iPhone-like picture autofocus - Galaxy S II Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hello, folks. I searched a lot on Google and here at XDA but couldn't find an answer.
I really love the quality of the pictures taken with my S2, be it with Cyanogenmod, which I'm using right now, or with the stock ROM.
However, one of the features I like the best on the iPhone's camera which I think our phone has the potential to replicate, is that the iPhone's camera is always focusing before taking a picture. When you open the camera app it focuses and from time to time it focuses again, which makes it always ready to snap a picture, and also after you take the picture it remains focused so it's ready to take another picture instantaneously, thus creating an incredible burst mode, while the S2 needs to focus after each picture is taken which kind of irritates me because it could simply remain focused or at least automatically focus after the picture was taken.
Does anybody know if this is possible, both for reasons of software or hardware limitations? I hope I'm not asking for too much, I believe the sensor is very good and a 1.2GHz dual-core could do the job pretty well
Thanks for the attention!!

Related

[Q] how does the 5mp evo3d camera look compared to other 5mp cameras

hi guys. im just curious how the video and pictures on the evo3d look compared to other 5 or 8mp cameras. are they sharp ect. how would the evo3d compare to say the iphone 4?
im in the market for a good camera phone
I personally feel the evo3d only takes great pictures sometimes - meaning it is hard to get good pictures.
The pictures tend to look better on the phone than when you look at them on a computer, where they tend to look more grainy when not in the brightest light. This feels like a step down from HTC's other offerings, which can look as good if not better than iphone pictures when pulled to your computer. I have gotten some fantastic pictures, but for the most part the camera has left me a bit wanting.
Playing around with 3d pictures is quite fun, and video recording is very good - particularly the audio, which was lacking in the evo4g.
eazye1984 said:
hi guys. im just curious how the video and pictures on the evo3d look compared to other 5 or 8mp cameras. are they sharp ect. how would the evo3d compare to say the iphone 4?
im in the market for a good camera phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It takes a much better picture than the Evo4G did. Much sharper looking, even with 3mp less.
However in low light it still gets grainy...the sensor can't help that, but the software can...but it doesn't. It does, however, take fantastic macro shots for a cell phone...surprisingly.
The 5mp cam on the NS4G I had for a few weeks was phenomenal. When I came back to the E3D it really made taking pictures with it seem pointless...and that's not even taking into consideration the .5-1.5 second shutter lag from when you push the button.
For a freakin' cell phone? It's fantastic. I've never used an iphone4 camera but I've only heard good things. But after seeing what a Samsung 5.0mp sensor/lens/software combo can do I am completely down on the E3D's camera. Granted it does 3D and it is a rather compelling effect...though the problems with the 5.0mp single-cam shots get even more pronounced in 3D at 2.5mp.
YMMV, etc etc etc. It is a cellphone after all.
EDIT: Also any shots with motion are pretty much ruined before you take them.
I agree with nhutpham, post number 2. The camera is not nearly what it should be. This phone revolved around its camera's, I mean come on its not called "Shooter" for nothing. 3D pics turn out good, still shots do anyway. But standard pics, thats a whole other ball game. Low light produces bad pics, even with the flash. Some pics will get a greenish tint to them (whites) when using flash. Rather then use all the "auto" settings I find setting things manually will result in better 2D pics. The device was not purchased by me for the camera though. I bought for the dual core processors Though now that I have my dual core I am wishing HTC would have stepped it up on the 2D camera
i think at stock the pictures look ok. but when you adjust iso,sharpness,exposure,contrast in the settings it makes them look much more vibrant and sharp.
i took a compartive shot of small rocks and the evo3d looked crisper and better overall compared to the iphone 4. so the camera cant be all that bad
Maybe this might help. I'm actually surprised at some of the pictures on here.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1243765
Being a photographer myself, I am impressed with the camera... but not all of the time. It takes phenomenal pictures outside in a good sunny day and even in overcast. Take the camera inside in average lighting of just about anyone's living room when the sunlight isn't dominating the light, then I'd be reluctant to show it of.
The poorer the lighting, the harder it is to focus and the photos can get very grainy. HTC also chose to compress the photos quite a bit which affects the picture quality, but makes it easier on the phone and network to share and upload. This goes back to a previous comment that they look better on the phone than on a larger display - its the compression.
If you're willing to root and mod this phone, there is a camera mod in the CDMA dev forum for this phone with camera improvements which makes me that much more impressed with the camera. Although, I think all that was changed was the compression for photos and video.
If you are taking a still picture under good light they look really good. If you have kids and are planning to take any pictures of them forget it.
Let's just they are playing baseball and you want to take a picture of them at bat. They get up there and you click the shoot button. The picture is then shown to you for review and you say wait, who the heck is that. Well while you thought you were snapping a picture of your child, by the time the camera actually took the picture your child got a double, the kid after him grounded to third, and in your picture is the batter who was batting 2 guys after him.....Great picture of someone elses child and of course that kid moved so the picture is blurry as well.
Okay, maybe I am exaggerating a little. You would probably get the batter right after him and not 2 guys down in the lineup, but it would still be blurry unless he batted like a statue....
Green, but otherwise good
Ya unfortunately the shutter lag makes the phone worthless in taking non still images.
Sent from my PG86100 using XDA App

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.

Camera Tips and Tricks

Does anyone have any tips/tricks for how to take better photos with this phone? Like a 3rd party Camera app, or settings or something?
tocirahl said:
Does anyone have any tips/tricks for how to take better photos with this phone? Like a 3rd party Camera app, or settings or something?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
focus first. then take pic. especially when using the led. the gs2 has the best camera of any that were released prior to the hox. it doesnt really need anything else.
if you must have a new camera app... head down to the themes and apps section and do a search for 'camera'.
ICS camera has better clarity than Stock Sammy one
IMO, the stock camera app or sammy roms is not as good as the ICS default camera app that comes with AOSP/AOKP roms. I feel that the touch to focus(in generall any kind of focus) works better on ICS one.
Apart from that clarity of pics and videos just depends on the skill of the person shooting and the sgs2 camera h/w is in manner inferior to any smartphone camera's out there.
So, I'd suggest that if you are on stock firmware or using a samsung based rom , then try app called "Camera ICS" and see if you feel the difference.. especially in the details captured in the shot.
Hope this helps !!!
phermey said:
focus first. then take pic. especially when using the led. the gs2 has the best camera of any that were released prior to the hox. it doesnt really need anything else.
if you must have a new camera app... head down to the themes and apps section and do a search for 'camera'.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They still compare phone cameras to the Galaxy S II camera today, a year later. Its a great camera, one of the best still.
I agree to focus first, frame the picture, focus, and snap it. Let the phone do everything else.
For video, I use 720p instead of 1080p. For whatever reason the 1080p mode zooms in, and you can't zoom out. I also use the wide-6 option of still shots instead of 8. Most of the time I am viewing my shots its on my phone, or over MHL on my TV, and the wide-6 are full frame instead of 4:3.
I like the options and features of the Samsung camera vs the AOPK/CM9 camera, but have taken the same quality shots in both. Anytime I try an HDR camera or other apps, it just takes longer to shoot pictures and I don't see any better quality.
The only issue I occasionally have is foggy shots. If I get fingerprints or other grime on the camera lens it makes the shots foggy (shocker, I know). But, just wiping that clean on my shirt gives me back the crisp vibrant shots I am used to. I also occasionally get the whirring sound, and have since October. That goes away once I focus anyway.
Sent from my Galaxy S II
yeppers. i would say you are spot on. i should have added that i am on aokp and using the ics camera. so the focus first is even more important i think. and thats because it is capable of lowering the intensity of the led. but it will not lower the led if you just take the pic without focusing. the sammy apk may do the same. its been a while since i have used it.
i also like the samsung apk all around a little better. the layout is hands down better than the one on aokp. i hate it that aokp doesnt fill the screen when scanning through pics. and just like you... i have found that 720p works best.
In all honesty, get camera zoom fx and enjoy. Supports button mapping, which was an important feat. for me, else works like a champ.
Is there any way to get the ICS camera apk? I'm running task650 and team go **** yourself's 7.3.2012 AOKP rom. I think in an earlier release there was a camera app with a lot more features, but now it's pretty bare bones. A lot of my shots come out blurry.
insaneretard said:
Is there any way to get the ICS camera apk? I'm running task650 and team go **** yourself's 7.3.2012 AOKP rom. I think in an earlier release there was a camera app with a lot more features, but now it's pretty bare bones. A lot of my shots come out blurry.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Running that same version of AOKP, no blurry shots here.
See this shot from yesterday, of the wild fire near my home.
Sent from my Galaxy S II
I can get that type of quality when I'm outdoors. It's the inside shots that don't come out too sharp. I thought that I saw that ICS was going to have better camera software like the iphone's. Not saying I want to get an iphone again, but my wife's takes really good pictures.
No problem with indoor either.
The Galaxy Nexus has the zero shutter lag, but that is a hardware thing not software. The Galaxy Nexus camera is terrible compared to the Galaxy S II.
The included camera with AOSP based ROMs does have less options, but I don't see any difference in the quality of pictures regardless of what version of android or AOSP/Samsung based ROMs.
Do you have an example picture with issues?
Sent from my Galaxy S II
quarlow said:
No problem with indoor either.
The Galaxy Nexus has the zero shutter lag, but that is a hardware thing not software. The Galaxy Nexus camera is terrible compared to the Galaxy S II.
The included camera with AOSP based ROMs does have less options, but I don't see any difference in the quality of pictures regardless of what version of android or AOSP/Samsung based ROMs.
Do you have an example picture with issues?
Sent from my Galaxy S II
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the response. Most of the pictures that don't turn out are due to my daughter moving, so it becomes blurry. It doesn't seem like she's moving so quickly that it would make a difference. I remember my photos being better quality before, so I was thinking it was a software issue. Do you use your flash on auto? Most of the time mine is off.
BTW - cute little girl you've got there.
Thanks, looks like you got yourself a nice little bundle of cute too.
I just use auto flash and wb. The only thing I change is size. Sometimes I get a little motion blur (see attached), but overall my wife is jealous of my camera vs her iPhone 4.
I just use my phone for those spontaneous moments of fun. We have a point and shoot and a DSLR for expected moments (as much as you can with little ones).
I will say that I noticed quick the AOKP camera does not show you the actual picture preview, but the samsung camera does. The preview I get is always blurry, until I go into the gallery. At first it felt like all my shots were bad, placebo effect I guess.
If you do find a camera in the market that works better let me know. I just have found they don't work as fast as the included one, and they didn't seem to be any different on quality.
Sent from my Galaxy S II
I think I need to put the auto flash on from now on. The same thing will happen on our regular camera if there's not enough light, but it will warn you when taking the picture. I've tried other camera programs and they didn't impress me too much.
Thanks for your help.

Weak camera, how to make it better?

Hi Guys,
Ever since ICS and now JellyBean roms the camera quality has worsened...virtually unusable in poor lighting, night pictures impossible and very bad focusing even in good lighting, no detail in pictures and zooming in is just a blur....cheapest no-name camphones from china shoot better pictures than this
The Amaze camera from Gingerbread roms was the best.
How can I get decent pictures again with my EVO 3D...? this is supposed to be a shooteroo
iconias said:
Hi Guys,
Ever since ICS and now JellyBean roms the camera quality has worsened...virtually unusable in poor lighting, night pictures impossible and very bad focusing even in good lighting, no detail in pictures and zooming in is just a blur....cheapest no-name camphones from china shoot better pictures than this
The Amaze camera from Gingerbread roms was the best.
How can I get decent pictures again with my EVO 3D...? this is supposed to be a shooteroo
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For night time, you just have to put on the torch before you capture the image.
As far as the rest, it is what it is.
A torch is ok when your subject is 4 feet away but doesnt fix the camera...Gingerbread Amaze camera was far better and even had a night shot modus
Have you tried taking a night shot in the street for example? You only see the few lights and everything else is pitch black...
Yeah. Because of the low light and this cameras weird autofocus parameters, I've always had to use the finger technique.
If only they added the manual switch for us. But nope, they had to be scrubs.
The zoom-in blur is due to the fact that it's not a hardware zoom, it's a software zoom, so it blows up the picture, and then cuts out the edges. The quality would be terrible anyways. But, the camera quality should be OK. Look into Pimp My ROM, I changed my cam quality and it has been pretty noticeable for me, due to ROMs having really bad camera configurations, lol.
I meant zoom in into normal pictures...
For example a picture of several people huddled together, when I enlarge (zoom in) everybody is out of focus
which pimp my rom, is it an app?
iconias said:
I meant zoom in into normal pictures...
For example a picture of several people huddled together, when I enlarge (zoom in) everybody is out of focus
which pimp my rom, is it an app?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup, it's an application available for free in the Play Store, it's basically an AIO app for tweaking your phone if you have root access. And are you talking about how, if you take a picture, it looks completely fine zoomed out, but if you try to blow it up (double-tap zoom), it looks low quality? If you are, that's also in the Pimp my ROM app, I personally don't know how to make this better by hand, I do know that PMR has it. But it has to do with it being JPEG, which is highly compressed image type, hence low quality.
Thanks, I was thinking more along the lines of a new camera app than a complete rom pimping app...
If you remember Amaze camera from Gingerbread used to be very good.....
I asked in the Yoda thread if it was possible to install that in ICS but its not---
iconias said:
Thanks, I was thinking more along the lines of a new camera app than a complete rom pimping app...
If you remember Amaze camera from Gingerbread used to be very good.....
I asked in the Yoda thread if it was possible to install that in ICS but its not---
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've honestly never used the Amaze camera, the camera on my ROM seems to be working completely fine to me, then again I always resize my images for size issues, which tends to fix up the blurs in the process.

Will lollipop update improve camera?

I wonder if a software update will fix some of the issues with the camera like focus etc.. Does anyone know? Also, does the new Mate 7 have the same internal hardware for the camera since they are both 13mp? Guy on huawei chat said yes but I think he just read that both were same resolution.
jeffrimerman said:
I wonder if a software update will fix some of the issues with the camera like focus etc.. Does anyone know? Also, does the new Mate 7 have the same internal hardware for the camera since they are both 13mp? Guy on huawei chat said yes but I think he just read that both were same resolution.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I really do hope it does. The front facing camera is alright, can't really complain, but the rear is quite annoying.
What sort of issues are you having? I've had excellent results with the camera. I'm 100% stock, no mods, kernels or anything.
I don't use the huawei camera app or google. I use the Camera FV-5 app, because it has a ton of customizations.
I took this one this past Easter. Other than being cropped, straight from the camera on the Mate2.
p51d007 said:
What sort of issues are you having? I've had excellent results with the camera. I'm 100% stock, no mods, kernels or anything.
I don't use the huawei camera app or google. I use the Camera FV-5 app, because it has a ton of customizations.
I took this one this past Easter. Other than being cropped, straight from the camera on the Mate2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's a great pic. I noticed what most seem to notice when I googled. The camera has a focus issue and won't seem to lock on. Daily I'm taking pics and you think you got a good shot then the picture is blurry. My gf took some good shots with hers but the object has to be non moving with perfect light and just stand there and wait for the focus to grab versus all the other phones I've had before. I downloaded many different apps and took the same shot with all of them but non seem to do better and some weren't even capable of using 13mp. I'll check out the FV-5, thank you.
That picture is actually quite bad. Poor saturation and quite underexposed.... but meh, it's a phone camera. Pretty flower though!
I think the HAM2 rear camera could definitely be improved in software. It's my opinion that the front facing camera actually works better than the rear camera half the time. Take video for example... try shooting video in a somewhat darkened room with both cameras - you'll find out that the rear camera suffers a horrible loss of framerate while the video from the front facing camera is smooth as silk.
The front camera also has odd tap-to-focus issues especially when flash is enabled.
With that being said it's a cellphone camera and I've definitely seen much worse. And I love the question in the original post.... no one knows the answer but Huawei and their software development team. How would any of us know what Huawei is including in their Android 5.x based update? I'll still be quite surprised if we even get one, and that's WITH the Huawei blog announcements and the so far worthless 'beta' registration site.....
TheGeekRedneck said:
That picture is actually quite bad. Poor saturation and quite underexposed.... but meh, it's a phone camera. Pretty flower though!
I think the HAM2 rear camera could definitely be improved in software. It's my opinion that the front facing camera actually works better than the rear camera half the time. Take video for example... try shooting video in a somewhat darkened room with both cameras - you'll find out that the rear camera suffers a horrible loss of framerate while the video from the front facing camera is smooth as silk.
The front camera also has odd tap-to-focus issues especially when flash is enabled.
With that being said it's a cellphone camera and I've definitely seen much worse. And I love the question in the original post.... no one knows the answer but Huawei and their software development team. How would any of us know what Huawei is including in their Android 5.x based update? I'll still be quite surprised if we even get one, and that's WITH the Huawei blog announcements and the so far worthless 'beta' registration site.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was thinking more if anyone has noticed improvements in camera in previous upgrades of other devices so someone could comment "hey when the Honor 6 got it's new OS the camera problems were largely improved" or something like that. For sure nobody can know what the Huawei peeps are doing unless there is a Huawei peep on our lil ole forum. I'm sure you're right, if we even get an update they'll act like there was never an issue with the camera and do nothing. My friend ordered the Mate 7 but I read a review that sounded like it's the same camera as ours still and that's an expensive phone.
TheGeekRedneck said:
That picture is actually quite bad. Poor saturation and quite underexposed.... but meh, it's a phone camera. Pretty flower though!
I think the HAM2 rear camera could definitely be improved in software. It's my opinion that the front facing camera actually works better than the rear camera half the time. Take video for example... try shooting video in a somewhat darkened room with both cameras - you'll find out that the rear camera suffers a horrible loss of framerate while the video from the front facing camera is smooth as silk.
The front camera also has odd tap-to-focus issues especially when flash is enabled.
With that being said it's a cellphone camera and I've definitely seen much worse. And I love the question in the original post.... no one knows the answer but Huawei and their software development team. How would any of us know what Huawei is including in their Android 5.x based update? I'll still be quite surprised if we even get one, and that's WITH the Huawei blog announcements and the so far worthless 'beta' registration site.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It sure doesn't match my dSLR, but like you said...it's a pinhole cell phone sensor...not much wiggle room.
Okay, I love this phone. I love the camera. Just work with the settings to get what you want. Now, THE ONLY THING, is the warp zones in the front facing camera. Always try to get the faces in the center of the screen or else itll appear warped.
Try it out and see for yourself. I guess that's the downside to having a long phone. The lens in the camera has to recompensate and redistribute the photons evenly.
Sent from my MT2L03 using XDA Free mobile app
And cant forget about the alien beauty filter! Makes it look like you did some zoomers!
Sent from my MT2L03 using XDA Free mobile app

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