Camera Flash - Touch Pro CDMA

I can't seem to find a thread on this and I find it hard to believe no one else has an issue with this. In the camera on the HTC Touch Pro where the flash option is, it's "flashlight" not "flash." So you can't have the flash bulb turn on only for the picture and then turn off like an actual camera flash. What's the reason for this? Any hack to fix it?
If you use it how the Touch Pro seems to want you to...
You may as well admit the LED will burn out before it should.

i don't think the led will be burned anytime soon. have never seen a burning led. if it last for 2 year i'm happy, i would probably go a new htc by then. however i agree that having the flash turn on like that it's a waste of battery.
you know the funny part about this is i'm actually this flash as a flashlight with htctorch and it has been very useful.

pandaboyy said:
i don't think the led will be burned anytime soon. have never seen a burning led. if it last for 2 year i'm happy, i would probably go a new htc by then. however i agree that having the flash turn on like that it's a waste of battery.
you know the funny part about this is i'm actually this flash as a flashlight with htctorch and it has been very useful.
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Yeah, I've searched for this myself, didn't find anything. I mentioend something about it somewhere else but got no responses. Probably because the phoen was brand new and maybe not widely used yet.
In any case, LED's are rated for 100K hours of life, some may get more others less, but on average, that's their rating. Long past the noral usage of a cell phone. It does actually flash though when you take a picture.
The reasoning though (guessing) is if it's in a relatively dark room, the camera will be unable to focus properly to take the picture without it (the subject) being lit up before hand. But most people probably don't take pictures in that dark of an enviroment.
In any case, it would be better to have the actual option and let the user decide if they need pre-light or just a flash to take their picture.

hmmm.. yeah, its not a flash, its a flashlight. if anyone wants to make a hack for this to just flash, that would be so ****ing badass. that thing is so bright that peoples eyes are always squinted before the camera even focuses. its nice that its bright, but i mean, seriously.... its BRIGHT. and annoying.

ou2mame said:
hmmm.. yeah, its not a flash, its a flashlight. if anyone wants to make a hack for this to just flash, that would be so f###ing bada$$.
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Click to collapse
+1....I was wondering too

There's a reasoning for this, at least.. the focus and metering mechanisms all function poorly in low light, so without the light on for the focus phase of the image taking, your photos would come out even worse.. it isn't the only phone i've used that behaves this way, almost any phone with a LED flash will do this, only Xenon flashes and the like will behave like a camera (brief flash on shutter release)

Related

[Q] Xenon Flash... can it serve as flash light?

can Mozart's Xenon flash serve as flash light? I read some review that LED can stay on but a xenon can't since it's like digital camera flash, it fires once after it has sufficient charge. To those people with units, can clarify on this ?
I don+t have the unit, but flashlight app from HTC is not available on the Mozart (check HTC website for instance). I don't now if 3rd party flashlights will allow this, but what i know is that xenon flash must not stay on because its powerful that LED and eventually may burn the flash... So LED may be used for flashlight, but xenon no.
No, it cannot. I bought a powerful LED light from DealExtreme for my keychain to use as a replacement as I was used to the HD2 LED flashlight
There are a few apps for the HTC 7 Mozart. But they only make the screen bright! In my oppinion thats pretty useless...
Yeah, Xenons cant light up permanently. They physically just cant.
And using its display as flashlight sucks.
I read that the flash can only be used for short periods of time as its an Xenon bulb and will burn out if used for to long.This would also explain why know one has made an app for this. The screen light apps are no good but thats not the fault of the app makers as if they could do some thing with the flash im sure they would do. Its almost as important to have a touch as it is a alarm these days and we have all kinda come to expect it. Hope this helps.
The xenon flash is driven by a flyback converter (in the same manner as a capacitor, sort of) running voltage of around 200 - 300v, as the naked battery power isn't capable on it's own... The reason it can't be used as a flashlight is basically due to the converters recovery rate...
kabumm said:
Yeah, Xenons cant light up permanently. They physically just cant.
And using its display as flashlight sucks.
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so how does modern cars use xenon lights ?
breakbystealth said:
I read that the flash can only be used for short periods of time as its an Xenon bulb and will burn out if used for to long.This would also explain why know one has made an app for this. The screen light apps are no good but thats not the fault of the app makers as if they could do some thing with the flash im sure they would do. Its almost as important to have a touch as it is a alarm these days and we have all kinda come to expect it. Hope this helps.
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Click to collapse
true, its kinda important, all i ever read was how awesome the xenon flash is but never a word about its disadvantages untill i got one. well i can live without light, always got a lighter, or consantly take pictures like in some horror movie for light
then i read this nice mozart review and about the camera
http://www.missuall.com/htc-mozart-2/
The xenon flash on the Mozart is a bit of a joke. First of all it is too weak and is only usable in low light at a short distance. Attempts at using it as a fill flash with day light were met with spectacular failure. Apart from being weak, there are also three more reasons why the flash fails to perform adequately. First, there is no focus assist that would help the camera focus in pitch darkness, which means your images would come out of focus. Surprisingly though, it worked quite well in low-light.
Secondly, the camera cannot judge the distance of the subject from the camera and modulate the intensity of the flash. Objects that are closer often get washed out when shot using the flash. Lastly, Windows Phone 7 is not optimized for a xenon flash but an LED flash, which means it uses a slower shutter speed, which does not work well with a xenon flash.
Since the shutter is open longer than the duration that the flash is active, the camera is unable to freeze the action the way you are used to seeing on other xenon flash enabled cameras. This is similar to the slow synchro mode that some cameras have where the shutter speed is reduced to allow more light in, except on the Mozart, that’s the only option you have.
We also had issues with the accelerometer on the phone, which annoyingly recorded the orientation of the images incorrectly. Even when we were holding the phone perfectly horizontal it would save the images in portrait mode, upside down. Because of this, we always had to make sure the camera is perfectly straight before taking an important shot, lest we took our pictures upside down.
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so i think in future the xenon flash can and will be supported by apps and then it will totally rock!
WetSpot said:
The xenon flash is driven by a flyback converter (in the same manner as a capacitor, sort of) running voltage of around 200 - 300v, as the naked battery power isn't capable on it's own... The reason it can't be used as a flashlight is basically due to the converters recovery rate...
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sounds like you got some internal knowlege about, so is it possible to flash with the xenon more then one time ? how long is the recharge time, how many times can you flash in lets say 10 sec? if u cant make it always on, try to make it flash 24 times a sec i kinda think it wont be possible, but then cant we have multi-shot pictures? i wish i could view in future
webwalk® said:
so how does modern cars use xenon lights ?
xenon lights use a ballast to constantly supply the required power demands of the light, vehicles have an inexhaustable power supply for this process...
true, its kinda important, all i ever read was how awesome the xenon flash is but never a word about its disadvantages untill i got one. well i can live without light, always got a lighter, or consantly take pictures like in some horror movie for light
then i read this nice mozart review and about the camera
so i think in future the xenon flash can and will be supported by apps and then it will totally rock!
sounds like you got some internal knowlege about, so is it possible to flash with the xenon more then one time ? how long is the recharge time, how many times can you flash in lets say 10 sec? if u cant make it always on, try to make it flash 24 times a sec i kinda think it wont be possible, but then cant we have multi-shot pictures? i wish i could view in future
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Click to collapse
The phone flyback converters are produced pretty much with two goals in mind:
1. be small enough to fit into the case...
2. supply the demands of a low-tech, low demand camera...
I think even if you could overcome the dependance of the flash to recover only in line with the frame rate of the camera, the battery would not be sufficient to run it as a torch/flashlight for long...
jtphl said:
I read some review that LED can stay on but a xenon can't since it's like digital camera flash, i
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Click to collapse
So we can't use the xenon flash also during video... grrr
This is one reason I am strongly considering the cheaper Trophy over the Mozart. The Mozart has a better build but if you plan on doing anything involving flashlight capabilities then you will be better off with a Trophy.
You could buy an external keychain light but to hold that and keep the phone steady will be a task.

[Q] App to use LED Flash as a notification light.

So, I am not sure in anyway how much power the LED flashlight takes at any of its intensitys, but is there an app out there like NoLED or even BNL that could take advantage of your LED Flash.
i set my phone down , usualy face down cause I its pretty reflective.. so this would be really cool
I don't think it's a good idea, the flash is very bright and you might hurt your eyes
Pretty sure the flash uses far too much power to make this an option.
Sent From My Fingers To Your Face......
OOPS..... misread the OP.
Sent from my GT-I9100M
well.. the flash is not that bright all the time, there are several steps that the flash seems to have.. so it is possible..

[Q] SGSIII Smart Stay Issue. Anyone?

I was very excited by the Smart Stay feature of SGSIII but after a few days, experience, my opinion is that it does not work. I set the timeout to 15 sec. The eye flashes in the notification bar but most of the time screen is turned off. I tried staring directly at the front camera. Tried various positions too but no result. And all this is done in a normal lit room. Then I tried removing my specs and then it seems to work. Since I can't do much without them, so no fixed observation. Can anybody help?
do you wear glasses?
defia said:
do you wear glasses?
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Yes
Mine works even with glasses on
Toadeh said:
Mine works even with glasses on
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Any particular setting? Or particular angle at which you keep your phone? Mine for sure does not work. The eye flashes but then the screen is also turned off.
I have the same issue too. Does anyone know the issue and how to overcome it? Thanks
I get mixed results with it. It works under ideal conditions but I had to extend the dim period to use it in everyday use.
The icon appears to show that the phone is checking for a face and not confirming it saw one. I see it flash even when looking from an angle where I'm definitely out of the camera frame.
defia said:
do you wear glasses?
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Click to collapse
Me and a friend we bought s3 and both of us having an issue with smart stay !It works after you open the device for the 15-30 minutes and after that nothing,after the eye appears the screen goes off!We are not wearing glasses!!So any idea what cause that?A possible bug of it?Or any future update will fix it?
you guys running on XXfl2 or whatever it is?
smart stay works really well for me, never has an issue, even at acute angles
It never works for me.
Then again... I'm way to ugly for my phone to stay with me.
Smartphone's R getting to smart I guess.
Works great for me too...
Samsung already stated they are working on improving the feature as it is not yet capable of handling some light conditions, and most glasses.
Sent from my DROIDX
Works fine for me with glasses, as long as the phone's front camera is pointing right at me.
The flashing eye means its searching for a face; the only indication that it has recognised you is that the screen doesn't turn off.
Same issue!
Yup, facing the same problem. Keep staring at the screen for hours for the damn thing to work. But it just wont. I have tried with my glasses off. Got the same result. The eye appears on the screen twice. The first time it dims the screen, the second time it shuts it off. I have tried different angles, but have finally resigned to my fate, unless XDA/Sammy figure it out!
not working for me 2
I am not wearing any glasses but it simply dont wok tried to change the angels but no luck ... hope it need improvement. This was the main reason to purchase the s3 but....
Mine works quite well, feels like its abit of a battery drain though.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using XDA
For anyone having issues this might be worth a shout.
http://www.redmondpie.com/iseeyou-b...-older-devices-running-android-2.3-or-higher/
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
It needs to be a nice distance from your face to pick up your eyes, light is an issue too.
Its a nice feature that has some obvious issues on a 1.X MP camera.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium
ronak47 said:
For anyone having issues this might be worth a shout.
http://www.redmondpie.com/iseeyou-b...-older-devices-running-android-2.3-or-higher/
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
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Click to collapse
Samsung patented this feature so i guess the app dev is in a bit of danger unless he is not really rich.
Other apps wont be as good either, as smart stay was made with this hardware in mind (namely the camera). Others will have to bend and shape to fit multiple cameras, making detection algorithms not as strong.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium

[Q] Taking pictures in dark

Hi,
i have little question, did not find anything that was helpful. So, taking pictures in dark conditions. Few days ago my friend bought Sony xperia go. and, when you press camera button in dark, it turns the LED flash on, make autofocus and take picture. In that way picture came out sharp and good.
On the other side, our evo does not turn flash on, but instead it "autofocus dark image" (practically blank screen) and of course image is usually all blurry.... Is there any solution for that?
cickvoa said:
Hi,
i have little question, did not find anything that was helpful. So, taking pictures in dark conditions. Few days ago my friend bought Sony xperia go. and, when you press camera button in dark, it turns the LED flash on, make autofocus and take picture. In that way picture came out sharp and good.
On the other side, our evo does not turn flash on, but instead it "autofocus dark image" (practically blank screen) and of course image is usually all blurry.... Is there any solution for that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use the flashlight or torch app to force the flash on.
now thats just to funny. you could just say to glue real camera on phone and have excellent pics hahaha
DarkRazorZ said:
Use the flashlight or torch app to force the flash on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is your best bet. I do this too when I get that stupid message stating that it can't use flash because of low battery. GTFOH.
I just tried this out. It really works well. Thanks to all the posters.
I do that too especially when taking a video at night. Just go into quick settings and turn on the flashlight!
It works best at 3 AM when everything is hilarious and you try to make a movie better than paranormal activity. Which surprisingly isn't that hard to do.

[Q] Enable camera options

Hello, samsung disabled some options in camera in most of the shooting mode or scenes,I searched pretty much everywhere and I couldn`t find some useful information.Is really annoying that they did.For example,in a low light situation if I use the flash, 2-3 m in front of the camera will look very good but everything else will look bad, if I use the low light shooting mode, everything will look good but if I would use low light shooting mode + flash, 2-3 m in front of the camera will look very good and everywhere else will look good(perfect).Also the burst mode is pretty usefulness in good light situations as you would have to be drunk to take a blured picture but with the low light shooting mode where is very likely to get a shaky picture would be great to take at least 2-3 photos fast(even if not so fast as in normal mode) so you could be sure that you have at least 1 good picture.The examples can go on and I don`t think that I`m asking for something impossible.Did someone modded the camera app as stated above or is there any possibilty in the near future to see some of those useful options?Thank you in advance.
so not a single chance to accomplish what I want?
nobody can understand what you mean.
Wall of text is horrible
somebody on XDA posted a guide on enabling the option to switch the camera shutter sound on/off by editing the feature.xml file under /system/app/
may be you need to try something similar
but be very careful when you edit such files.
Glebun said:
nobody can understand what you mean.
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Click to collapse
I mean that if you choose from shooting mode the "low light" or HDR or a lof of options, flash is AUTOMATICALLY disabled or you can't use the burst shoot with low light option enabled or HDR, that`s what I`m talking about.Is it possible to trick the camera software to be able to use all the options along?
You need to search and read the various camera mods and decide .
jje
saddameu said:
I mean that if you choose from shooting mode the "low light" or HDR or a lof of options, flash is AUTOMATICALLY disabled or you can't use the burst shoot with low light option enabled or HDR, that`s what I`m talking about.Is it possible to trick the camera software to be able to use all the options along?
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Click to collapse
There is a reason why these options can't be used with each other.
1. low light mode is supposed to take into account that there is very little light. If you turn the flash on with low light mode then you're essentially not using low light mode anymore because flash provides loads of light.
2. HDR mode takes 2 shots (3 on some devices) with different exposures and then combines the 2. If flash is involved the 2 shots will pretty much look the same and will therefore mean HDR is useless.
3. Burst shoot takes loads of photos simultaneously and if flash is enabled the first shot will usually be taken with flash. The device simply cannot handle the flash being used up to 20 times one after another.
If there is software out there to "trick" the camera into being able to do what you describe, it won't make a positive difference to your photos. It's general photography and the way cameras and their features work that make what you want to happen, a bad idea!
Rar3 said:
The device simply cannot handle the flash being used up to 20 times one after another.
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Click to collapse
that part is not true. You can use Torch in strobe mode, which flashes the flash (sounds stupid, sorry) at like 50Hz
Rar3 said:
There is a reason why these options can't be used with each other.
1. low light mode is supposed to take into account that there is very little light. If you turn the flash on with low light mode then you're essentially not using low light mode anymore because flash provides loads of light.
2. HDR mode takes 2 shots (3 on some devices) with different exposures and then combines the 2. If flash is involved the 2 shots will pretty much look the same and will therefore mean HDR is useless.
3. Burst shoot takes loads of photos simultaneously and if flash is enabled the first shot will usually be taken with flash. The device simply cannot handle the flash being used up to 20 times one after another.
If there is software out there to "trick" the camera into being able to do what you describe, it won't make a positive difference to your photos. It's general photography and the way cameras and their features work that make what you want to happen, a bad idea!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1 if you've ever played with light settings on a dslr, you'd know cranking up ISO, low shutter speed, exposure, etc will give you such a high exposure you can't even make the picture out.. all you see is a white light.. I feel this is what would happen.. its like shining a flashlight on something during night vision, all you see is a huge white spot.. does that make sense?
its not a software limitation its just the way modern lens work.
2 agreed
3 the flash can stobe 20 or so times a second, any 'flashlight' app will show you this.. you could also leave the flash simply on..
the best workaround ffor this is use 1080p video mode with flash, it takes 30 frames (shots) a second, and while watching the video there's a camera button on screen in the stock video player. best workaround.
and yea mods will come
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda app-developers app
soraxd said:
1 if you've ever played with light settings on a dslr, you'd know cranking up ISO, low shutter speed, exposure, etc will give you such a high exposure you can't even make the picture out.. all you see is a white light.. I feel this is what would happen.. its like shining a flashlight on something during night vision, all you see is a huge white spot.. does that make sense?
its not a software limitation its just the way modern lens work.
2 agreed
3 the flash can stobe 20 or so times a second, any 'flashlight' app will show you this.. you could also leave the flash simply on..
the best workaround ffor this is use 1080p video mode with flash, it takes 30 frames (shots) a second, and while watching the video there's a camera button on screen in the stock video player. best workaround.
and yea mods will come
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I agree I guess what I was trying to say is it would render low light mode useless. It would be one of those options that produces shockingly bad photos.
I forgot about the strobe, although I can't imagine this being a feature. I forgot that these "flashes" are just LEDs and not the traditional flash you get with an SLR.
The 1080p video mode is a great workaround suggestion. I hope saddameu can get something from this information.
@Glebun stop picking on me
saddameu said:
Hello, samsung disabled some options in camera in most of the shooting mode or scenes,I searched pretty much everywhere and I couldn`t find some useful information.Is really annoying that they did.For example,in a low light situation if I use the flash, 2-3 m in front of the camera will look very good but everything else will look bad, if I use the low light shooting mode, everything will look good but if I would use low light shooting mode + flash, 2-3 m in front of the camera will look very good and everywhere else will look good(perfect).Also the burst mode is pretty usefulness in good light situations as you would have to be drunk to take a blured picture but with the low light shooting mode where is very likely to get a shaky picture would be great to take at least 2-3 photos fast(even if not so fast as in normal mode) so you could be sure that you have at least 1 good picture.The examples can go on and I don`t think that I`m asking for something impossible.Did someone modded the camera app as stated above or is there any possibilty in the near future to see some of those useful options?Thank you in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hope English is not your first language
That being said you are probably asking for slow-sync flash - as far as I know the S3 does not have that feature yet.
you have some good points but you took the worst combinations ever.
How can you say that is not good to take a pictures with low light enabled + flash?We are not talking about a dslr flash.If you take a picture of someone being 3-4 m away in low light conditions with flash ON it would be a better picture than taking it only with low light mode or only with flash,think about it, it will just make the person look better as the flash is not that strong to make the subject look too bright.
That is one good combination, another one could be using the burst shot with low light enabled to be sure that you take at least 1 good picture as you have to be very steady even if the burst shot would be slower in low light mode than a normal picture.I could probably take only 1 good picture in low light mode knowing the phone but if you give the phone to a friend,for example, the picture will look like it was taken from a drunk men.
Could you provide me some links with some good camera mods as I only found only hyperx`s mod.
And no, english is not my native language , I learned it pretty much by myself as in school I learned english for only 2 years but the first post was made being in rush.
Thank you,

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