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How to Use the LG G4 Camera: Everything You Need to Know

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This guide will tell users everything they need to know about the LG G4 camera, and show you how to use it to the fullest in order to shoot the best photos and video possible. You’ll learn all about the LG G4 camera settings and advanced controls, as well as some tips from LG themselves. We’ll also show you our favorite LG G4 camera tips.

The LG G4 and its camera is the same from all carriers and version around the globe, so these details should work for all G4 owners. And while some carriers may tweak the look of the settings menu, all the options should be the same worldwide.

Read: 30 LG G4 Tips & Tricks

Often times taking a good looking photo with your LG G4 is as simple as leaving the camera set to auto mode, or changing a few settings with the tap of your finger, as long as you know what everything does. We’ll go over all the settings and more below.

LG G4 Back

With the LG G4 owners will have one of the best and most capable smartphone cameras on the market. It has an improved 16 megapixel f1.8 lens that shoots great in any situation, has a fast laser auto-focus, and a newly improved optical image stabilization to prevent photos from being blurry. It all blends together to make this one of the best cameras around.

Read: LG G4 vs Galaxy S6: Camera Comparison & Samples

Below we’ll walk-through all the LG G4 camera settings and advanced controls, list what they all are, and where you can find them to improve your experience.

LG G4 Camera Tips & Tricks

The LG G4 camera launches into auto mode by default which has the usual settings and options to control the flash, switch to the front 8 megapixel lens, change modes (like panorama, or dual photo) a general settings button, as well as buttons to snap a photo, record video, go to gallery and more.

However, LG added two other modes worth knowing about. While in the camera app tap the three dots near the top left and select  “Simple” or “Manual” to make things easier, or give you total control. Simple mode removes everything and lets users simply tap the screen to focus and take photos, and leaves the device to do everything else. Auto gives you average options and controls that is best for most users, and manual mode gives you control of the white balance, manual focus controls, ISO levels, shutter speed, and even the option to snap photos in RAW format, like professionals use, to tweak and edit photos on a computer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj_tLS8hiAQ&et_cid=23585259&et_rid=1531927080&linkid=pro-level+results

Before we list what all the buttons do, here’s some of the options, settings, and tricks available on the LG G4.

  • Quick Shot Camera – Double tap the volume down button when the phone is off (even locked) to launch the camera fast, so you can take a photo. It will instantly snap a photo within 0.7 seconds. You can turn this off in settings > shortcut key > uncheck “Quick Shot” to still launch the camera, but not take a photo.
  • Voice Control – With Voice Control turned on in the settings, you can say “Cheese”, “Capture”, “Smile”, “LG”, “Whiskey” and other words to instantly take a photo hands-free without touching the screen.
  • Volume Shutter –  Use any volume button to take a photo, even while recording video.
  • Switch to Front Camera – Swipe across the screen anywhere (up/down or side to side) to quickly switch between the front and rear camera. 
  • Burst Photos –  Press and hold the shutter button to take burst photos very fast.
  • Video Modes – Tap the gear-shaped settings button > 16:9 > and under video choose UHD 4K video, 1080p “FHD”, regular 720p HD, or even Slo-mo.
  • Help – Hit the settings button while in the camera and tap the ? for a big list of 11 helpful tips.

LG G4 Camera Basics & Features

Compared to some smartphones the LG G4 is rather basic even with the regular mode. It doesn’t have as many settings as some, but this keeps things from being too difficult and convoluted. Everything is simple and easy to understand, then there’s the manual mode for the pros who truly want it.

The photos and lists below outline what each of the LG G4 camera buttons and options do.

G4 camera-info

  1. Menu
  2. Flash – On, Auto, Off
  3. Switch to Front/Rear Camera
  4. Mode – Auto, Panorama, Dual (capture with front and rear cameras at once)
  5. More Settings (6-10)
  6. HDR – On, Auto, Off
  7. Image Size, and video settings
  8. Voice Shutter – Say Cheese, Smile, LG, Capture, Whiskey, and others
  9. Delayed Shutter Timer – Off, 3 seconds, 10 seconds
  10. Grid View
  11. Camera Help Tutorial (recommended reading)
  12. Gallery to view images
  13. Record Video
  14. Take Photo
  15. Go Back

After hitting the gear-shaped settings button (5) you’ll be greeted with more options. Each one of those as shown above can be tapped for more options. Everything from changing HDR, tweaking image size, enabling voice shutter controls, adding a timer, and accessing video controls. This is where you can take 4K video, or even slo-mo video recording.

G4 camera video controls

The LG G4 also features an excellent 8 megapixel front facing camera. It’s better than many rear cameras on popular phones last year, and has a few options as well.The same gear-shaped settings button brings up similar advanced options, timers, and the ability to shoot up to four photos in succession to capture the perfect selfie.

Turning on the “flash” brightens the screen to full blast to help add more light to the photo, or there’s a “Beauty Shot” slider that will smooth skin and remove blemishes. It works great, but might make men look like they’re wearing makeup if turned up too high. This feature works great around the middle mark, improving the skin tone of any faces in the photo.

LG G4 Camera Settings

Sadly there’s no dedicated menu outside of the camera app to change and customize the camera settings, and everything is handled inside of the camera application. Other devices let you choose the megapixel count, turn off the shutter sound, tweak quick launch controls, enable location and more. However, none of those are available on the LG G4. What you see above is what you get. That said, it’s all very simple and straightforward.

Manual Mode

To take things a notch further, LG has an advanced manual mode that offers more features and controls than any other smartphone available. In manual mode owners can control white balance, manual focus controls, ISO levels, shutter speed, and even the option to snap photos in RAW format. Here’s a video example of what some of these settings can do, and how it compares to the Galaxy S6 and iPhone competition.

In here you’ll have absolute control over the LG G4 camera. RAW format lets you take photos and upload them to a computer for editing, and all the other controls are useful as well, so long as you know how they work and what it all does. Everything from increasing the white balance and ISO to get more lighting for the perfect photo indoors or out, or changing the shutter speed to capture fast moving objects, or even doing long shutter exposures for some of those neatly blurred photos typically reserved for professional cameras or DSLR’s.

Without trying to explain all of this, here’s some photos from the LG G4 Camera cheat sheet that explains it all in simple terms for owners to understand.

Screen Shot 2015-06-03 at 12.26.33 PM

Screen Shot 2015-06-03 at 12.26.44 PM

Screen Shot 2015-06-03 at 12.27.21 PM

Screen Shot 2015-06-03 at 12.26.54 PM

Conclusion

As you can see the LG G4 camera has a lot to offer, yet is very simple for those who’d just like to shoot photos for social networks and special moments. You can instantly launch the camera and take great photos, enable HDR mode to get all the brightness and shadows at once for the perfect photo, take photos with your voice, or head into manual for absolute control.

Read: LG G4 Release: Everything You Need to Know

LG’s new camera is very fast, capable, and powerful. All the information provided above should detail what owners need to know, hopefully explain anything you didn’t understand, as well as show you some tips with the videos and information provided by LG.

The new LG G4 is available today in select regions around the globe, and the first week of June it will be available from all carriers in the United States. Read everything above and enjoy everything your LG G4 and its 16 megapixel camera has to offer.

25 Comments

25 Comments

  1. J. Lopez

    06/07/2015 at 7:36 am

    Hi Cory, I agree with you, the camera on the LG G4 is superb! Thanks for the article. I’m always finding little gold nugget of information when people like yourself take time to share what you know. One small thing though, while true there aren’t any setting outside of the camera app to adjust, you can prevent the camera from recording locations by going to the phone settings, location, scrolling to the bottom and unchecking “Tag photos or videos with locations”. Whether this affects third party camera apps I’m not sure but its there for the stock camera app. Again, thanks Cory!

  2. sim89

    06/21/2015 at 7:25 am

    Hi, can you tell me if the LG G4 has the same photo edit features that S5 has? For instance, the possibility to erase something that we don’t want in the photo (the famous tourist who ruins our shots :D) or the possibility to make a photo’s backgroud blurry in order to keep a main object clear? Can’t find a review about the photo edit features of G4! Thank you so much!

  3. Stacie

    06/27/2015 at 11:35 am

    I need some help and you seem the perfect person to ask. I had a Windows phone and when I recieved a text over my car bluetooth, it automatically offered to read it…send it etc. I cannot figure out how do do this with my LG G4. Please help :)

  4. Rudolf F Borsics

    07/10/2015 at 4:15 pm

    I can not find anything useful on how to transfer my pictures to PC.

  5. Bruce

    07/31/2015 at 4:35 pm

    The lack of manual controls in video recording mode SUCKS. Why LG left this out is beyond me… Camera FV5 does this but it is buggy.

  6. Red

    08/08/2015 at 7:11 am

    For some reason when I go to edit a pic on my LG4, I have lost the option of choosing the “Photo option” in the action choices……and I have reset the defaults…..I really like the editing tools on this option, can someone tell me how to get it back please?

  7. Diana

    12/18/2015 at 4:44 pm

    Does anyone know how to put date on the photos

  8. Liana Marquis

    01/01/2016 at 12:22 pm

    Diana, I was told you cannot put the date, but if you put your finger on the photo for a second or two it will show you the date. It worked for me.

  9. Liana Marquis

    01/01/2016 at 12:23 pm

    Can someone tell me, pls, how to take larger size photos? thanks!

  10. Yaron V

    01/10/2016 at 8:22 am

    In manual mode – can you select Auto ISO ?
    I see you can select Auto WB, but no Auto ISO… Am I missing something?
    Thanks!

  11. Shirley

    02/01/2016 at 9:36 am

    After shooting in RAW and JPG, I can only access the JPG file. Are the RAW files hidden somewhere? Also disappointed that the videos shot in slo mo aren’t transferrable in this format, they show up in real time.

  12. Lamont

    02/28/2016 at 7:47 pm

    A few minutes after taking a pic my jpegs turn to blank corrupted files

  13. soundarya

    03/14/2016 at 1:49 am

    HI …
    I just want to know how we can take snap of a particular angle while playing video on LG G4 stylus.

  14. chloee

    03/25/2016 at 10:51 pm

    my lg g4 said that i cant connect with some editting tools, how can use them?

  15. Cathy

    04/10/2016 at 9:54 pm

    Very helpful! I have been trying to figure out how to adjust things on my LG G4. It’s a hit and miss since I really don’t understand the basics. Question though, can you also feature how to write your name (or basically anything) in light using G4’s camera? TIA.

  16. Vicki

    04/15/2016 at 7:42 am

    LG G3 had a ton of video settings including one called “MMS” (or something similar) so you could take videos and easily send them via text or email. LG G4 only lets me send videos I crop to 1 min or less and I can’t find a setting to change it. Help?

  17. Zai

    04/16/2016 at 10:03 am

    Hi, can anyone help…

    I think my little brother was messibg around with my phone, everytime i take a picture (e.g portrait) it does not stay portrait when i view it. It show landscape!! Annoying!! I really hate going through all my pics and rotating them. Need anyone’s help on this, many thanks!

  18. Sharon Cafferky Fleury

    06/26/2016 at 8:48 am

    gallery asked me if i wanted to play videos with camera or something else. i chose camera and now
    I’m done .it wont play video. any help out there? [email protected]

  19. JD Weaver

    07/16/2016 at 9:43 am

    Everything you mentioned here I think anyone could have found out on their own just by playing with the camera for a few minutes. Quite unhelpful.

  20. Andre

    09/07/2016 at 8:17 pm

    How do you mute the video sound

  21. AR

    09/23/2016 at 7:50 pm

    This is driving me crazy: Almost ALL phones I have ever used do the following:
    When you use the front-camera (selfie-camera), the resulting photo will be “mirror/reversed”.
    For some reason, the LG G4 does NOT mirror them?? Why?? Or am I just missing a setting somewhere that I can click to change this?
    Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

  22. Jeff McCormack

    09/27/2016 at 7:33 am

    This articles makes no mention of the different settings when using the front camera. There are a few settings in there not convered here, and I do not (yet) know what they are (like the two faces side by side).

  23. thichraovat.com

    01/30/2017 at 12:59 pm

    It’s a shame you don’t have a donate button! I’d most certainly donate to this
    superb blog! I guess for now i’ll settle for bookmarking and adding your RSS feed to my Google
    account. I look forward to brand new updates and will talk
    about this website with my Facebook group. Chat soon!

  24. Ken Pischke

    03/09/2017 at 8:15 am

    I remember once seeing the Panoramic and Slo-Motion capability with my G4. These options no longer show up. Did I somehow turn these features off? If so, how can I turn them back on?

  25. Vanessa Hammond

    03/18/2017 at 9:36 am

    How do I change the image size? Everything is showing as 7 mb to 9mb

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