Just got a Galaxy Mega from MetroPCS and it’s awesome. But I’m new to the camera app and want to take some timed photos. What’s the easy way to do that in Android on the Samsung Galaxy?
I too have a Samsung Galaxy Mega and I gotta say, that’s one big darn smartphone. In fact, the screen is only 1/2-inch smaller than an iPad Mini, so you can imagine that it’s a darn versatile device, serving as a big screen for movies, YouTube videos, games, etc, while also offering up all the capabilities of a fast Android device. Finding cases for it, that’s another story, but thank goodness for eBay and Amazon.com, because the local stores just stare in fascination when I show ’em the device and ask what they have available. 🙂
Running stock Android, the Galaxy Mega offers a surprising number of photographic options if you know how to find them. And that’s all accessible through the gear icon that’s shown in the photo viewfinder — if you can see it agains the background you’re shooting!
Indeed, the first time I took the screen captures in this tutorial, it was against a busy street and I afterwards reviewed them and realized that because all the Android icons were white, they were essentially invisible against the white of the street itself. Not good. And so, photos of a brick wall to take away the distractions!
To start, tap on the Camera icon:
Honestly, is it just me or are the Android icons a bit dorky?
Ah well, tap on Camera and you’ll get a preview of what it’s ready to photograph:
As I said, an exciting brick wall.
There’s a lot going on here that’s worth exploring. Starting on the bottom left, the tiny thumbnail shows the most recent image in the gallery: tap on it and you’re looking at photos you’ve already taken. The square in the middle is the focus box, the arrow at the bottom brings up a bunch of really cool image processing options like “solarize” and “vintage”, the lower right “Mode” button lets you chose the kind of subject you’re shooting for best effect, options like “best face”, “beauty face”, and “continuous shot”, the video button on the top right switches to video recording mode and the camera button on the right in the middle is the “take the shot” button, darn useful to know.
But let’s look at the top. By default there are two buttons: the camera button with the alternate facing arrows lets you switch between the backwards facing and front facing cameras and the gear icon? That gets you to some advanced features. Tap on it and here’s what you’ll see:
From left to right, the lightning bolt controls the flash, the mic button lets you configure voice controls (so you can say “cheese!” and it takes a pic. how cute is that?), the circle with the tick mark and “OFF” is the timer (we’ll get back to that), the video camera lets you control video recording modes so you can limit the video dimensions for sharing via MMS, the line with the two dots that also says “OFF” lets you enable immediate sharing of photos and video, and the left facing angle bracket closes this strip of buttons.
To take a timed photo, tap on the timer button on this strip (the one in the middle). Now you see this on your Samsung Galaxy Mega:
Chose the delay factor that’s most appropriate and the next time you tap on the ‘take picture’ shutter button instead of it immediately taking the photograph, it’ll start a countdown timer:
For me, when the timer ran out, yes, I got another beautiful photo of a brick wall. Thrilling.
But that’s how to work with the timer mode on your Samsung Galaxy Mega tablet / phone / phablet. Easy enough, I think!
