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    Compass 55. Shutter timer: a countdown before the photo or the recording.

    Public beta

    Planned for version 5.9.

    A finger on the screen moves the phone, and on a pole, a mount or a tripod that is exactly the shake you were trying to avoid. The shutter timer puts a few seconds between the tap and the capture, so the phone is still again by the time the photo is taken.

    The camera button

    The camera button at the top of the screen is where the timer lives. Its symbol shows which camera is in use, and once a timer is set it carries the seconds as a small badge — so you can see at a glance that the next shot will wait.

    The camera button in the toolbar, its symbol carrying a small 3 badge for a three-second timer


    A long press on the same button flips between the back and front cameras straight away, without opening anything.

    The camera sheet

    Tap the camera button and the sheet opens.

    The camera sheet: a Camera section with Back camera and Front camera, a Timer section with Off, 1 s, 3 s, 5 s and 10 s, and a Lenses section with Lenses and zoom


    • Camera — Back camera or Front camera.
    • Timer — Off, 1 s, 3 s, 5 s or 10 s. The tick shows what is set now.
    • Lenses — Lenses and zoom opens the lens strip .

    The timer stays set until you change it, and it survives a restart. It also travels with the app’s settings backup, in the Photo capture settings group of the app’s settings backup.

    The countdown

    With a timer set, the shutter button counts down instead of shooting. A ring empties around the shutter with the seconds inside it, and the phone taps once a second.

    The bottom of the camera screen during a countdown: the shutter with a ring around it and the number 4 inside


    Tap the shutter again to cancel — the countdown stops and nothing is captured. It is also cancelled if you leave the camera screen, switch between photo and video, or flip the camera.

    Video

    Starting a recording counts down in the same way. Stopping never waits: the moment you tap stop, the recording ends.

    What waits, and what does not

    Only the on-screen shutter and the shutter gestures you assigned under Viewfinder controls count down. Everything you press away from the phone fires immediately:

    • a Bluetooth remote,
    • the volume buttons, the Action button and Camera Control — see hardware camera buttons.

    That is deliberate rather than an omission: a release you press without touching the phone is already shake-free, and making it wait would only cost you the moment.