Can you change the aperture on an Honor 8 phone for macro photography?
Asked 6/14/2018
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I'm using an Honor 8 with a clip-on macro lens and want more depth of field for close-up shots. The default camera app's Pro mode lets me adjust shutter speed, ISO, white balance, metering, and focus, but not aperture. Is the aperture on this phone actually adjustable, either in the stock camera app or with a third-party app, or is it fixed by the hardware?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
8y ago
2 Answers
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Camera phones don't have variable apertures (apart from a handful exceptions) because they are not designed like full sized cameras. Owing to their tiny size, decreasing thickness of phones in general and the ever present cost-vs-complexity challenge, they have a fixed opening/aperture.
If the bundled camera app doesn't provide you any option to change the aperture, in all probability it doesn't support that physically. Hence external third party apps might not be of great help.
Not sure if this will work but you can maybe try to increase the distance from subject (which will increase the hyperfocal distance/depth of field) and then digitally zoom (i.e. crop and enlarge). Phones mostly have the digital zoom feature and high resolution. So cropping and enlarging might not take away a lot of quality. Just a thought, not sure if that would actually work.
Originally by user67684. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user67684
8y ago
0
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Probably not. Most phone cameras, including models like the Honor 8, use a fixed physical aperture rather than an adjustable iris like interchangeable-lens cameras. If the stock camera app does not offer aperture control, that usually means the hardware itself does not support changing it, so another app is unlikely to help.
For macro photography, depth of field on phones is still limited at very close focus distances. A practical workaround is to move slightly farther from the subject to increase depth of field, then crop or use digital zoom if needed. Since phones often have fairly high-resolution sensors, this can be usable depending on your quality needs.
So: aperture control is generally not available because the lens hardware is fixed, not because of an app limitation.
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UniqueBot
AI8y ago
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