Fine Tuning with Manaul Focus - HTC Amaze 4G

I searched everywhere and I can't find anything.
I am trying to take some pictures close up, so I try using MACRO mode, but it doesn't work consistenly
Even when I do tap to focus, or half way pressing the shutter button.
What it does, however is cycle through focusing, and I see that it just misses it sometimes.
So what I want is some sort of app that I can adjust the focus my self, without relying on the camera focus
I heard some words like, slide to focus. or something about 5cm or whatever.

With macro mode, adequate ambient lighting is important. Well lit rooms should provide satisfactory results. A very steady hand is also a prerequisite. Tripods are very handy with macro.
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Sent from my Galaxy Note i717, using XDA Premium.

What I found out is that if you let it focus a little bit away from the image, then zoom in. A steady hand is most important though.
Over 10000!!! You bet I am.

xndabox said:
What I found out is that if you let it focus a little bit away from the image, then zoom in. A steady hand is most important though.
Over 10000!!! You bet I am.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
U ment move your phone closer ?
Sent from my HTC_Amaze_4G using XDA

I searched everywhere for a manual focus camera mode but could never find one. I used camera 360 when i had GB roms and it worked better then stock camera at focus, however since switching to ICS, camera 360 has trouble focusing now.
The amaze has the crappiest auto focus of all the phones i own. Turn off auto focus. Have plenty of light. Those help.
Aside from that try revolution hd rom 2.2.1. Im not sure what tweak was done to the camera apk but if you keep it in auto mode, it will acutally go into automacro mode and focus on really close up object.
Im on energy rom and it wouldnt focus on really near stuff (even in macro mode), so i copied the camera apk from revoltuion rom and it just works better now.

Related

Tip: Camera app has controllable focus

I had been disappointed the camera app didn't apparently support tap to focus. Turns out it has something similar, just hidden behind an awkward user interface.
You can slide the focus box in the middle with your finger to whatever you want to focus on.
I thought I had explored the app pretty thoroughly, but didn't find that one until I read the review of the Photon on Phonescoop.
If i am not mistaken (and usually i am) lol, I thought I was able to do that as well on my EVO 4G running MikG. I don't have my EVO with me at the moment here at work, but I'll see once i get home. Either way, good to know.
Thanks for the tip.
Edit: just checked with my sis and nope I must have imagined it doing that.
TS out
OK so whatever you move the box to center on is the point of auto focus for the photo....very cool !
now, how do we turn off the extremely annoying shutter sound?
Even with manually adjusting the focus, have you noticed that this camera is particularly bad at taking close-up photos? My Nexus One never had a blurry or out-of-focus photo, but for some reason the camera on my new Photon takes crap pictures. I've even tried the macro mode and it still looks terrible. This is at about 4 inches away from the object being photographed. I tried in various different light settings too.

[Q] Why HDR apps don't work on our phone

So why don't HDR apps work properly on our phones?
One manufacturer I contacted insisted that it was because the EVO 3D doesn't utilize the android api properly to adjust the exposure setting. I even confirmed this with HTC. You can try it out as follows: If you open the camera app and play with the exposure slider in the options, you'll see that instead of changing exposure, what it does is just bumps up the brightness of the image.
HOWEVER, yesterday I noticed that the exposure does change properly but not when you use the slider. Best way to try this is sitting next to a window on a sunny day. If you point the camera towards the window, the exposure auto adjusts you can see the details outside but anything inside the room still in the frame just looks dark. However, if you point the camera so it's mostly pointing inside the room, you'll notice that the exposure auto-adjusts again so you can now see details of objects inside the room but any part of the window still in the frame is now completely washed out. So..auto-adjustment of exposure works.
Now in most of the these HDR apps work by taking a picture on high, medium, and low exposure and then stitches them all together. However, the app isn't able to adjust the exposure settings properly and this is probably because it's tapping into the "exposure setting" in the camera's api...the same thing we are able to change when using the exposure slider on the camera app. As I said before though, the exposure slider is actually controlling the brightness. But I'm now certain that the camera is actually able to adjust the exposure but only does so through auto-adjustment. What's broken is the ability to set the exposure manually. How would one fix this?
where should i post this to get the attention of the devs who might know how to fix this?
The issue is it is a hard question. lol I don't have any idea. haha. I think the issue is we have two front cameras.
runcool said:
The issue is it is a hard question. lol I don't have any idea. haha. I think the issue is we have two front cameras.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
two rear cameras my man. There's only one in the front
Interesting... I've used a couple of hdr apps on gingerbread and they appeared to work. Although I didn't do rigorous testing. All I did was compare normal pic against hdr app and I noticed a difference. However this was last summer. Maybe something changed since then.
Sent from my PG86100 using XDA
Oh and the stock camera app in ICS, or at least in the couple of roms I've tried, has hdr as a feature. Except it isn't true hdr I don't think. It snaps 1 pic then processes it. I didn't think there was any difference at first, but I did notice a slight improvement.
Sent from my PG86100 using XDA
There will always be slight differences between stock vs HDR pics because the HDR app usually does some post-processing however, if it's not taking 2 or more pictures that have the exposure adjusting drastically, you're not really getting the HDR effect.
Yes, I know about hdr... The processing and everything. I just hadn't tested these things like you have and sharing my experience.
Anyhow... I had also read others claim htc didn't use the app right months ago. Not sure why they messed that up. I'm going away for the weekend and might mess with this myself. If I see anything worth adding I will.
Sent from my PG86100 using XDA
Just wanted to share hdr works as it should on the latest ics leak. I just tried it on mean rom ics 1.6. Exposure adjustments in their stock app also works as it should.
Sent from my PG86100 using XDA
That's excellent news! Are you sure the exposure setting works properly and doesn't just change brightness? I know you probably tested it before posting but if you could do this for me and write back, i'd really appreciate it.
From inside a room from a distance, point camera towards a window. Are you able to see detail inside and outside the room by changing the exposure slider to either extreme?
abdeviation said:
That's excellent news! Are you sure the exposure setting works properly and doesn't just change brightness? I know you probably tested it before posting but if you could do this for me and write back, i'd really appreciate it.
From inside a room from a distance, point camera towards a window. Are you able to see detail inside and outside the room by changing the exposure slider to either extreme?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't had a lot of time to play but it did work. I'm a photographer and video producer so I know what to look for. My quick test however was as a passenger in a car. I pointed it to the seat where part was in bright sun and then other was in shade, plus some of the frame of the car in shade. Stepping down showed the detail in the seat in sun, increasing it showed it in the shadows.
I also tried hdr + (I think that's the right one) and each of the 3 photos was at a different exposure, granted not by much.
There is still a bug where the front camera flips the photo left/right after it's taken, however, you only seems this after reviewing the pic.
Edit: the app was hdr camera
Sent from my PG86100 using XDA
Oh also fyi... The first leak did not work in relation to this.
Sent from my PG86100 using XDA
awesome, perhaps HTC got around to fixing it in ICS. Several months ago, I actually contacted them describing to them what was wrong with the camera. After a lot of back and forth and escalating the issue internally, I was finally able to reach the team that actually works on the stuff and they confirmed the issue and said they will include a fix "in a future release" but did not make any promises. Maybe they got around to it
I'm going to have to flash a ICS rom to test this myself once I find some spare time

Camera App for Text

Ok, So the stock camera app isn't that great. Can anyone recommend a good camera app specifically for capturing text(or maybe settings)? not worried about OCR, just want the text to come out clear.
Any help would be appreciated, thanks.
I love the stock app but it's not for everyone. Best app in the market is Camera Zoom fx. Used it on my Captivate after going to CyanogenMod as the vanilla android camera sucks imo. It is a paid app and I'm not sure how much it costs as I got mine from the 10 cent sale in December
Sent from my HTC PH39100 using XDA
Ok, thanks, il give it a look tomorrow. Any more suggestions are welcome.
Sent from my HTC Flyer P510e using Tapatalk 2
it works great on the flyer too. Used it on Gumbys desensified rom too as I didn't care for the aosp camera. One thing though if you want wide screen with zoom fx, 3.2mp is as high as you can go, where the htc app will go all the way to 5
Sent from my HTC PH39100 using XDA.
Thanks alot, Camera Zoom FX works pretty good for text, appreciate the help, thank you
Havoc-X said:
Thanks alot, Camera Zoom FX works pretty good for text, appreciate the help, thank you
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think the HTC camera app is quite good , but it depends on exactly what you are trying to do, which is not really clear. The HTC apps gives you control of all the settings which you may lose on some apps. Can you describe what the problem is exactly. There are some specialty apps for documents that has post processing that might help
The stock camera is better than alot of camera apps, however when i take a picture of text, some area's tend to be blurry and zooming in makes them worse. The depth of field is bad, but i assume that is mainly a hardware thing? Camera Zoom FX works slightly better, text is more readable and you can zoom in a little without blurring it.
Havoc-X said:
The stock camera is better than alot of camera apps, however when i take a picture of text, some area's tend to be blurry and zooming in makes them worse. The depth of field is bad, but i assume that is mainly a hardware thing? Camera Zoom FX works slightly better, text is more readable and you can zoom in a little without blurring it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Depth of filed is related to the lens and aperture and has nothing to do with software other than you can adjust some parameters to make it more or less.
Zoom will always make resolution worse because there is no optical zoom and when you"zoom" you are doing it digitally and getting less resolution. 3.2mp can never be as good as 5mp so I assume you are simply holding the camera more steady and the app has little to do with it.
Try this. on the stock app, change the effect to depth of field, set the ISO to 100 if you have enough light or 200 if you need more brightness. Do not zoom.
You will have to hold very steady and straight. Watch the focus, it won't focus is you are too close to the subject.
DigitalMD said:
Depth of filed is related to the lens and aperture and has nothing to do with software other than you can adjust some parameters to make it more or less.
Zoom will always make resolution worse because there is no optical zoom and when you"zoom" you are doing it digitally and getting less resolution. 3.2mp can never be as good as 5mp so I assume you are simply holding the camera more steady and the app has little to do with it.
Try this. on the stock app, change the effect to depth of field, set the ISO to 100 if you have enough light or 200 if you need more brightness. Do not zoom.
You will have to hold very steady and straight. Watch the focus, it won't focus is you are too close to the subject.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, that settings do work slightly better, still not the greatest, im just going to write this off to the hardware component.
A few years ago my friend had this phone http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_ericsson_j105_naite-2818.php
The camera was amazing, only 2MP but took really good pics.
Well I"m still not sure what you are trying to do, but I get consistently fine results with the flyer using the app Scan2PDF for documents. The Flyer does not have a flash, so you have to make sure you have good light without shadows. Otherwise the camera in the flyer is as good or better than most tablets and phones. Like any camera , even $3000 DSLRS, when you do closeups, the depth of field is very short.
Ok, say for instance when im studying, my textbooks are like 1k pages and it takes up space when its open and its an effort to navigate; i take a pic of a page or 2 and it makes it easier to work with. Thing is, it doesn't come out very great. If i take a pic of the whole page, some parts are less readable, almost like it doesn't focus the whole thing. If i take a pic of a paragraph, then it comes out fine. It doesn't seems as clear as it should be for a 5MP camera. Again, i think its just the hardware.
Yeah most of the reviews of the flyer were great but it got knocked on the camera.
Sent from my HTC_Flyer_P512_NA using XDA
I think that CamScanner is one of the best apps for your purpose. It's free, and it automatically does a lot of image post processing to give you the clear text you are looking for, alongside cropping out the background, etc.
Sent from my HTC Flyer P510e using XDA Premium HD app
the more light you provide the greater the depth of field will be, but you still need to have the subject flat and evenly lighted. Same for any camera, if you cant provide a reasonable subject, the camera cannot defy the laws of physics.

Close up pictures?? how?!?!

okay so ever since i got the LTE EVO iv been seeing people take AMAZING close up pictures of bugs/insects that are in FOCUS!
HOW?!?!?!?!?
Ill find a bug outside and take out my LTE evo, open up the camera app and put the macro on "close up" and i can NEVER get it to atuo focus/touch focus good enough to see that its even a bug!
..
i also tried it and this is the best I could get...
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im in the same boat as you guys. People say the camera is awesome but i think its sub par. My GS2 was way better than this. I get great out door pics but thats it. nothing inside.
I've been using "Depth of Field" effect for close ups and I've been getting some really good results.
I've had inconsistent results with up close pictures.
I agree that indoor pictures are bad on the auto mode.
Sent from my EVO using XDA
jaime2563 said:
I've been using "Depth of Field" effect for close ups and I've been getting some really good results.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
where is this effect?
Warrior 3000 said:
where is this effect?
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Click to collapse
From the Camera app, it is the blue semi-transparent button above the camera shutter button. That gives you different options for effects when taking pictures (and video also if I'm not mistaken)
Make sure you're in close up mode. Hit the A and scroll down to close up it's near the bottom.
Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2
donatom3 said:
Make sure you're in close up mode. Hit the A and scroll down to close up it's near the bottom.
Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes do this. Here's a close up of my otterbox clip I took and it looks pretty clear and closeup.
SENT FROM MY EVO 4G LTE!!!
Sounds like a focusing bug in the app on some phone. Try camera 360.
Sent from my EVO LTE
First one was normal setting but zoomed fully. Second was closeup setting unzoomed.
Sent from my EVO using xda premium
drdagreenphd said:
From the Camera app, it is the blue semi-transparent button above the camera shutter button. That gives you different options for effects when taking pictures (and video also if I'm not mistaken)
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Click to collapse
that actually makes it even worse. it does focus on anything close up.
Close up work for me, i was probably less than an inch from the keyboard in this photo. Are you half pressing the shutter button or pressing on the screen to focus the image?
Sent from my HTC EVO 4G LTE using Tapatalk
When I press the camera button on my phone it doesn't focus at all
Sent from my EVO using XDA
schnergun said:
When I press the camera button on my phone it doesn't focus at all
Sent from my EVO using XDA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You press it halfway and it will focus, press it down all the way and it snaps a shot. You can also focus by pressing on the object in the frame on the screen, it will actually make a noise when you do that.
Sent from my HTC EVO 4G LTE using Tapatalk
Lots of user error in this thread.
schnergun said:
im in the same boat as you guys. People say the camera is awesome but i think its sub par. My GS2 was way better than this. I get great out door pics but thats it. nothing inside.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's not the camera's fault. That's user error. Mine works flawlessly indoors and outdoors as well as with closeups and panoramic shots.
drdagreenphd said:
From the Camera app, it is the blue semi-transparent button above the camera shutter button. That gives you different options for effects when taking pictures (and video also if I'm not mistaken)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That changes effects (similar to Instagram) not the ability to render quality closeups.
Noiro said:
Sounds like a focusing bug in the app on some phone. Try camera 360.
Sent from my EVO LTE
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wrong. It's people blaming the phone instead of taking the time to learn their phone inside and out and understand exactly how it works.
donatom3 said:
Make sure you're in close up mode. Hit the A and scroll down to close up it's near the bottom.
Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is correct. The phone's camera has various modes to which it can be set and take a wide variety of picture types.
Concordium said:
Lots of user error in this thread.
That's not the camera's fault. That's user error. Mine works flawlessly indoors and outdoors as well as with closeups and panoramic shots.
That changes effects (similar to Instagram) not the ability to render quality closeups.
Wrong. It's people blaming the phone instead of taking the time to learn their phone inside and out and understand exactly how it works.
This is correct. The phone's camera has various modes to which it can be set and take a wide variety of picture types.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Umm, the OP mentions using the mode in the 1st post.
It works perfectly for me as well but clearly not for him.
Hence a possible bug in the camera application. Just because is fine for us doesn't mean its fine across the board.
Sent from my EVO LTE
Concordium said:
Lots of user error in this thread.
That's not the camera's fault. That's user error. Mine works flawlessly indoors and outdoors as well as with closeups and panoramic shots.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's unfair for people to immediately blame the camera, but by the same token, it's unfair for you to claim it's simply user error. There's a degree of subjectivity (not sure if that's even a word LOL) that needs to be taken into consideration when talking about camera and picture quality.
With that being said, my personal opinion is is that the camera software on this phone is certainly flawed. It's good, but it can be better in so many ways. The camera itself is very very good. Tons of potential there, but the software is holding it back.
As for my personal experience when I had this phone, it consistently takes very good outdoor shots, but was very hit or miss when it came to indoor, lowish light shots. I have 2 pictures that was able to find that illustrate my concern. I think the problem is with the AUTO settings. Manually changing settings prior to taking the shot will produce better pictures, but it's a bit impractical to expect that (EVEN from a phone). In regards to the physical camera button, maybe my phone was defective because the first step of the button did absolutely nothing. I was told it's supposed to SEEM like it does nothing, but that it's actually auto-focusing. In my experience, that wasn't the case. The auto-focus usually happens automatically (kind of like the iPhone 4S) center-weighted, unless you use tap-to-focus. Pressing the button didn't refocus anything. In fact, it didn't seem to do anything AT ALL. Again, my phone may have just been defective. Going to make sure to try this again when I get another one in my hands.
I'm adding a few pictures. The one of the boxes and of the notebook is a prime example of the kind of shots I would get when shooting AUTO in indoor and low-light conditions. As you can see, the shots are terrible. For some reason the camera is maxing the ISO (among other things) so they came out extremely grainy. They are perfectly focused, the image simply isn't optimized. The keyboard picture shows a much better shot. In this shot the camera did a better job of optimizing under AUTO settings. It also maxed the ISO, yet it still produced a good looking shot. This one had better light, as you can see.
Overall my grade of the camera was an 8/10, and only because of the software limitations. As a reference, I also give the Samsung Galaxy S II an 8/10. On that phone the camera itself isn't as good, but the software (or maybe just the capture algorithm) is significantly better when shooting in AUTO.
Just my 2 cents.
gnarlynick said:
You press it halfway and it will focus, press it down all the way and it snaps a shot. You can also focus by pressing on the object in the frame on the screen, it will actually make a noise when you do that.
Sent from my HTC EVO 4G LTE using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Um, no it doesn't.
Press it down half way to lock focus and exposure, not to command a focus.
The camera is constantly focusing. Half-pressing the shutter button only maintains the focus at the time it was pressed.
vulcZ said:
It's unfair for people to immediately blame the camera, but by the same token, it's unfair for you to claim it's simply user error. There's a degree of subjectivity (not sure if that's even a word LOL) that needs to be taken into consideration when talking about camera and picture quality.
With that being said, my personal opinion is is that the camera software on this phone is certainly flawed. It's good, but it can be better in so many ways. The camera itself is very very good. Tons of potential there, but the software is holding it back.
As for my personal experience when I had this phone, it consistently takes very good outdoor shots, but was very hit or miss when it came to indoor, lowish light shots. I have 2 pictures that was able to find that illustrate my concern. I think the problem is with the AUTO settings. Manually changing settings prior to taking the shot will produce better pictures, but it's a bit impractical to expect that (EVEN from a phone). In regards to the physical camera button, maybe my phone was defective because the first step of the button did absolutely nothing. I was told it's supposed to SEEM like it does nothing, but that it's actually auto-focusing. In my experience, that wasn't the case. The auto-focus usually happens automatically (kind of like the iPhone 4S) center-weighted, unless you use tap-to-focus. Pressing the button didn't refocus anything. In fact, it didn't seem to do anything AT ALL. Again, my phone may have just been defective. Going to make sure to try this again when I get another one in my hands.
I'm adding a few pictures. The one of the boxes and of the notebook is a prime example of the kind of shots I would get when shooting AUTO in indoor and low-light conditions. As you can see, the shots are terrible. For some reason the camera is maxing the ISO (among other things) so they came out extremely grainy. They are perfectly focused, the image simply isn't optimized. The keyboard picture shows a much better shot. In this shot the camera did a better job of optimizing under AUTO settings. It also maxed the ISO, yet it still produced a good looking shot. This one had better light, as you can see.
Overall my grade of the camera was an 8/10, and only because of the software limitations. As a reference, I also give the Samsung Galaxy S II an 8/10. On that phone the camera itself isn't as good, but the software (or maybe just the capture algorithm) is significantly better when shooting in AUTO.
Just my 2 cents.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your hardware button isn't defective. It's programmed to lock focus and exposure settings instead of manually focusing.

Focusing Issues with Camera on ICS?

I recently installed a ROM based on the OTA ICS update, and it seems like my camera is having difficulty focusing (similar problem I had when I used the Chase app for my OG Droid). It will attempt to focus, at some point during the process will focus properly, goes past the optimal focus point and ends up out of focus.
Thanks
Does this happen when only taking macro shots? I've had this problem since gb and it has something to do with the lighting. The problem isnt constant but it does happen often. I've searched around and it seems like a lot of HTC phones have this.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using xda app-developers app
I just noticed this the other day, I was trying to get a close up shot and it would not focus, so I turned macro on and it still wouldn't focus. I even flashed one of the camera mods, I think 1.5?? and still didn't fix it.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using xda premium
Nope it's out of focus for pretty much any type of shot, no matter where I focus on the screen. (Auto-focus off, Face Detection off, btw).
It seems the problem is depth of field, I think. I don't know the terminology, but I describe it as a scenes with the subject in the foreground and something in the background (e.g. a person standing in front of a mountain backdrop).
If it's a scene like the one described above, it will just kinda focus in-between because it's confused if it should focus on the person or the mountain. If i'm taking a photo of something, say a wallet on a desk, it will do an OK job focusing on the wallet.
...
I just figured out a temporary fix. The focusing issues only occur in 4:3 mode but works just about flawlessly in 16:9.
Just wanted to see if anyone else out there has focus issues in 4:3 mode but not 16:9 mode?
I've had the same issues on all is roms lately. Fix seems to be to just stay away from 4:3 mode :/
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using xda app-developers app
Junetastic said:
Just wanted to see if anyone else out there has focus issues in 4:3 mode but not 16:9 mode?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm I tried switching back to 16:9 and it does seem to have a better time focusing. Granted that could just be a placebo effect. Any other opinions?
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using xda app-developers app

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