So in the few different tutorials that I have seen for using C++ / SDL, the implementation of the camera does not effect how the player is rendered but how the the rest of the world is rendered. Instead of changing the position / offset of where the player is rendered, you change the position / offset of where the map and other entities are renderer.
Out of curiosity, is this the standard (or maybe only) way of doing things when working with lower level code like C++ / SDL?
While it makes logical sense to me, my experience in game dev has always been high level abstractions (game engines like Unity or even libraries like Love) so it just feels wrong but maybe all of those engines / tools do it the same way and the abstraction they provide just hides that fact.