[LG V30 Guides, News, & Discussion] JesseAaronSafir:
Well I wasn't specifically trying to use the wide angle lens portrait mode. I just hadn't noticed that the V30 auto-switches from regular to wide when you zoom out. Now that I know that, I'm going to keep an eye out for it. I like your note about keeping all points equidistant from the lens when using the wide angle and also that the focus is fixed at infinity. I also appreciate your suggestion to not fill the frame and just plan on cropping later instead of using digital zoom. That's not my natural tendency but it makes sense, especially if I'm looking to avoid lens distortion.

I've actually been wondering about how to test for and experiment with the lens distortion on this camera. I was thinking maybe there was a printable card that I could use but probably that's too close-up and I'll need to find a brick wall (preferably with square blocks) instead. I'm sure you're right that it would help enormously with understanding what's happening with the image.

For flowers, I will just try "auto" as you suggested. Someone pointed out that this phone (as it the case with most) doesn't have a true macro mode. I noticed that I can get the main camera to focus at a focal distance of about 7.5cm or greater and that that wide-angle camera can focus at a distance of about 10cm or greater. You mentioned about pushing up the shutter speed to make reds come out right. I'm thinking photographing flowers in natural sunlight would result in pretty high shutter speeds anyway, right?

I'll have to experiment with the Graphy thing and also keep an eye on the live light meter in manual mode. I have seen how the camera auto-shifts the shutter speed and ISO to adjust for proper exposure. The aperture on these lenses is fixed like a prime, right? So we'll always have a very shallow depth-of-field? As long as the primary subject is in focus, the bokeh is desirable, but if you want more of the frame in focus and you're dealing with a fast lens, what can you do? Just back up and crop?

I was thinking "Noise Reduction" would always be desirable, especially in low-light, which is the opposite of what you're telling me. Interesting. I was thinking it's not necessary in bright light but that it would reduce noise and grain in low light but you're saying that it'll soften details and may lead to blur, right? I'll have to experiment.

I guess the "Tracking Focus" is more for sports, yeah? I probably won't use that much either.

Can HDR trigger automatically even if you set it to "off"? As I think I said, I'm seeing it as greyed-out in manual mode anyway? I've seen cameras with HDR create single and composite images (one light, one dark, one composite). What is the V30 supposed to do? I'd definitely like to avoid streaking and blur if HDR would cause that.

I'm not sure what "Bright Mode" is either and as I said, it seems to be greyed-out in manual mode. It's available in "auto" though.

I'm not opposed to staying in 4:3 aspect but this is new for me as my Note 4 always took photos in 16:9. That being said, our family's digital photo frame is 4:3 so I tend to crop for that anyway. Interestingly almost all of the recent digital photo frames you can buy are 16:9. I really prefer the 4:3 but mine's ancient.

The "Full Vision" button just seems to switch the mode to 18:9 (11MP) 4656x2328 but you're right that it's a toggle so hitting it again goes back to 4:3. Maybe that is useful for composing like you said.

It's too bad we don't have control of "night shot". If you have a low-light setting with moving subjects, it could cause trouble. It'll be interesting to see how the V30 performs for low-light concert photography and videography. I used to do a lot with my SLR using 28mm f/1.8, 50mm f/1.8 and 100mm f/2.0 primes. For videography, I'll be curious how the V30 handles loud concert music. I saw something about how it can automatically or maybe manually has a setting to compensate for loud volume so the sound doesn't get distorted. I forget what that was.

You're right that SKWRT can be fun and useful for buildings and such but it's harder to use to fix wide angle lens distortion. I've messed with it and similar software on Windows on the distorted photos I've gotten with the V30 wide lens and no matter how you adjust things, it's hard to get the subjects (people) to look natural.