Camera Control comes in for the win (for once).

Yesterday was the first time I really appreciated Camera Control on the iPhone 16.

I have to set the scenario for you to really appreciate it:

It was below freezing outside, and I was standing on a hilly, icy surface at an angle, trying to take videos of my kids. Not in any danger, but still easy to slip and take a small fall. I’m really sensitive to cold and had to wear gloves. The gloves had capacitive tips for both the thumb and pointer finger allowing for touch screen operation.

Even with the capacitive gloves, it was a challenge to navigate the touchscreen due to my new artificial problem of having fat fingers. I still had to use the screen to switch to video mode which was a bit cumbersome, but for other controls, I used Camera Control.

The problem with taking pictures and videos in the snow is the camera sees all the white snow and ice and underexposes the shot, thinking the scene is too bright. That leads to a slurry of underexposed, underwhelming videos. I had to adjust the exposure throughout my memory capturing journey to get the whites to pop just right.

I could have made exposure adjustments with the touch screen, but “fat glove fingers” are not the best. Camera Control was perfect for this situation, and swiping with my gloves was effortless and dare I say, satisfying.

Zooming in and out was also easy to do without having to resort to the touch screen.

As satisfying as it was to benefit from the Camera Control button, let’s see how often I use it when winter is over…