The level feature in the camera app is something I really enjoy using. I think every other phone and camera manufacturer should rip it off for our benefit.
When you hold the phone steady to line up a shot, the camera app will call up a virtual horizon line. When your picture is level from side to side and front to back, the two white lines will align and turn yellow. Once you reach an even zero degrees, you get a nice buzz. When you point the phone downward or upward, the phone's interface changes, with lines replaced with crosshairs. If you line up the white crosshair with the yellow static one, you have a perfect level zoom.
When shooting flat lay images, like an aesthetically pleasing arrangement of items on a table or a lovely meal you just got served at a fancy restaurant, it is important that you use this. When they are crooked, they look awkward because they throw off the proportions.
The Pixel isn't the originator of all this leveling. The double-crosshair thing has been done by Apple on the iPhone X and by SAMSUNG on the Note10 generation. When you use the crosshair leveler on Apple and SAMSUNG cameras, you don't get level lines for standard photos. In order to make a better experience, Google innovated a bit.
Full-size cameras have been around for a long time, but their implementations have been outclassed by mobile devices. In 2009, I had my first camera with it, and it was a basic one by the name of the Nikon D 700. Since then, larger cameras haven't improved much. The virtual horizon of expensive flagships like the Sony A1 and the Canon R3 are great for standard shots but can get lost as soon as you point them downward. As someone who frequently uses the Sony A9 II and A7 IV cameras for weddings, it drives me crazy knowing that the phone in my back pocket would help me take this shot faster than the state-of-the-art cams.
I don't understand why I'm obsessed with this. Maybe I secretly want to achieve true level, or maybe I have a bad habit of taking crooked shots when I'm working quickly. I am confident that it is not just part time wedding photographers like me that would benefit from this feature. It's no fun having to bust out a physical bubble level to ensure you get it right in-camera when you're photographing product and food
Yes, you can take a bunch of shots to ensure you get it right, use software to correct crooked and off- axis proportions later, buy one of these silly things that takes up your hot shoe, or even nail a perfect handheld shot every time. All cameras, phones, and pro cameras should have it. You can learn how many tables and desks in the world are not straight.
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