with, so the app just ends up crashing.

The good news: when I add exposure bracketing to all modes (hopefully v5.3), you will be able to take 20MP bracketed shots no problem.

 

[tallarob]

Thanks

 

[Naren Parker]

Hi RiseUpGames,

Lumia 920 user here. I've just downloaded this app. Great work. I have only appreciation for your efforts. Just wanted to ask a few questions -
1. Your motivation for developing on WP.
2. Do you think WinRT APIs would help in better augmenting your app with more features than what the current Silverlight APIs can? If so, would you be making this into a WinRT app given that WP 8.1 is steadily rolling out?
3. Any chance that you can request a privileged access to the APIs to be included as a default camera? That would be a God send for all of us.

Thanks and keep up the great work not only for this but also for all your endeavors. I will be closely watching this space for more developments.

Cheers!!

 

[RiseUpGames]

Hi RiseUpGames,

Lumia 920 user here. I've just downloaded this app. Great work. I have only appreciation for your efforts. Just wanted to ask a few questions -
1. Your motivation for developing on WP.
2. Do you think WinRT APIs would help in better augmenting your app with more features than what the current Silverlight APIs can? If so, would you be making this into a WinRT app given that WP 8.1 is steadily rolling out?
3. Any chance that you can request a privileged access to the APIs to be included as a default camera? That would be a God send for all of us.

Thanks and keep up the great work not only for this but also for all your endeavors. I will be closely watching this space for more developments.

Cheers!!

Hello! I'd be happy to answer your questions.

1) In 2010, Microsoft announced WP 7, along with a strict requirement that all hardware must ship with a dedicated camera button. I was in love. In 2012, Microsoft announced a super robust camera API, the likes of which had never been seen before on a mobile device. I knew what I had to do, and I sacrificed everything to make it happen

2) With Win / Phone 8.1, Microsoft revealed a new converged camera API with video(!), and simultaneously deprecated the API I've been working so hard on for ProShot. It was a slap in the face. To add insult to injury, there is a bug in this new API that can potentially brick your phone. Brick it! So I'm holding off on that development til the bug gets sorted out. To make things worse, Microsoft removed one of the most important functions with this new API, making it impossible to run real-time filters at HD resolutions / 30fps and not tax the hardware. So... yeah I'm pretty angry about the choices they made there.

3) I have tried so many times and have knocked on so many doors. I'd been promised this and that by many people, and they all failed to deliver, and don't even respond to my emails anymore. This is actually one of the reasons I made ProShot free for a day, to call attention to this: Allow camera button to launch a Lens app ?€“ Feature Suggestions for Windows Phone

I really don't like focusing on the negative, but my journey with Microsoft has seen better days. And it's been a rough week, heh.

 

[Naren Parker]

Hello! I'd be happy to answer your questions.

1) In 2010, Microsoft announced WP 7, along with a strict requirement that all hardware must ship with a dedicated camera button. I was in love. In 2012, Microsoft announced a super robust camera API, the likes of which had never been seen before on a mobile device. I knew what I had to do, and I sacrificed everything to make it happen

2) With Win / Phone 8.1, Microsoft revealed a new converged camera API with video(!), and simultaneously deprecated the API I've been working so hard on for ProShot. It was a slap in the face. To add insult to injury, there is a bug in this new API that can potentially brick your phone. Brick it! So I'm holding off on that development til the bug gets sorted out. To make things worse, Microsoft removed one of the most important functions with this new API, making it impossible to run real-time filters at HD resolutions / 30fps and not tax the hardware. So... yeah I'm pretty angry about the choices they made there.

3) I have tried so many times and have knocked on so many doors. I'd been promised this and that by many people, and they all failed to deliver, and don't even respond to my emails anymore. This is actually one of the reasons I made ProShot free for a day, to call attention to this: Allow camera button to launch a Lens app ?€“ Feature Suggestions for Windows Phone

I really don't like focusing on the negative, but my journey with Microsoft has seen better days. And it's been a rough week, heh.

Great job, bro. Sometimes people wonder why MS always takes one step forward and two steps back. Developers are the crux of any platform. If you don't give what they want, they wont deliver and as a result the platform suffers. Thanks for bringing to light the information about the bricking bug. I agree software development is not a piece of cake and MS has actually done a commendable work with 8.1, but still such things need to be sorted out ASAP. Just imagine if a developer who is not aware of this makes an app and users download it and suddenly hell freezes over. If you can, can you tell us what kind of feature used in that API can brick the phone? I'm not a developer but being a tech enthusiast, I am interested to know. Wonder what's holding them from making power efficient APIs that work in real time. Oh well, as MS fans most of us here have grown accustomed to all this

Ranting apart, I'd like to make a suggestion. Can you darken the manual focus slider a bit more? As a novice user of the app, I had a tough time spotting it! Especially in bright scenes, the slider can get lost in the background and difficult to make out. Also, is there a tutorial somewhere? Would be handy as a reference. Apart from that, enjoying the app. Will keep you posted with new feedback as I learn to get a hang of it.

 

[RiseUpGames]

Great job, bro. Sometimes people wonder why MS always takes one step forward and two steps back. Developers are the crux of any platform. If you don't give what they want, they wont deliver and as a result the platform suffers. Thanks for bringing to light the information about the bricking bug. I agree software development is not a piece of cake and MS has actually done a commendable work with 8.1, but still such things need to be sorted out ASAP. Just imagine if a developer who is not aware of this makes an app and users download it and suddenly hell freezes over. If you can, can you tell us what kind of feature used in that API can brick the phone? I'm not a developer but being a tech enthusiast, I am interested to know. Wonder what's holding them from making power efficient APIs that work in real time. Oh well, as MS fans most of us here have grown accustomed to all this

Ranting apart, I'd like to make a suggestion. Can you darken the manual focus slider a bit more? As a novice user of the app, I had a tough time spotting it! Especially in bright scenes, the slider can get lost in the background and difficult to make out. Also, is there a tutorial somewhere? Would be handy as a reference. Apart from that, enjoying the app. Will keep you posted with new feedback as I learn to get a hang of it.

You are right, Microsoft has done quite a good job with 8.1, finally bringing the platform to feature parity with the competition. The bug that I'm talking about probably won't affect users of the default camera app. The bug is, if the camera handle is not released properly on application exit, the phone will likely freeze requiring a soft reset. I've seen it happen on my 920 when trying to poke around the code.

The new camera API is really awesome, but not for some of the big features of ProShot that I spent a lot of time on, mainly, the viewfinder code. With the 8.0 API, it was possible to extract a DirectX texture directly from the hardware, and then use shaders to process filters in real-time. It has *very little* impact on frame rate. The 8.1 API doesn't have this anymore, and instead you have to rely on C++ buffers, which is infinitely slower.

The manual slider is meant to be almost completely transparent and only as a hint of the feature. I want to cram as much functionality into the viewfinder as possible without making it cluttered. Once you get used to it it becomes second nature

For tutorials, open up the right panel and tap the "?" button. From there you can get access to a brief tutorial as well as a field guide. I want to add explanations of more photography principles to the tutorial, creating a curriculum I'd be satisfied with will take a while, as well as localizing it into many languages.

 

[aka44]

Hi, thanks for great app! I have a l820 and i remember the time when exposure time up to 4 sec was available. I liked to shot with my tripod at night and now its about impossible to get picture that i want ;( Why its gone? Is it because of wp 8.1 dp update where that possibility was cutted? Is there any chances to bring that back?

 

[amitnahar]

I seriously want to use this but the only thing is that It can't be launched with camera button.

Gave you 3 votes.

Sent from my Lumia.

 

[RiseUpGames]

Hi, thanks for great app! I have a l820 and i remember the time when exposure time up to 4 sec was available. I liked to shot with my tripod at night and now its about impossible to get picture that i want ;( Why its gone? Is it because of wp 8.1 dp update where that possibility was cutted? Is there any chances to bring that back?

Unfortunately this is Nokia's fault. They removed the 4sec option on all but the PureView-branded phones. This was done on the firmware level. I've tried to force longer exposures, but it just makes the camera hardware crash

I seriously want to use this but the only thing is that It can't be launched with camera �� button.

Gave you 3 votes.

Sent from my Lumia.

Thank you! Every vote counts Once I reach 10,000 I'm going to try and get a lot of people together to email / tweet Microsoft. We need this feature on WP!

 

[anon(8648115)]

The app works wonderfully when active, but when I exit out of it and come back to it later, I'm hit with a perpetual loading screen (black screen with the loading dots streaming across the bottom) and the only way it becomes useable again is to reinstall, only for the same thing to happen again.

A shame, because it's such a beautiful application and would compliment my Neo perfectly. I know there are issues with certain functions and features not working due to lack of firmware from Samsung but the camera on the phone works perfectly fine. Is it enough to cause complete app failure like in my case?

 

[RiseUpGames]

The app works wonderfully when active, but when I exit out of it and come back to it later, I'm hit with a perpetual loading screen (black screen with the loading dots streaming across the bottom) and the only way it becomes useable again is to reinstall, only for the same thing to happen again.

A shame, because it's such a beautiful application and would compliment my Neo perfectly. I know there are issues with certain functions and features not working due to lack of firmware from Samsung but the camera on the phone works perfectly fine. Is it enough to cause complete app failure like in my case?

I'm sorry about the issues. Try uninstalling ProShot, restarting your device, then re-installing it. The key part is restarting before you re-install.

Beyond that, I really don't know what else to do :/ I spent a lot of time and worked with quite a few people (and even bought my own Samsung device) to make sure that it works.

 

[MrWhiteman]

I seriously want to use this but the only thing is that It can't be launched with camera button.

Gave you 3 votes.

Sent from my Lumia.

Neither can music, games or any other apps so what are you moaning about?

 

[yeto]

When I click on the timer in the lower left corner I see a message that comes up that says "show view finder on/off". Can someone share as to what this does?

Thanks,
yeto

 

[RiseUpGames]

When I click on the timer in the lower left corner I see a message that comes up that says "show view finder on/off". Can someone share as to what this does?

Thanks,
yeto

Can you please provide a screenshot? I am not aware of such a message in ProShot.

 

[digiman1946]

When setting up for time-lapse, there is an option to turn the viewfinder off or leave it on.

I think yeto may be referring to that.

 

[RiseUpGames]

When setting up for time-lapse, there is an option to turn the viewfinder off or leave it on.

I think yeto may be referring to that.

That's what I was thinking. Yeto if you're talking about the option in timelapse, it's just an option to have the viewfinder stay on during timelapse capture (it's not possible to actually turn off the display while capturing images, but it does disable the viewfinder code, which saves quite a bit on CPU; the app is basically at 0% CPU utilization between capturing images).

 

[MrWhiteman]

Will video ever become available?

 

[yeto]

That's what I was thinking. Yeto if you're talking about the option in timelapse, it's just an option to have the viewfinder stay on during timelapse capture (it's not possible to actually turn off the display while capturing images, but it does disable the viewfinder code, which saves quite a bit on CPU; the app is basically at 0% CPU utilization between capturing images).

Yes, that is what I was referring. When you all talk about "display" is that what I am trying to take a picture of and "viewfinder" is the different options I can select?

Thanks,
yeto