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My phone has a dual LED flash that's supposed to match the color temperature of the scene, preventing color balance problems like this.

I do a lot of night photography, and I use my NEX-5R. The NEX has a flash, but not a dual LED flash.

Is there some way to connect my phone to my NEX and get the latter to use the former as a flash? I can't do it manually because I can't synchronise the exposure times that precisely, and even if I did, the metering will probably be off.

Alternatively, I could leave the smartphone's LED on continuously, using the torch mode, but I doubt it tries to match the color temperature of the scene, because no one needs a torch to do that.

Is this a solvable problem? In case it matters, I'm using the iPhone 6 now, but I'd like a solution that works for Android as well.

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    Why not just gel the NEX-5R flash to match ambient lighting?
    – Michael C
    Oct 15, 2015 at 4:11
  • Isn't that hard, and time-consuming? I can just point my iPhone at anything and instantly get a color-corrected flash. Doesn't it require me to carry more equipment or materials? I like to travel light, without too many accessories. In fact, even the NEX is at times too heavy and I end up using my iPhone :)
    – Kartick Vaddadi
    Oct 16, 2015 at 1:21

1 Answer 1

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The true-tone flash works for photos as well as while recording a video. If you start recording a video with the flash on, it should stay on and you could point it at the subject while taking the picture just like you would with it in 'torch mode.' Then just delete the video off of your phone after.

You could also consider just doing a long exposure instead of using a flash if your subject is still.

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