HTC One M8 Camera Tips to Improve Your Photos

The HTC One M8 camera leaves some people reluctant, but follow these tips and smartphone photographers can still take great pictures on this awesome Android phone with the 4MP Ultrapixel HTC One M8 camera.

Check out the tips below to learn how to get the most out of the HTC One M8 camera and the editing features of the included camera app. These tips will make the difference between ordinary snapshots like those taken by millions of other Android camera phone owners, and quality images you’ll proudly share on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or Flickr.

Use the built-in HTC One M8 Camera App

This may seem obvious, but with dozens of excellent camera apps available on the Play Store, such as Google’s own Camera app, why not try a camera with better features or an easy-to-use interface? The answer is that these cameras do not use built-in camera hardware like the HTC One’s stock camera app.

People can break this rule in some cases. For example, if someone just wants a quick snapshot and can post it to a social network like Facebook or Instagram, it makes sense to use the camera feature in these apps. However, the user cannot access the best features found in the stock HTC One M8 camera app.

Shoot with Zoe on HTC One M8 Camera

The Zoe feature built into the camera captures video and allows the user to select the best frame of the video as the image to be recorded on the camera and finally publish it online or share it with friends or family. In our phone review, we recommended it as the best way to take great photos, especially for kids or fast-moving pets.

Besides choosing the best frame to save in Gallery, the Zoe feature gives us access to Zoe’s Highlights. The video above shows an example of a Zoe highlight, where the phone’s software takes photos and videos taken at the same time and location and combines them with some general music. The user can customize the resulting video by adding the music stored in the phone or adding or removing certain photos or videos.

Tap to Focus and Set AE or AF Lock

Some people may not know that their smartphone will focus on a particular subject in an image when the phone photographer taps that subject on the screen. For example, if I’m taking a picture of my family standing in a field, I can tap their faces to focus them, even if the phone accidentally focuses on something else in the scene. Tap the screen first, then tap the camera app’s shutter button.

Touch and hold an object or person to set Auto Exposure (AE) or Auto Focus (AF) lock.

If a user taps and holds the screen for a few seconds, they will see the message appear on the screen (see above).

By adjusting the AE and AF lock, the user can control what part of the scene the HTC One M8 camera will use to focus on and use to set exposure levels.

What if I knew a kid was going to get on his bike in front of me and I wanted to take a picture with that buzz? I can adjust the AF lock by tapping and holding it to where it will go in the scene. Make sure there is something stable to focus on at that point, like another person or the ground just in front of the destination. Tap and hold that spot and the phone locks focus and exposure. Lift your finger off the screen and place it over the camera button, ready to take the shot as it passes.

Give Shots a Great Depth of Field View with UFocus

One of the best improvements in HTC One M8 camera software comes in the form of UFocus. It allows the user to change the focus of the image after taking a shot. Here is an image I took from a cool mirror with a North Carolina license plate as the border.

Here is the original image taken before the UFocus effect was added to the shot.

I wanted to focus on the plates, not my son and I. So, after I took the shot, I tapped the image thumbnail in the lower right corner of the Camera app to bring up the photo in the phone’s Gallery app. I pressed the button in the lower right corner. By default the menu is selected and the option is shown as the first effect at the left end of the effect row (see below).

To turn on the UFocus effect, open an image from the phone and tap the Edit button. This screen appears.

Tap UFocus. A popup tells the user: I tapped a plate along the edge of the mirror and it gave me the following effect. I also cropped the image to get rid of the screen and my thumb part of the camera lens. Do this by tapping the Tools option (see above) and then select Crop.

HTC One has a cool UFocus effect that allows users to blur parts of the image after the camera has taken the shot.

Don’t forget to apply the UFocus effect before making any other edits. When the user edits the shot any other way, the phone’s software does not allow the user to work in UFocus. And don’t forget to save the image after you’re done.

As you can see in the middle image above, the Effects menu offers a few more. Play with them however you like, but none of them deliver as great a shot as UFocus. Other effects work like this:

Enhance Shots with the Advanced Settings Menu

There is a nice collection of advanced camera settings that a user can access from the advanced options. Tap the menu icon at the top left in portrait mode or bottom left in landscape mode. The three dots turn red when the menu opens.

The advanced settings menu includes things like camera scene mode options, ISO, EV settings, White Balance, Filters, and the camera’s Settings button.

scene mode

The first button in the advanced settings menu controls the camera’s scene mode. Tap on it and a new menu appears showing more buttons.

Use Scene modes from HTC One M8’s advanced settings to get better shots in different situations.

Color and Exposure Settings

Three items in the Advanced settings menu affect the color and exposure of the camera. They include ISO, EV or Exposure Compensation settings and White Balance.

The HTC One M8 camera MAX ISO setting doesn’t set the full ISO, but tells the camera not to set it above the number the user has chosen.

The settings offer five options, including Auto, 1600, 800, 400 and 200 maximum ISO. The Auto-MAX-ISO setting allows the camera to look at the scene and select the best ISO setting for the user. ISO affects how much light the camera sensor sees. High ISO means it lets in more light to help with dark scenes. This adds some noise to the shot. Noise refers to tiny dots of color that make an image look bad.

The HTC One M8 camera’s MAX ISO setting doesn’t actually set the ISO to the value the user chooses, but limits the camera to go above that number and then chooses the best ISO below that. For example, if I choose MAX ISO 400, the camera may decide that 100 is best, but if it thinks 800 at a different setting, it won’t use 800 as I set the maximum limit to 400.

HTC One M8 camera automatically sets the ISO higher than other phone cameras. This looks great for most indoor or night shots, but images taken in bright or daylight will look like they’re overexposed. To compensate for this, set the MAX ISO to 400 and only change it as needed, as an image with a maximum ISO of 400 looks too dark. Even in this case, first use the EV described below to fix it.

The EV setting increases or decreases the exposure of the scene when the camera chooses a very light or dark exposure.

It changes the exposure of the scene to make it brighter or darker, depending on the number the user chooses. Keeping the EV Setting at zero allows the camera to choose the correct exposure. Increasing the EV setting will make the scene appear brighter, lowering it will make it appear darker.

This shot was taken with the EV set to 0, and the monitor behind the candy dish made the camera take a dark image.

A photographer will lower the EV setting if the scene looks too bright, or raise it if auto exposure sets it too dark. The shot above looks very dark as the monitor behind the candy dish causes the camera to lower its exposure setting. The following looks better because the EV setting is set to -1 to compensate for the difficult exposure.

This shot was taken with the EV set to -1 to compensate for the light from the monitor behind the candy dish.

It refers to the color of the light in the setting as measured by temperature. A “cooler” light appears more blue, and a “warmer” light appears more yellow. We want perfect White Balance so that white objects look really white instead of a slight blue or yellow. The HTC One M8 camera does a great job of setting the correct White Balance, but changing it should help if the camera can’t set it right. This happens when there are two types of light in a room, such as both an incandescent bulb in a lamp and fluorescent lamps in a ceiling fixture. Try choosing the setting for what type of light dominates the scene.

Change the White Balance in the advanced settings menu to compensate for difficult situations.

Another situation where White Balance helps is when someone is outside on a bright day and is shooting in the shade. Using the cloudy setting can help overcome this challenge.

Filters give you shots where Instagram shows the effect live as you compose the shot, not after the shot is taken.

Using the built-in HTC One M8 camera can make images look interesting.

The Vignette filter on the HTC One M8 camera adds a dark shadow to the edges of the subject.

The filter adds a dark shadow around the image, allowing the user to mask distractions from the edges of the scene.

The Depth of Field filter puts a blur around the scene, removing some distractions from the scene.

The filter will blur the content outside the circle and give users a similar effect from Vignette with just blurred edges instead of dark edges. HTC calls it the Depth of Field filter, but it’s a misnomer. It doesn’t really give the appearance of a nice depth of field, meaning a setting where parts of the scene in front of or behind the subject will appear blurred. Instead, use the camera’s U-Focus or Dual-focus mode to achieve this effect.

Use the slider on the left to adjust how wide or narrow the blur effect appears.

Each of these filters has a slider on the left that changes the size of the filter. Also, use your finger to move the circle over the part of the image that shouldn’t look dark or blurry.

Other filters don’t look that good, except for black and white modes. Try them out to see if you like any of them.

Search for more great HTC One M8 Camera tips where we’ll cover how to create shots with HTC One M8 Camera gridlines, how to print from a phone, and how to take amazing bursts, selfies and videos.