Feedback from the camera after pushing the shutterbutton in the App

[Unfoolishly]

Hi All,

Is there CURRENTLY some feedback from the camera after pushing the shutterbutton in the App? When I am further away from the camera, I can't hear the 'click' of the mirror. I have had a few moments in using the camera with the Unleashed and Unleashed App that the camera (in auto mode) did not take a picture because it could not find focus. That is no problem of the Unleashed or camera, but just a reallife situation in which the camera can't figure out what to photograph because focussing on a subject failed. When you are near the camera, you can hear and see if the camera did take the photo, but when you are remotely operating the camera from a further distance (or are not in the same room as the camera is) you can't hear or see (realtime) that the camera actually did take a photo.
The only way to discover that the camera did take a photo from a distance in the App is to turn on the photo review feature. But mostly I am not interested in seeing the results, but only in the acknowledgement of the camera having taken the photo (aka: the 'click'-moment). Is there a way to get the App to acknowledge that a photo was indeed taken?

If there is CURRENTLY no simple feedback (besides the thumbnail review) is it possible to have this option available in the App in the FUTURE?
See attached screenshots of the App:
1. Shutterbutton pressed (feedback is: pressed state)
2. Shutterbutton released (no feedback after pressed, returns to normal state)
3. Feedback next to the shutterbutton, no photo's taken (yet)
4. Feedback next to the shutterbutton, photo taken (two commands = two photos. All commands successful = camera did successfully reacted on command "take photo")
5. Feedback next to the shutterbutton, photo not taken because: could not focus (three photos taken, two commands failed in which the camera could not focus)

It would be neat to have this (or some other option that works even better than this 'solution'), so each command to take a photo is actually acknowledged back to the App that the camera indeed successfully did what was commanded to do: take a photo.

Greetings,
Unfoolishly

P.S. Oliver: I am lowering the frequency of the discussed topic in the email. I am doing my best :-)

[Andy]

If I recall correctly, the phone should vibrate when you take a picture, but I think that behavior is camera dependent, as not all supported cameras give the Unleashed feedback about a picture being taken.

I'm also not sure if that feature was ever implemented in the Android app (I am an iPhone user), but I'll raise an issue with the app developers if it isn't implemented there yet (it should be).

[Unfoolishly]

If I recall correctly, the phone should vibrate when you take a picture, but I think that behavior is camera dependent, as not all supported cameras give the Unleashed feedback about a picture being taken.

What do you mean exactly? That the Unleashed cannot know IF the camera did take a photo, or that the Unleashed is not told that the command given by the Unleashed to the camera to take a photo only resulted in an "out-of-focus"/"no-focus" rejection of the camera, and thus did not take a photo at all?

I have had this problem with operating the camera myself, but because I was holding the camera myself, I could easily adjust some things (lens, focal point, automatic/manual, etc, etc) so the photo could be taken by the camera. When using the Unleashed with the Unleashed App, I can and do sometimes have the "out-of-focus" problem, just as without the Unleashed, but the 'problem' is: I do not receive feedback from the Unleashed into the Unleashed App, so I do not know that the camera could not take the photo even when it was instructed/commanded to do so from the Unleashed App into the Unleashed and thus towards the camera. This is absolutely no problem when you operate the camera from the App and are in close range to hear the clicking of the mirror, but it is a 'problem' when your camera resides in another room on another floor, and thus you have not the luxery of the physical feedback.
Example, try this: place your camera on the balcony with the doors closed and go sit in the living room. Now wait until the squirrel jumps onto the balcony to eat those nuts you put on the table (and your camera focussed on the table, focussed at the centre of the table where the nuts are). Press that shutterbutton in the App and what do you get: is the photo always taken? No, not always! Why? Because of out-of-focus. Camera could not find the sweet spot to focus on. But you did press that shutterbutton and you believed the camera went off. That is the whole point of receiving some minimal feedback from camera through the Unleashed towards the Unleashed App. I miss that now. There is no vibration in the Android App. But actually I would like to see a small queue of green or red dots indicating that each shutterbutton-pressed moment resulted in a good or bad result: photo taken vs photo not taken.

I'm also not sure if that feature was ever implemented in the Android app (I am an iPhone user), but I'll raise an issue with the app developers if it isn't implemented there yet (it should be).

I don't know if it is in the Android App? I have not yet discovered it. Better would be to have some green/red/gray dots indicating: success/failure/no-action, so I could easily see if the photo was taken and the next one was also successfully taken. Etc.

It's not a big issue, but it sure would help a lot, that in those cases I pressed the shutterbutton in the App, I visually see: camera did take the photo, without making use of thumbnail review to know for sure. Why would you want to use the thumbnail review to just get feedback if the camera did took a photo?

Ever taken a photo of a squirrel while you are sitting next to your camera? That's not gonna happen! First of all: no NUTS, no glory! Secondly: squirrels don't like company. Especially humans, unless they are really hungry or tame. They don't even like competing squirrels for that honeypot of great nuts! Squirrels are really egocentric when it comes down to sharing nuts. Almost human behavior ;)

Greetings,
Unfoolishly

[Andy]

What do you mean exactly? That the Unleashed cannot know IF the camera did take a photo, or that the Unleashed is not told that the command given by the Unleashed to the camera to take a photo only resulted in an "out-of-focus"/"no-focus" rejection of the camera, and thus did not take a photo at all?

I don't understand the difference between your two examples, so my answer would be both. Some cameras do not tell the Unleashed if they actually took a picture. The Unleashed may be pressing the trigger for seconds and the camera may just refuse to take a picture (because of focus or whatever). I believe only old models do not support this feature though, like the Nikon D200.

-------------------------------

It's not a big issue, but it sure would help a lot, that in those cases I pressed the shutterbutton in the App, I visually see: camera did take the photo, without making use of thumbnail review to know for sure.

We did consider it a big issue back in the day, which is why we implemented the vibration feature: to get some feedback if your camera was up in a tree or something. I'll ask someone to confirm that this feature is implemented in the Android app. I can confirm that it is in the iOS app.

[Unfoolishly]

It's not a big issue, but it sure would help a lot, that in those cases I pressed the shutterbutton in the App, I visually see: camera did take the photo, without making use of thumbnail review to know for sure.

We did consider it a big issue back in the day, which is why we implemented the vibration feature: to get some feedback if your camera was up in a tree or something. I'll ask someone to confirm that this feature is implemented in the Android app. I can confirm that it is in the iOS app.

Maybe I need to consider buying an iPhone next time...

If it is not implemented in Android, will it be implemented anyhow? Is there anything else out of sync between the iOS/iPhone Unleashed App and Android Unleashed App that I need to be aware of?

Greetings,
Unfoolishly

[Oliver]

We decided to use the newer iPhone's so called taptic feedback whenever the shutter opened or closed, or both - I'm not sure. Basically whenever you see the yellow ring around the shutterbutton in the app. This is only available in newer Nikons and medium to higher end Canons. The taptic feedback on the iPhone It feels more like a click rather than a vibration. We decided against normal vibration, as this is often used for, and therefore interpreted as an error buzz.

We wanted to research good and common and easy to implement vibration patterns to use both for older iPhones as well as Android phones, but never got around to that. The ticket is still open, but never got any priority. The taptic feedback "click" was implemented in minutes, felt good and distinct from any errorbuzz any of us had ever encountered, so it was left in and went on to be released.

Yes, iOS and Android Apps have slightly diverged, partially on purpose, partially by accident, mostly by necessity and System constraints (Android BLE Stack, Permissions, etc), and of course encountering different bugs on the two systems. We're currently working on unifying the diverged design some more, which of course is so much more difficult with the thousands of resolutions/aspect ratios we need to support for Android versus 3-4 for the entire iPhone range...

[Unfoolishly]

We decided to use the newer iPhone's so called taptic feedback whenever the shutter opened or closed, or both - I'm not sure. Basically whenever you see the yellow ring around the shutterbutton in the app. This is only available in newer Nikons and medium to higher end Canons. The taptic feedback on the iPhone It feels more like a click rather than a vibration. We decided against normal vibration, as this is often used for, and therefore interpreted as an error buzz.

We wanted to research good and common and easy to implement vibration patterns to use both for older iPhones as well as Android phones, but never got around to that. The ticket is still open, but never got any priority. The taptic feedback "click" was implemented in minutes, felt good and distinct from any errorbuzz any of us had ever encountered, so it was left in and went on to be released.

Aha, I see. I wasn't aware of the 'taptic' feedback on the new iPhones (I am still on Android 8.1). I guess I do miss out on some quick info in the App so you can see if the "shutter pressed"-tap ended up in a resulting photo-taken moment, or not (because of focus problems or other scenarios why the camera won't take the photo).

Yes, iOS and Android Apps have slightly diverged, partially on purpose, partially by accident, mostly by necessity and System constraints (Android BLE Stack, Permissions, etc), and of course encountering different bugs on the two systems. We're currently working on unifying the diverged design some more, which of course is so much more difficult with the thousands of resolutions/aspect ratios we need to support for Android versus 3-4 for the entire iPhone range...

Yes, it is quite a challenge to keep up with all these changes year after year, with all new design-iterations and alterations. Android too has changed a lot from KitKat until now.
Android and iOS/iPhone are still the phones with the largest userbase. Be glad you don't have to support Windows Mobile, PalmOS, Symbian, etc mobile OSes too. That would be really impossible for a small team to do.

What do you think about the idea of having a few colored dots to indicate if the tapping of the shutterbutton is in sync with the camera actually having taken the photo's? It's a small idea, but it would give some good and simple visual feedback to the users. The camera did take the photo! Now that info is not returned to the user of the App. Maybe the red/green dots are not quite fancy enough, and maybe you could create a more cool looking feature like drawn in the attached picture? Just an idea. I hope you like it!

Greetings,
Unfoolishy