• Home
  • Reviews Index
  • Best Gear
  • Inspiration
  • Learn
  • Disclaimer
  • Staff/Contact Info
  • Media Kit
  • Membership
Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
News

Profoto Turns Your Samsung Android Phone into a Legitimate Camera

Chris Gampat
No Comments
12/01/2020
3 Mins read
Molly-Baber-portrait-2_fullsize

We’re streaming daily on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, and Spotify!

I always knew this day would come, but I never thought that the traditional camera manufacturers ever took it seriously. However, today, the Profoto Camera App is available for Android phones in Beta mode. It’s been out and available for iPhone. I’ve barely ever used it or taken it seriously. However, Profoto sent us photos shot with the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra and the Profoto B10. And quite honestly, I’m stunned.

Profoto Camera on Android

Profoto’s Marko Pirc sent me the details in an email. “It works with all of our LED and Xenon lights and has a working auto-exposure algorithm (TTL), which is far better than any such thing on DSLR or mirrorless cameras,” he tells me. The latter, I can’t necessarily verify. But I’ve used the Profoto AirTTL system on Canon, Sony, and Fujifilm cameras. With each of them, the TTL works differently. And it’s quite odd. You’d think that metering is metering, right? At least that’s what Sunny 16 tells us. But each of these camera systems has made super complex metering systems for their sensors and flash systems.

The key to all this, though, is with the way smartphone cameras work. “Under the hood, we are utilizing phone’s brains and multi-frame capture technology,” explains Marko. “So our app measures ambient light intensity and color along with flash impact and color.” He continued to say that it mixes the effect based on the user’s preference.

“This is technically not possible to achieve on a DSLR or MILC (at least not today).”

According to Mr. Pirc, the new Profoto Camera app for Android has creative, non-technical controls. They are: 

  • “Natural,” “Balanced,” or “Dramatic” to control the ratio between flash and ambient light in the final photo.
  • Users can control the photo’s mood through a smart color setting (going from Cold to Warm). Here algorithms precisely mix flash and ambient light to achieve the desired color mood of the final photos.

The Profoto Camera App on the iPhone does a similar thing, but I’ve admittedly barely used it. I’ve been using flash for years, though. And I know how to get exactly what I want.

According to the press release, the app is available for the Samsung Galaxy S8, S9, S10, S20, Note 9, Note 10, and Note 20 lines. The press release makes no mention of Google Pixel, Huawei, LG, or Sony Xperia phones. All of those use the Android platform. You can shoot with the app if you own the Profoto B10, B10 Plus, a10, C10 or C10 Plus.

The Camera Manufacturers Need to Evolve

You’re probably going to say, “Well, it’s the photographer who shoots the images and not the gear.” And I agree with you. But the longer I’ve run this site, the more I’ve realized that gear is important. And it’s paramount now more than ever. You probably can’t get the look you want without Photoshop, Lightroom, or Capture One, so you need those specific pieces of gear or software to get your particular look. You can’t get the look of the Canon RF 50mm f1.2 L USM from anything Sony or Fujifilm has. And you can’t get the specific look of the older Leica M9 anymore either, now can you?

Your tools matter. And more specifically, the photographer’s skill and creative vision matter. If a photographer can get a shot in-camera with little to no post-production, they have something special. On our Flipboard channel, we created a storyboard a while back. It features photographers who don’t use Photoshop. And I believe that’s important now because anyone can use Photoshop, but not everyone understands stroboscopic flash. And how many people know how to perfectly meter a scene with high-speed sync? Or how to stop super fast motion? Profoto lights let you do that far better than any LEDs do.

Quite honestly, camera manufacturers need to start figuring out what they’re going to do. It’s not likely that they’re going to leapfrog ahead of the rapid innovation smartphones produce. So they need to find a way to do something that smartphones really can’t. The other day in the comments a reader said that cameras aren’t going the way of watches, like I’ve stated before. Instead, he thinks they’re more like calculators. I’ve never seen calculators marketed as romantic objects, but cameras totally are.

android phone profoto Profoto B10 profoto camera samsung samsung galaxy samsung galaxy s20 ultra TTL
Shares
Written by

Chris Gampat

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
Previous Post

The Wonderful Winners of the GuruShots Beach Days Contest

Next Post

Win a Leica Q2! Show Us a Woman Who Inspires You!

The Phoblographer © 2023 ——Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
  • Home
  • Our Staff
  • Editorial Policies
  • Media Kit
  • Membership
  • App Debug