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Comment by lflux | Hacker News Reader

I'm missing the "How to shoot one-handed at a concert"[0]. I'd love to have zoom not be a pinch only

[0] since my other hand is holding my drink

I believe the answer is "don't record at a concert because it annoys everyone else and the video is garbage anyway".

That'd be an amazing quip among this video. You start the video of 'how to shot with iPhone at a concert" and it just says "don't. Enjoy the show"

Weren't Apple researching techniques to disable recording during certain events?

They appear to have patented a method that's based on infrared emitters installed in the venue. See page 7: http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?PageNum=0&docid=09380225 - that seems to be only the drawings, not the full filing, but it's patent #9380225 if you want the full detail.

I'm not surprised that they have not implemented this. It would take about five minutes for someone to reverse-engineer one of the beamers, and then about five more for someone else to turn it into something you could hang off your keyring to mess with people, and about thirty seconds after that to produce a huge consumer backlash.

Yep, but would you ever buy a device with such a feature, even though you hate compulsive smartographers at concerts?

I sure hope not. That sounds sketchy.

I wish that bands would just film every concert they do and then offer all the concerts for (paid) download. This way a lot less people would actually try to film the concert because they now can get a much better quality.

> This way a lot less people would actually try to film the concert

Youtube is already full of good quality concert videos free of charge. People still film concerts. I don't know how to 'fix' this.

But I don't wanna see _a_ concert, I wanna see _my_ concert, e.g. the one I actually visited.

You could always put the phone away and actually watch the concert live, right?

have you ever, ever watched back a concert you've recorded ?

But why?

Phish does something similar to this, but only with audio. When you buy a ticket it gets you access to download the MP3s from the website.

even worse is the people recording with their phone to the side of their head, so they still get a perfect view, and you're stuck watching the bloody screen

I believe the answer is just search on Instagram or facebook for the event, a lot of other people posting the same crappy concert.

You can use the ooo app to zoom with one hand: http://thisalso.com/projects/ooo or https://itunes.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1182459078?mt=8

One possibility: shoot without zooming, go back afterward and crop, which is the same thing anyway.

The downside is that you'll be subject to compression artifacts, whereas digital zoom means you crop before any compression is applied.

The iPhone shoots in RAW, so it rrally shouldn't make a difference.

The iPhone can shoot in RAW; I don't think the built-in camera app supports it, but there are APIs available for third-party camera apps.

This is not true for the dual-camera 7 Plus. Though, initial reviews mentioned the second camera (at 2x optical zoom) was not quite as good as the primary camera (1x with OIS).

Whether a cropped 1x photo is better than using the 2x camera is beyond the scope of this comment.

In almost any case, the optical zoom is going to give a more detailed result than cropping an image from the stabilized wide-angle camera; that's not really a high enough zoom factor for stabilization to become an issue, except perhaps in the relatively narrow range of situations where there's enough environmental vibration to produce noticeable image degradation, but not so much that the stabilization motors can't compensate.

Admittedly, I'm basing this on my experience with a DSLR, rather than any hands-on time (which I haven't had) with an iPhone 7+. That said, since a lot of what I shoot is wildlife, I very frequently use a 70-300mm tele (on a DX body, so 1.5x crop factor and 105-450 35mm equivalent) that isn't stabilized, and it's really only beyond about 250mm (indicated) that I start to have shaky-hands trouble. Anything less than that, and there's not enough detail in the image for stabilization problems to be perceptible. Since the 7+'s tele camera, as best I can find, seems to have a 35mm equivalent focal length of about 56mm (thus 56-112mm, taking the 2x zoom into account), the lack of stabilization doesn't seem likely to pose too much of a problem.

(And if it is, you can always brace the camera and take multiple shots - this latter, in particular, I've found to be a pretty good workaround for the lack of stabilization in my own tele, and when an equivalent lens with VR costs half a grand, a pretty good workaround is nice to have! Generally I find that, taking about two exposures per second at full zoom, about one in every six is sharp enough to be a keeper. Something similar would probably work with an iPhone, if stabilization at full zoom proves to be an issue after all - and burst mode would work really well for this.)

On the 7 Plus, you can switch between 1x and 2x with a tap, no need to use two hands. :)

I believe the answer is "don't use digital zoom". If you've got a 7+ then you dot have either problem - there's a zoom button on the screen you can tap or drag, and there's a second camera with a zoomed view.

This may be one of the very few situations in which a perfectly practical, safe and sensible solution begins with 'Hold my beer'.

In jokingly cynical about a few of my friends using a pop socket and maybe they would help one handed shooting. Seems like how they function you could use one hand to hold and still pinch to zoom. Maybe?

https://www.popsockets.com

The Amazon reviews are surprisingly good.

Genuine question, assuming your not trolling, when was the last time you watched a concert video that you took?

I think a lot of those end up being shared on social media. I'm guessing not many are watched later.

Maybe not on the native photo app, but one that I regularly use (Camera+) has a slider next to the shutter button that can be used to zoom in out with one finger.

I have a cheap Android on which you can set the volume buttons to control zoom, seems like an iPhone would be able to do that too?

iPhone volume buttons are shutter buttons, you can't set them to zoom.

On the 7 plus you can zoom in and out with one hand by dragging the zoom icon left and right.

Maybe they'll follow that up with a series on how to text while driving

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