urShadow's Blog: Five Tip Friday – BlackBerry 10.3 Camera & Video Tips

The holiday season is nearly upon us and, for many of us, that means time with family and friends. We know too that you will want to capture those special moments through pictures and videos, so today’s Five Tip Friday is all about using your BlackBerry Camera, including some new features with 10.3 that give you even more options.

Even if you can’t be with the ones you love this holiday season, you can use your BlackBerry to share images and videos with those people you wish you could see.

Get in the shot using the timer feature

In Normal and Time Shift modes, you can use the timer feature to delay taking a picture for 3 seconds or 10 seconds. The timed delay allows you to get ready for the picture and even get into the shot yourself.

In the Camera app, tap .
Do any of the following:
To set the timer for 3 seconds, tap .
To set the timer for 10 seconds, tap .

To turn off the timer, in the upper-left corner of the screen, tap or.

Turn on Grid Lines

Take advantage of the ‘Rule of Thirds’ when snapping pictures by turning on grid lines within the camera viewfinder. I love this option for snapping pictures outdoors because it makes framing up the perfect photo really easy! To try this out, open the Camera app, swipe down from the top of the screen and tap Settings. Within this screen, turn on Display Grid Lines.

Capture and create slow motion video

Did you know that BlackBerry 10 OS version 10.3 includes a new option to add a slow motion effect to your videos? Using this feature you can capture some pretty interesting videos so here’s how to take advantage of it!

The first step is setting your device to capture video at 60 frames per second which will result in smoother video after applying the slow motion effect.

Open the Camera, swipe down from the top of the screen
Tap Settings followed by Video Size (Rear Camera)
Select one of the 60 fps options, e.g. 720p at 60 fps

After selecting a 60 fps video mode, capture some videos and complete the following steps to slow down your video.

After recording a video, open the Videos app
Tap Edit along the bottom toolbar followed by Enhance
Tap Slow Motion
Optionally adjust the sliders to apply slow motion to a specific section of video
Tap the Play icon (circled in red below) to slow the down video by 25%, or 50%

If you want to slow down your video even more, you can go another 25% or 50%, save it, then edit again which allows you to apply another 25% or 50% slow down if you so desire.

Add your GPS location to pictures using Geotagging

When taking pictures you have the option to geotag the picture with your current location. I use this feature whenever I am at the family cottage so I can see where I was on each lake when I took each picture.

To start tagging pictures with your GPS location, open the Camera app, swipe down from the top of the screen and tap Settings. In this screen, turn on Geotag Pictures.

Quickly preview pictures using one finger

You can peek at the last picture that you took or the video that you recorded to see if you captured what you wanted.

Touch and hold the thumbnail at the bottom of the screen.
Slide your finger up to expand the thumbnail.
To return to the Camera app, lift your finger from the screen.
- To delete the picture or video, slide you finger to the right onto Delete icon. When you reach the icon, remove your finger and tap Cancel or Delete.
- To share the picture or video, slide your finger to the right onto Share icon. When you reach the icon, remove your finger and tap Cancel or select a method of sharing.