So I'm a little disappointed in the camera on this phone for a variety of reasons, but when I first got it at least the portrait mode seemed pretty great. But I tested it again after having not used it in a while, and it's consistently terrible now, anyone else notice this? I've posted the first I took with what I feel are good results, and one that I took a couple weeks ago and is consistent with all of my attempts since (I've tried in full sunlight, so I don't think it's lack of light causing the issue).
The portrait mode now seems to just be a digital punch in of the wide angle lens, and lacks a lot of detail. Is there some setting that I messed up accidentally?
From when I first got the phone:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fY1CwqLcco0piTqZmNr6M7i0pTSJEQJd/view?usp=drivesdk
Example of recent attempts:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/16Sb8j_xqoSOGgsy5X6SnHzux--RF7zky/view?usp=drivesdk
The first pic is taken with the front camera and the second with the rear one. Different cameras will produce different results...
Both are with the rear camera
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Not sure if this applies to other ROMs wtih sense, but on the verizon-deployed ICS OTA the Sense Camera seems to be brain dead if you try to take a normal aspect ratio picture (Read: not widescreen). Verified on another rezound with the same OTA.
Noticed this as the Sense camera defaults to widescreen "8mp" - when you actually get pictures cropped to 6mp. Not caring much for the widescreen anyways, I turned it off. Over the next few weeks, I discovered the previously stellar photo quality start to tend towards overly dark and ill focused - auto focus in particular was brain dead, especially at macro resolutions, where I had previously tested the camera being able to focus perfectly at about 2-3 cm. It'd take me messing with lighting, varying distance, angle, etc, to maybe get it to focus - most of the time it would either stop focusing before or after the ideal focus.
On top of the focus issue, sometimes the exposure calculations would be completely off, usually when there was some light shining at the camera - for instance, from a display. Amazingly terrible, overall. I'm pissed it took me so long to notice and figure out the cause. I was worried it was the camera hardware itself wigging out.
Downloaded another camera app - ICS Camera - and it took pictures just fine at the full 8mp resolution (non-widescreen). Focus and exposure calculations working fine. Oh, and it supports using the volume keys as shutter buttons, which has been something I'd been looking for for some time. Only noted problem is that it does not work as a camera data provider (ie. attaching to a message) - fails for some reason. Otherwise, it's replaced the Sense camera entirely for me.
Attached are pictures of one specific instance. Sun did decide to poke out at the end, but it didn't cause a major difference in the pictures as I was in a shaded area the whole time.
Notes:
HTC-initial is spectacularly bad, even for the addled state the camera was in.
HTC-best is the best i could get the camera to do, mashing autofocus a few times and messing with manual exposure.
HTC-widescreen is the first picture I took with me setting widescreen and everything else default. AF was done once, automatically.
ICSCam is the first picture I took w/ ICS Camera, no settings changed. AF once, automatically.
TLR; Sense 3.6 Camera does not handle 4:3 aspect ratio correctly; AF tends to be poor and exposure off.
Zig zag... That's a very fine analysis of the camera focusing problems I've been having. I've been quite upset with the camera behavior since the ICS update. On GB, the camera functioned remarkably. I'm an avid photographer and even have a Canon DSLR. I was loving the camera on this phone. Never used widescreen. Just stuck with mid-high resolutions but never full 8mp. Sensor has it's limits. Touch focus, just once regardless where I touched...it was clear. Ever since ICS....the camera app lags and the most important thing (Focusing), has gone to s**t. I have to keep touching all over the damn screen just trying to get it to focus on an area I want it And yes, very close shots are hell now. Just last night, I was about to throw the damn phone because it refused to focus on something I used to normally have no problem with. I have no idea what the issue is but it keeps adjusting the exposure level way too bright, sometimes too dark. I'll touch a bright cloud in the background and suddenly the exposure jumps 5 points and burns out the sky. The complete oppositte of what it's supposed to do. Hell frustrating. Has the same focus/exposure problems in Camera360. Yeah, being as bright as it is outside...I was pissed when I got home and found a pic of a cloudy horizon and a canal in front. The entire pic was completely out of focus. The camera AI is so dumb that it habitually withdrawls the focal point to the macro view...even when trying to focus at infinite.
Hmmm.. does one need ROOT for ICS Camera?
I don't think you need root. Here's the link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.moblynx.cameraics&hl=en
Honestly, I'm surprised that HTC managed to break autofocus and auto exposure - when I was looking through android APIs it seemed like those functions were all done below the level at which apps can adjust them. At any rate, using the ICS Camera, autofocus and exposure function just as well as they did on GB, once more. I'm assuming other apps would work fine as well - just something affecting the Sense camera only.
Hmm..it works well. Thanks for the link. Only thing I don't like is it's missing Saturation, Sharpness and Contrasts controls..also missing ISO setting. Tells you image size in megapixels instead of resolution. I haven't actually snapped a pic with it yet so I'll give that a try in a bit. I'm going to give the video recordibg portion a shot and see how the quality fairs out as for sound.
So I've been using my HTC One for a little over a month now. Tried many different ROMs, currently running the leaked 4.2.2 stock ROM.
I've noticed since day one the camera takes really fantastic close-up (3 feet or closer) and macro shots (few inches from subject). It also takes really great low light shots, again close up and macro. These shots in these situations rival my point and shoot Canon.
Once you go outside and take a "normal" shot in great daylight of a group of friends/family, scenery or a building ect. all hell breaks loose. We're talking like one of the worst camera images from a smartphone I've seen recently. Heck my Galaxy S2 and iPhone 3GS took much better looking "normal" shots from a distance.
Images become instantly washed out, details are completely lost, the picture is injected with a super dose of noise everywhere. What is up with this? Is there anyway software will be able to fix the camera in the future? Is it a hardware limitation?
I owned a Galaxy S4 for a few weeks and that phone took brilliant "normal and close up shots" but was severely lacking in low light where images would just be too dark or too blurry.
I'm really quite bummed because the HTC ONE with the new 4.2.2 update is nearly perfect, amazing battery life and performance, much smoother and faster than the POS Galaxy S4. I'm just really pissed that the Camera can't perform in normal situation with great lighting, I would think any Camera would excel in those condition over any other scenario. That and that stupid 5 minute time-out of the LED notification really holds back the HTC One from becoming the perfect smartphone for me.
I wouldn't go as far as saying the camera is atrocious in normal situations, however, the details might not be as good/clear as some other phones. I know the international version got a software update where it addressed many problems such as noise and exposure (issue with pics being washed out ect)... As for the noise issue i think if you go into the camera setting and make sharpness -1 or -2 it will help, at least it did for me. A big issue sometimes for me is that the auto focus is off so it makes the whole picture become what you described, but i guess its probably because i dont have the most steady hands when taking pics lol. I know tmobile pushed a software update a week and a half ago, but i dont think that it did anything to the camera. Apparently, some people say that when you first buy the phone it already comes with that update installed for the camera... but who the hell knows! Tmobile's, AT&T, and Sprints software versions are all different so its hard to tell
darkstarlotus said:
I wouldn't go as far as saying the camera is atrocious in normal situations, however, the details might not be as good/clear as some other phones. I know the international version got a software update where it addressed many problems such as noise and exposure (issue with pics being washed out ect)... As for the noise issue i think if you go into the camera setting and make sharpness -1 or -2 it will help, at least it did for me. A big issue sometimes for me is that the auto focus is off so it makes the whole picture become what you described, but i guess its probably because i dont have the most steady hands when taking pics lol. I know tmobile pushed a software update a week and a half ago, but i dont think that it did anything to the camera. Apparently, some people say that when you first buy the phone it already comes with that update installed for the camera... but who the hell knows! Tmobile's, AT&T, and Sprints software versions are all different so its hard to tell
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regarding "steady hands", i thought this phone has optical image stabilization? i've only taken a few pictures so far and agree that i'm not liking what i see. my previous htc one s takes much better looking picts on well-lit areas. then again my tmous one is still stuck on 1.27 software
One of the big selling points for me with this phone was the camera. I am finding the pictures to be a little underwhelming. I find that half the pictures I take are out of focus, and when i try to manually focus on a target, it zooms in and out trying to figure out the image, but ultimately ends with a red square and an out of focus image. I was really hoping for a smarter camera with better results. I dont remember ever having issues like this with my last phone (HTC Rezound). I use my camera a LOT (mostly taking pictures of my kids). Should I try downloading another camera from the app store? Anyone else experiencing these issues?
I should note that outdoor, long range pictures seem to come out much better than indoor relatively close (5-10 feet) shots.
Any tips/tricks as far as settings go?
Also, when I hook up the phone to my pc and view the pictures, they are all rotated to the left 90 degrees.
So far life's good. The battery life is solid, fast charging is unbelievably impressive, screen quality is great and the speaker is impressive. Being new to LG coming from the M9 I'm not sure how to do the following with the camera: Bokeh (blurred focus shots) and Macro shots.
These were options on the M9 as camera settings.
Does anyone know if these are settings or how to set great bokeh or macro shots in manual mode? Any help would be huge. Also if anyone knows how to turn off swipe on the keyboard that would be a bonus too. Thanks in advance.
Can't help with the Bokeh. Macro shots seem to be pretty easy to take on this phone though, point and shoot.
As for the keyboard, go into keyboard settings, and turn off "Path input"
The Bokeh effect isn't on the LG Camera (yet I'm hoping) and it doesn't work on the Google Camera.
I've had a problem with the camera not focusing properly on the regular lens, not on the wide angle lens. It's happened a couple of times now. I thought the lens was just dirty but no matter how much I cleaned it, the lens just couldn't focus properly. I tried focusing on multiple items, near, far, single point, multiple points, etc, but pics were still blurry. Both times I just rebooted the phone as last resort and it seemed to fix the problem. Must be some kind of software issue. Has anyone else experienced this and is there a fix without having to reboot every time it happens?
Google camera work with the front camera...
A-Gunn11 said:
I've had a problem with the camera not focusing properly on the regular lens, not on the wide angle lens. It's happened a couple of times now. I thought the lens was just dirty but no matter how much I cleaned it, the lens just couldn't focus properly. I tried focusing on multiple items, near, far, single point, multiple points, etc, but pics were still blurry. Both times I just rebooted the phone as last resort and it seemed to fix the problem. Must be some kind of software issue. Has anyone else experienced this and is there a fix without having to reboot every time it happens?
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A-Gunn11 said:
I've had a problem with the camera not focusing properly on the regular lens, not on the wide angle lens. It's happened a couple of times now. I thought the lens was just dirty but no matter how much I cleaned it, the lens just couldn't focus properly. I tried focusing on multiple items, near, far, single point, multiple points, etc, but pics were still blurry. Both times I just rebooted the phone as last resort and it seemed to fix the problem. Must be some kind of software issue. Has anyone else experienced this and is there a fix without having to reboot every time it happens?
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Yes same problem. Is this only in Google camera for you? It was in every app for me. I had to exchange it.
It was on the built in camera app on the G5. I've since cleared the cache and haven't had the issue come up again.
I have the Exynos S9+ and take a lot of pictures with it, especially insect macro shots in pro mode.
I noticed that there is a big difference in the closest focus distance between manual and auto focus modes.
When using the manual focus slider and dragging it all the way to the bottom, it focuses about 5cm farther than with the auto focus.
I have tried this on an S8 camera and with it the manual and auto focus closest distance is the same and working as expected.
This is pretty annoying and makes the manual focus unusable for me because I cant get close enough to the object.
In the screenshots I took shots of a ruler. you can see that in auto focus the focusing is on 1cm and in manual its on 5cm.
I wonder if anyone else noticed this on their S9+?
yes i saw this a couple months ago, i hope if this fix with updates but no, problem is still here
batmanvip123 said:
yes i saw this a couple months ago, i hope if this fix with updates but no, problem is still here
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Yep, I was hoping it would get fixed since May when I got the phone but I guess samsung was too busy with the S9's camera commercials then the actual camera.
Check here if you want to follow a more "alive" discussion.
https://www.reddit.com/r/GalaxyS9/comments/9ex5m3/macro_photography_manual_vs_auto_focus/