Photos & Camera

RSS for tag

Explore technical aspects of capturing high-quality photos and videos, including exposure control, focus modes, and RAW capture options.

Posts under Photos & Camera subtopic

Post

Replies

Boosts

Views

Activity

Capturing 48mp photos with .builtInTripleCamera
I am able to capture 48mp photos using .builtInWideAngleCamera, but it seems like .builtInTripleCamera is capped at 12mp? Is there a way to capture 48mp photos using .builtInTripleCamera? Because .builtInTripleCamera provides smooth transition between cameras during zooming, and I'd like to keep this behavior. New iPhone 17 Pro have all their cameras at 48mp. Is there a chance that their .builtInTripleCamera is capable of capturing 48mp? Or is this an API limitation?
3
0
388
Sep ’25
Launch The Main App from LockedCameraCapture
If the app is launched from LockedCameraCapture and if the settings button is tapped, I need to launch the main app. CameraViewController: func settingsButtonTapped() { #if isLockedCameraCaptureExtension //App is launched from Lock Screen //Launch main app here... #else //App is launched from Home Screen self.showSettings(animated: true) #endif } In this document: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/lockedcameracapture/creating-a-camera-experience-for-the-lock-screen Apple asks you to use: func launchApp(with session: LockedCameraCaptureSession, info: String) { Task { do { let activity = NSUserActivityTypeLockedCameraCapture activity.userInfo = [UserInfoKey: info] try await session.openApplication(for: activity) } catch { StatusManager.displayError("Unable to open app - \(error.localizedDescription)") } } } However, the documentation states that this should be placed within the extension code - LockedCameraCapture. If I do that, how can I call that all the way down from the main app's CameraViewController?
3
0
464
Nov ’25
Photos are captured with incorrect exposure bias in specific scenarios on iPhone 17 Pro
Hey, There seems to be an inconsistency when capturing a photo using QualityPrioritization.Quality on the iPhone 17 Pro Main wide Lens. If you zoom above "2x" the output image always has "-2.0ev" bias in the meta data and looks underexposued. This does not happen at zoom levels above 2, or if you set the QualityPrioritization to .Balanced. See below: with .Quality with .Balanced This does not happen on the other lenses. I'm using a simple set up and it is consistent across JPEG and ProRAW capture. I have a demo project if that is useful. Thanks, Alex
3
0
398
5d
Constituent active device switching very slow on iPhone 16 Pro Models on focus changes
Hi all, we are in the business of scanning documents and barcodes with the camera system of mobile devices. Since there is a wide variety of use cases, from scanning tiniest barcodes and small business cards to scanning barcodes or large documents from far distances we preferably rely on the triple camera devices, if available, with automatic constituent device switching. This approach used to be working perfectly fine. Depending on the zoom level (we prefer to use an initial zoom value of 2.0) and the focusing distance the iPhone Pro models switched through the different camera systems at light speed: from ultra-wide to wide, tele and back. No issues at all. Unfortunately the new iPhone 16 Pro models behave very different when it comes to constituent device switching based on focus distance. The switching is slow and sometimes it does not happen at all when the focusing distance changes. Especially when aiming for a at a distant object for a longer time and then aiming at a very close object that is maybe 2" away. The iPhone 15 Pro here always switches immediately to the ultra-wide camera, while the iPhone 16 Pro takes at least 2-3 seconds, in rare cases up to 10 seconds and sometimes forever to switch to the ultra-wide camera. Of course we assumed that our code is responsible for these issues. So we experimented with restricting the devices and so on. Then we stripped more and more configuration code but nothing we tried improved the situation. So we ended up writing a minimal example app that demonstrates the problem. You can find the code below. Execute it on various iPhones and aim at far distance (> 10 feet) and then quickly to very close distance (<5 inches). Here is a list of devices and our test results: iPhone 15 Pro, iOS 17.6: very fast and reliable switching iPhone 15 Pro, iOS 18.1: very fast and reliable switching iPhone 13 Pro Max, iOS 15.3: very fast and reliable switching iPhone 16 (dual-wide camera), iOS 18.1: very fast and reliable switching iPhone 16 Pro, iOS 18.1: slow switching, unreliable iPhone 16 Pro Max, iOS 18.1: slow switching, unreliable Questions: Does anyone else have seen this issue? And possibly found a workaround? Is this behaviour intended on iPhone 16 Pro models? Can we somehow improve the switching speed? Further the iPhone 16 Pro models also show a jumping preview in the preview layer when they switch the constituent active device. Not dramatic, but compared to the other phones it looks like a glitch. Thank you very much! Kind regards, Sebastian import UIKit import AVFoundation class ViewController: UIViewController { var captureSession : AVCaptureSession! var captureDevice : AVCaptureDevice! var captureInput : AVCaptureInput! var previewLayer : AVCaptureVideoPreviewLayer! var activePrimaryConstituentToken: NSKeyValueObservation? var zoomToken: NSKeyValueObservation? override func viewDidLoad() { super.viewDidLoad() } override func viewDidAppear(_ animated: Bool) { super.viewDidAppear(animated) checkPermissions() setupAndStartCaptureSession() } func checkPermissions() { let cameraAuthStatus = AVCaptureDevice.authorizationStatus(for: AVMediaType.video) switch cameraAuthStatus { case .authorized: return case .denied: abort() case .notDetermined: AVCaptureDevice.requestAccess(for: AVMediaType.video, completionHandler: { (authorized) in if(!authorized){ abort() } }) case .restricted: abort() @unknown default: fatalError() } } func setupAndStartCaptureSession() { DispatchQueue.global(qos: .userInitiated).async{ self.captureSession = AVCaptureSession() self.captureSession.beginConfiguration() if self.captureSession.canSetSessionPreset(.photo) { self.captureSession.sessionPreset = .photo } self.captureSession.automaticallyConfiguresCaptureDeviceForWideColor = true self.setupInputs() DispatchQueue.main.async { self.setupPreviewLayer() } self.captureSession.commitConfiguration() self.captureSession.startRunning() self.activePrimaryConstituentToken = self.captureDevice.observe(\.activePrimaryConstituent, options: [.new], changeHandler: { (device, change) in let type = device.activePrimaryConstituent!.deviceType.rawValue print("Device type: \(type)") }) self.zoomToken = self.captureDevice.observe(\.videoZoomFactor, options: [.new], changeHandler: { (device, change) in let zoom = device.videoZoomFactor print("Zoom: \(zoom)") }) let switchZoomFactor = 2.0 DispatchQueue.main.async { self.setZoom(CGFloat(switchZoomFactor), animated: false) } } } func setupInputs() { if let device = AVCaptureDevice.default(.builtInTripleCamera, for: .video, position: .back) { captureDevice = device } else { fatalError("no back camera") } guard let input = try? AVCaptureDeviceInput(device: captureDevice) else { fatalError("could not create input device from back camera") } if !captureSession.canAddInput(input) { fatalError("could not add back camera input to capture session") } captureInput = input captureSession.addInput(input) } func setupPreviewLayer() { previewLayer = AVCaptureVideoPreviewLayer(session: captureSession) view.layer.addSublayer(previewLayer) previewLayer.frame = self.view.layer.frame } func setZoom(_ value: CGFloat, animated: Bool) { guard let device = captureDevice else { return } let maxZoom: CGFloat = captureDevice.maxAvailableVideoZoomFactor let minZoom: CGFloat = captureDevice.minAvailableVideoZoomFactor let zoomValue = max(min(value, maxZoom), minZoom) let deltaZoom = Float(abs(zoomValue - device.videoZoomFactor)) do { try device.lockForConfiguration() if animated { device.ramp(toVideoZoomFactor: zoomValue, withRate: max(deltaZoom * 50.0, 50.0)) } else { device.videoZoomFactor = zoomValue } device.unlockForConfiguration() } catch { return } } }
4
2
520
Dec ’24
DockKit gimbal reported yaw drifts by upwards of 45 degrees after running for a while
This is an issue with the Insta360 Flow Pro 2. My iOS app uses DockKit to control the gimbal; in particular, my app disables tracking and sends angular velocity commands to control the gimbal's orientation. I only try to modify the yaw (rotation around the vertical axis); never the pitch or yaw. Note that I don't send the gimbal to a particular orientation directly; I modify the velocity. Everything works great for a long period of time: typically for a continuous run of 4-6 hours; in the most recent case, I managed about 36 hours of continous operation before the following problem occurred. I came back to check on the system, and because no visual activity had occurred in the camera's field of view for a while, the phone had commanded the gimbal to rotate back to a yaw angle of 0 degrees. So the phone in the gimbal should have been looking straight ahead (i.e. the 0 degree yaw position), but it was definitely looking off at an angle. I've seen this twice now. The first time, when it should have been looking straight ahead, it was in fact looking 60 degrees off center. This time (caught on video, see below), it was off by 22 degrees from center. Here's the weird part: the gimbal reports this way off center positioning as zero degrees (well close enough to zero, like 0.2 or something that's fine). But, mechanically, the gimbal still knows where zero degrees is: if we double click on the trigger of the Flow Pro 2, which is supposed to reset the gimbal to 0 degrees yaw and pitch, the gimbal responds correctly and reorients to a 0 degree position. However, the yaw values it reports are not zero, but as shown in my video, 22 degrees off axis or so. Power cycling the gimbal and restarting immediately fixes the problem. Also, I switched from my app to the Insta360 app, which caused the phone to flip from landscape to portrait, then when I returned to my app and switched back to landscape, the gimbal now started reporting correct yaw angles. Is there a possibility this is a bug in the DockKit framework? Has anyone seen this? I have a case open with Insta360, but although it's clearly a software issue, it's not clear if it's in Insta360's code or the DockKit layer. Any ideas for how I can get out of this mode? My concern is that the phone is in a tripod about 10' off the floor, and not very accessible. Also, if all goes well, we may have about 50 of these systems running, and having to fix them one by one after a few hours is not good. For a demonstration of this bug, see the following video: https://octoparry.com/offset.MOV Any help greatly appreciated.
4
0
451
Jun ’25
PhotosPicker obtains the result information of the selected video
In the AVP project, a selector pops up, only wanting to filter spatial videos. When selecting the material of one of the spatial videos, the selection result returns empty. How can we obtain the video selected by the user and get the path and the URL of the file The code is as follows: PhotosPicker(selection: $selectedItem, matching: .videos) { Text("Choose a spatial photo or video") } func loadTransferable(from imageSelection: PhotosPickerItem) -> Progress { return imageSelection.loadTransferable(type: URL.self) { result in DispatchQueue.main.async { // guard imageSelection == self.imageSelection else { return } print("加载成功的图片集合:(result)") switch result { case .success(let url?): self.selectSpatialVideoURL = url print("获取视频链接:(url)") case .success(nil): break // Handle the success case with an empty value. case .failure(let error): print("spatial错误:(error)") // Handle the failure case with the provided error. } } } }
4
0
126
May ’25
Raycasting VNFaceLandmarkRegion2D
Hello, Does anyone have a recipe on how to raycast VNFaceLandmarkRegion2D points obtained from a frame's capturedImage? More specifically, how to construct the "from" parameter of the frame's raycastQuery from a VNFaceLandmarkRegion2D point? Do the points need to be flipped vertically? Is there any other transformation that needs to be performed on the points prior to passing them to raycastQuery?
4
0
293
Sep ’25
writeImageAtIndex:1012: ⭕️ ERROR: 'App' is trying to save an opaque image (5712x4284) with 'AlphaLast'.
I have an app that edits photos in your library. When I call try CIContext().writeHEIFRepresentation(of: editedImage, to: fileURL, format: .RGBA8, colorSpace: originalImage.colorSpace!) The following is logged to the console: writeImageAtIndex:1012: ⭕️ ERROR: 'App' is trying to save an opaque image (5712x4284) with 'AlphaLast'. This would unnecessarily increase the file size and will double (!!!) the required memory when decoding the image --> ignoring alpha. What does that mean and how can I resolve it? Xcode Version 16.0 (16A242d) iOS 18.1 (22B82)
5
9
2.9k
Jan ’25
Easy way to output live
Hey everyone😊, I am building an app that includes a live camera feed preview. That's all I need to do along side identifying the images with createML's image classification. I don't need to capture images at all. I've seen some very complicated tutorials. I just want to use a couple of lines of code.
6
0
656
Jan ’25
Above Xcode16 operation project, in the project use AVPictureInPictureController opportunities (PIP) function open system blackout
I found that when the development tool above Xcode16 ran my app, I opened the suspended inscription function, and then opened the system camera, the content in the suspended window would not be displayed, and the suspended window would have a black screen. However, this phenomenon does not appear on Xcode15.4 development tools, it is the same code, I do not know why
6
0
655
Apr ’25
Moving photos to a shared library programmatically
Hello everyone, I am looking for a solution to programmatically, e.g. using AppleScript to import photos into the Photos library on MacOS and also push them to the shared library, like it can be done using the standard GUI of the Photos application. Maybe it is not possible using AppleScript, but using a short Swift script and PhotoKit, I do not not know. Any help is appreciated! Thomas
6
0
158
Apr ’25
[iOS 18.0] PHImageManager request image crash
I am seeing a crash on iOS 18.0 in my app due to PHImageManager.default().requestImage. Same crash is seen even while using requestImageDataAndOrientation. Not sure why this is happening only on iOS 18.0. Any help on this would be appreciated. Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV) Exception Subtype: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000000000010 Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000001, 0x0000000000000010 VM Region Info: 0x10 is not in any region. Bytes before following region: 4310777840 REGION TYPE START - END [ VSIZE] PRT/MAX SHRMOD REGION DETAIL UNUSED SPACE AT START ---> Termination Reason: SIGNAL 11 Segmentation fault: 11 Terminating Process: exc handler [695] Triggered by Thread: 14 Thread 14 name: Dispatch queue: */file=33) .Generic Thread 14 Crashed: 0 libobjc.A.dylib 0x1944d7020 objc_msgSend + 32 1 PhotoLibraryServices 0x1b080262c +[PLUniformTypeIdentifier utiWithCompactRepresentation:conformanceHint:] + 40 2 Photos 0x1b0081354 _resourceInfoFromResultDict + 1048 3 Photos 0x1b0080a7c fetchResourcesForChoosing + 584 4 Photos 0x1b0080714 ___fetchNonHintResources_block_invoke.227 + 152 5 PhotoLibraryServices 0x1b026b3c4 __53-[PLManagedObjectContext _directPerformBlockAndWait:]_block_invoke + 48 6 CoreData 0x19f171b00 developerSubmittedBlockToNSManagedObjectContextPerform + 228 7 libdispatch.dylib 0x19eeff584 _dispatch_client_callout + 16 8 libdispatch.dylib 0x19eef5728 _dispatch_lane_barrier_sync_invoke_and_complete + 56 9 CoreData 0x19f1c2a0c -[NSManagedObjectContext performBlockAndWait:] + 308 10 PhotoLibraryServices 0x1b026cea4 -[PLManagedObjectContext _directPerformBlockAndWait:] + 144 11 PhotoLibraryServices 0x1b026cdf8 -[PLManagedObjectContext performBlockAndWait:] + 196 12 Photos 0x1b00804a4 _fetchNonHintResources + 292 13 Photos 0x1afeedb38 PHChooserListContinueEnumerating + 144 14 Photos 0x1afeed9f8 -[PHImageResourceChooser presentNextQualifyingResource] + 412 15 Photos 0x1afeed1d0 -[PHImageRequest startRequest] + 2424 16 libdispatch.dylib 0x19eee5aac _dispatch_call_block_and_release + 32 17 libdispatch.dylib 0x19eeff584 _dispatch_client_callout + 16 18 libdispatch.dylib 0x19eeee2d0 _dispatch_lane_serial_drain + 740 19 libdispatch.dylib 0x19eeeede0 _dispatch_lane_invoke + 440 20 libdispatch.dylib 0x19eef91dc _dispatch_root_queue_drain_deferred_wlh + 292 21 libdispatch.dylib 0x19eef8a60 _dispatch_workloop_worker_thread + 540 22 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x2214d5660 _pthread_wqthread + 292 23 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x2214d29f8 start_wqthread + 8
6
0
143
May ’25
PHPicker fails to load RAW images
We observed that the PHPicker is unable to load RAW images captured on an iPhone in some scenarios. And it is also somehow related to iCloud. Here is the setup: The PHPickerViewController is configured with preferredAssetRepresentationMode = .current to avoid transcoding. The image is loaded from the item provider like this: if itemProvider.hasItemConformingToTypeIdentifier(kUTTypeImage) { itemProvider.loadFileRepresentation(forTypeIdentifier: kUTTypeImage) { url, error in // work } } This usually works, also for RAW images. However, when trying to load a RAW image that has just been captured with the iPhone, the loading fails with the following errors on the console: [claims] 43A5D3B2-84CD-488D-B9E4-19F9ED5F39EB grantAccessClaim reply is an error: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4097 "Couldn’t communicate with a helper application." UserInfo={NSUnderlyingError=0x2804a8e70 {Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4097 "connection from pid 19420 on anonymousListener or serviceListener" UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=connection from pid 19420 on anonymousListener or serviceListener}}} Error copying file type public.image. Error: Error Domain=NSItemProviderErrorDomain Code=-1000 "Cannot load representation of type public.image" UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Cannot load representation of type public.image, NSUnderlyingError=0x280480540 {Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4097 "Couldn’t communicate with a helper application." UserInfo={NSUnderlyingError=0x2804a8e70 {Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4097 "connection from pid 19420 on anonymousListener or serviceListener" UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=connection from pid 19420 on anonymousListener or serviceListener}}}}} We observed that on some devices, loading the image will actually work after a short time (~30 sec), but on others it will always fail. We think it is related to iCloud Photos: On the device that has iCloud Photos sync enabled, the picker is able to load the image right after it was synced to the cloud. On devices that don't sync the image, loading always fails. It seems that the sync process is doing some processing (?) of the image that will later enable the picker to load it successfully, but that's just guessing. Additional observations: This seems to only occur for images that were taken with the stock Camera app. When using Halide to capture RAW (either ProRAW or RAW), the Picker is able to load the image. When trying to load the image as kUTTypeRawImage instead of kUTTypeImage, it also fails. The picker also can't load RAW images that were AirDroped from another device, unless it synced to iCloud first. This is reproducable using the Selecting Photos and Videos in iOS sample code project. We observed this happening in other apps that use the PHPicker, not just ours. Is this a bug, or is there something that we are missing?
7
1
2.7k
Sep ’25
Macro-mode in AVCaptureDevice(custom camera)
Hi, I would like to use macro-mode for the custom camera using AVCaptureDevice in my project. This feature might help to automatically adjust and switch between lenses to get a close up clear image. It looks like this feature is not available and there are no open apis to achieve macro mode from Apple. Is there a way to get this functionality in the custom camera without losing the image quality. Please let me know if this is possible. Thanks you, Adil Thamarasseri
7
1
1.3k
Feb ’25
When getting the PHPickerResult from user selecting media in the Photos app, how to check file extension?
when I get results from picker: PHPickerViewController, didFinishPicking results: [PHPickerResult]) and I load the image using itemProvider .loadFileRepresentation (the itemProvider is the NSItemProvider provided by the PHPickerResult) will the url that's returned by this method be guaranteed to have the file extension ie, "file://image.jpeg" not "file://image" I want to know if i need to just check the extension to know its file type. (FYI in case this makes a difference, im only interested in user screenshots and screenrecordings)
7
0
135
Apr ’25