Get better pictures/videos on AOSP! (Not another lg camera port) - G2 General

[[If you don't feel like listening to my shenanigans, just scroll down to the dashed line!]]
I love the look of AOSP. Unfortunately, LG does not release camera drivers so camera quality on AOSP is generally pretty terrible. Recently, I decided to forego my typical stock g3 port and try out CyanogenMod 12, and its actually really really good and stable (on vs980 anyways). The only problem was the horrendous camera quality. Lollipop was so good (especially with xposed support starting up) that I decoded I'd try to find a fix for my problem. First off, I noticed that Lollipop had a *bit better camera quality than kitkat AOSP. This was promising but nothing good. My og droid razer still took pictures just as good. I tried the typical apps... Cm11s camera (it had bugs...) AOSP camera was terrible, Google camera was a little better than AOSP but not much. Lenovo super camera.. Still not 100% stable. I didn't use those stock camera ports as none of them are stable and those aren't what this thread is about.
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I tried some play store offerings and almost gave up... But then I found something in the play store. "Open camera". Its free, open source, ad free, and somehow... It takes really good pictures and videos on AOSP on our phones.
When you open it you're greeted with a not-so-beautiful ui, but it has a lot of great features. HDR works also.. Which is nice. Actually, everything works.
The main gripe with the AOSP camera quality was low light performance. In open camera there's a ISO setting. Set the ISO to 1600 and you'll get great low light photos with little noise. You can of course use auto or higher ISO but noise will be a problem. But it is a problem on stock too at those ISO levels. Another thing I'd like to point out is that video recording is surprisingly good. No 4k yet unless your ROM supports it. The app itself supports it. Hopefully this can help someone who needs better pictures/videos on AOSP! ?
Note: I included a test shot. Keep in mind the room was illuminated by one nightstand light. It looks brighter in the picture than it does to the eyes. Even though there's noise in the picture, its multitudes better than other options
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Here's a Google camera shot for comparison. I drew a red "G" on the Google camera shot because I'm uploading this with tapatalk and I'm not sure if it will show the pics in order or not:
Sent from my vs980 on CM12

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Very nice post, already knew open camera since it's included in my rom, and yes it takes the better pics!
But I have to say that even thought this app goes deeply into settings, they could make some improvements to the UI...

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Yes been using it for awhile

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This UI is awful! Photos seem to be great though.
I've been using the Lenovo camera and it's been amazing. Ridiculously quick HDR shots.