"use smart exposure"

[kjimac]

What does this toggle do? I assume this puts the camera into the equivalent of Aperature Priority or Shutter Priority mode. If so, which is it? If not, what does it do?

[xyster]

Smart Exposure ensures that there are no big brightness jumps between frames - a common problem with time lapse photography, especially on iPhones.
Smart Exposure lets you keep automatic exposure so you can capture varied lighting while greatly reducing the risk of ending up with a time lapse with undesired brightness variation and flickering.
If you want to see its effect take a time lapse of a scene with a high lighting change throughout the session (like a sunset) with and without Smart Exposure enabled.

[kjimac]

Great, thanks. What's the methodology? Simulated aperture adjustment or a simulated shutter speed adjustment?

[xyster]

I'm not sure what you mean by either of those. Essentially it looks at the overall luminosity of each frame and if the variance is too high from previous frames it reduces the luminosity variance.

[kjimac]

A "real" DSLR has Av and Tv modes, which correspond to Aperture Priority and Shutter Speed Priority modes. Essentially, what they do is allow you to set one and let the camera do the intelligence to set the other.

So, I was curious how you're achieving the "smart exposure" -- by locking the Aperture and letting the shutter speed fluctuate, or locking the Shutter Speed and letting the aperture fluctuate? Based on your description, I assume it's fixed aperture.