Database Users

HD2 Autofocus problems

Hi all,
I've had my HD2 since around Christmas time and I love the device, but I've always had a problem with it's camera. This is not the usual "Pink cast" problem which I know is well documented, but rather a problem with the autofocus. Sometimes when I'm just playing with the camera it works fine, but most of the time (usually when I really want or need to photograph something) the camera cannot focus. It TRIES to focus, I can hear the lens moving and the image on the screen goes from very blurry, past the point of focus, back to blurry again and then the camera takes the photo blurry. It seems to be able to focus on my hand or anything else I hold very close to the lens, but anything else and 9 times out of 10 it will not focus properly. I've found that usually if I reboot the phone it will work for a while but then I've missed what I was trying to photograph in the first place. I was wondering if anybody else has experienced this problem with their HD2?
Here's a few points I think are worth mentioning:
The handset's ROM is the standard one that came installed when it was new, I have never upgraded it or patched it (I know there was a patch for the camera but as far as I was aware this was to try to fix the pink cast problem, correct me if I'm wrong).
The problem occurs in all lighting conditions.
Touch focus is enabled but touching the screen results in the same problem, it tries to focus but fails. I feel that this is very likely to be a hardware problem but then on the other hand, why would restarting the phone make it better if it's a hardware fault?
Any help, input or shared experiences will be very much appreciated.
Thanks

[email protected] said:
Hi all,
I've had my HD2 ...
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Hey i have the same problem! i wanted to send my HD2 in to get it replaced but they said it was a software problem i dont really think so tho.
It would be really nice to see someone dev an app or a new rom that fixes this problem.
If i hear anything i will post what i know.

Hi,
excuse my poor english.....
I had the same problem with original italian ROM (1.66) until this summer.
On my device I have two applications that can increase the picture sharpness (BsB Tweaks, XTHackBeta2).
In these apps I enabled the "increase picture quality" but my pictures were always blurred, especially when there was plenty of sunlight.
I tryed to contact HTC Costumer service, they told me to have an hard reset but it did not solve the problem, also without no one applications installed on device.
It might seem stupid but, after that, I cleaned kindly but strongly the camera glass and I set the resolution camera to 1 Mb, making pictures and check how autofocus was working, then, step by step, I set to 5 Mb on camera configuration with Super fine quality pictures.
And I disabled any increasing picture quality on every apps (BsB, XT Hack)
It could be a miracle but I had never had the problem of autofocussing and pictures became very detailed and brighted

Same problem for me. Have a german 1.72 t-mob ROM.
Reducing the picture quality is not a solution for me.
In my case the problem occurs every time I try to make photos of any documents inside rooms, but with good light conditions. I need about 5-10 trials to make one well focussed photo. It's equal if I use autofocus or not.
If I go outside I can make very good photos from some natural objects, even when they are very close.
I enabled camera Superfine in BsB Tweaks.

Bad camera quality?

My OP is here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=10296162#post10296162
"I don't take pictures often, but my Samsung Omnia 7 seems to take very very bad pictures.
This is both indoors and outdoors, both with flash on and off.
Most picutres I take, it looks like they are out of focus, or if I'm shaking, which I'm not.
(edit: at the bottom of the post you can scroll to the right to see the rest of the pics)
Sometimes the pictures are ok, let's start with one which isn't too bad:"
See the link for the pics.
Other ppl have the same problem?

My pictures come out quite well with the Omnia 7..Not amazing (in comparison with high end digital cameras) - but very good for a smart phone.
Reading that topic - did you at all try the half press autofocus? You MUST do this with every shot if you want precise, blur-free pictures else I'm afraid you are going to come out with the pictures you've presented.
However if the pictures occur at the same quality whilst autofocusing - then there is a definite defect in the camera and would get the phone replaced under warranty (if valid) or attempt to clean the camera lens.

No, didn't half press on any of them Didn't knew I had to to focus..

hehe ... another question ... is it possible to save the camera settings? When I record videos i always have to switch vom vga to 720p hd recording again ... all changed settings are on stock again when i restart the camera app

Sadly, you won't be able to save any camera settings.
This is very annoying - Always having to set up the camera again prevents me from taking snapshots spontaneously.
Regards

stylopath said:
Sadly, you won't be able to save any camera settings.
This is very annoying - Always having to set up the camera again prevents me from taking snapshots spontaneously.
Regards
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I never need to change any of the settings - they're fine for quick snapshots. When you need to play around with contrast, white balance, marcro, etc, it's no longer a quick snapshot!

As has been discussed in this thread, it's 100% evident that your pictures are poor because you haven't half pressed the shutter button to focus first.
Just hold the button lightly until a rectangle box appears. That's your focus box and it should be evident when it's focused on what you want. You'll also hear a sound from the device that it's focused.
Without releasing your finger, push down fully on the shutter button to take the focused photo.
If you simply push down like you have been, it's not giving the camera a chance to focus and you'll get blurring.
I'm sure you understand already by the post I saw, just making sure I can double make sure you understand.
Happy shooting!

CreepinJesus said:
I never need to change any of the settings - they're fine for quick snapshots. When you need to play around with contrast, white balance, marcro, etc, it's no longer a quick snapshot!
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There's an Anti Shake feature on the Omnia (I say Omnia because it wasn't there on the HD7) I'd like to enable permanently but it always goes back to off when you restart the app.
(Just a suggestion as to why someone would want to change the settings)

My problem is not exactly bad quality, but has anyone else notice that there is a red/pink area in the middle, when you take a pic from a white/light color?

JuWa said:
My problem is not exactly bad quality, but has anyone else notice that there is a red/pink area in the middle, when you take a pic from a white/light color?
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Yes, I get that pink area too. I believe it's a fairly common issue with phone cameras, and I also had it with my previous phone (HTC HD2).

JuWa said:
My problem is not exactly bad quality, but has anyone else notice that there is a red/pink area in the middle, when you take a pic from a white/light color?
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I also have the pink spot on mine and it's still there after the update... hope they will fix it with the "NoDo" update =P

[Q] Camera focus problem

So, just curious if anyone knows if there's away to fix this or not. But I'm have problems with the camera and it focusing on close up objects. The only reason I bring this up is because when the camera app "tries" to focus, the subject in question will come into focus, clear as a bell, and then go right back out of focus and it'll take the picture. And yes, I've got spot focus on, and tap and hold the screen where the subject is. still nothing.
i'm hoping this isn't one of those hardware to software hindsight's where there's no way to force the camera to focus where you want it.

viperv303 said:
So, just curious if anyone knows if there's away to fix this or not. But I'm have problems with the camera and it focusing on close up objects. The only reason I bring this up is because when the camera app "tries" to focus, the subject in question will come into focus, clear as a bell, and then go right back out of focus and it'll take the picture. And yes, I've got spot focus on, and tap and hold the screen where the subject is. still nothing.
i'm hoping this isn't one of those hardware to software hindsight's where there's no way to force the camera to focus where you want it.
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Not sure tap and hold screen part. You have your finger on the screen when taking the pic? Maybe I just misunderstood you. But you normally tape the screen where you want to focus and then it should focus automatically and then just snap your picture.

Heelfan71 said:
Not sure tap and hold screen part. You have your finger on the screen when taking the pic? Maybe I just misunderstood you. But you normally tape the screen where you want to focus and then it should focus automatically and then just snap your picture.
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Nah, you do have to tap and hold in order for it to take the photo, thats normal. My camera focuses though and takes the picture no problem.

yeah, you can either click the little shutter button or tap and hold a spot on the screen and it'll focus there and snap the picture.
guess i should have been more clear. its having a problem doing macro focusing. if the subject is a food foot or more away, it focus every time, perfectly.
the problem is when i'm trying to take a photo of something very close to the camera. And the only reason I'm asking about this is because when it "tries" to focus, the image will indeed come into perfect clarity, and then go right back out. and sometimes several times as if the focusing is trying to find the right spot. and ultimately it just gives up and everything is blurry. And I'm left going what the...? because obviously it can focus on it, but why wont it?
My temporarily solution for now is to zoom in that tiny bit allowed and use that to get as close to the subject as i can before the auto focus stops working and get the picture that way. still not really what i want, but it'll work.

Set the camera to AUTOFOCUS, open the keyboard and use the ENTER key as the camera button.
Additional tips.
Turn OFF shutter sound and timestamp to speed up the photo taking process.
Leave ISO and Whitebalance to auto as they seem to work pretty well on the shift.
Quality HIGH
Geotag off (unless you REALLY need this)
NO review speeds up time to next shot.
Center area metering mode seems to work surprisingly well on the shift, especially with flash set to auto.
Also, note, the CLOSER you are to an object you are photographing, the more still you NEED to be. Panaramic/outside shots with a large DOF are awesome. Closeups at 6", you seriously gotta lay off the coffee and brace yourself well. 1mm of hand movement will blur your photos really bad. That's a intake of breath or exhale!
This isn't exactly a professional high speed Nikon with prime lens we're working with. Set your expectations accordingly.

EricSS619 said:
Nah, you do have to tap and hold in order for it to take the photo, thats normal. My camera focuses though and takes the picture no problem.
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Ok, I take back what I said about it working for me because I have the same exact problem with it looking focused and then going out if focus.
Sent from my PG06100 using XDA App

I'm seeing the same problem. It focuses very clearly just before snapping the shot, but then the picture it takes is out of focus. I've tried the tips here and nothing improved on the problem.

Cameras need light to focus. It's going in and out of focus because it doesn't have enough light to tell where the object is in relation to the background. Plus you can only macro so close with a camera lens. Try getting more light in your shots and see if it helps focus. I ran into this yesterday and fixed it by moving the object to a better-lit location.
Sent from my PG06100 using XDA App

I know this thread is old, but I think this is a big problem. Even if the subject is well lit, and you use spot metering or tap on an object just a few feet away to focus, the lens will focus and you will see the object become really detailed, then the focus decides to focus on something behind it, rendering the object blurry. This is the case with almost every photo that I take of any object within 3 feet.
Lets say I take a photo of a flower outside in the daylight. Any foliage behind the flower will be focused on, even if you press directly on the middle of the flower.
My theory is that it seems to focus better in lower light situations, where your subject is the only thing lit. If the entire frame of view is well lit, it will make the majority of the image sharp.

Camera flash - imposible to take hi-res close up photos??

I have googled this issue many times but i seem to be the only person having this problem.
I have an LG E900 and i think its a great phone. Has great apps etc etc and i like to wp7 os.
However, i regularly need to take close up images of small parts for work and it seems i can never get the photo right or the camera seems to have a mind of its own.
I had an iphone 3gs before this - i checked the specs and the LG camera is technically superior - but i never had any issues like this.
Whenever i go to take a photo the camera focuses in on the part, so it looks perfect on screen and then does one of the following.
1 - Flashes and i get a nice white screen
2 - Takes the picture with no flash and i get a black screen
3 - Goes to take the photo and then doesn't.??
4 - Perfectly focused image on screen and then sits there, i go to re-take and it takes the picture quick, giving me a blur.
Sometimes it may take me up to 25 tries before i get a usable image.
Really starting to piss me off, such a pity as when it gets it right, its perfect.
Then some joker walks up behind me with a nokia 5110 and takes a pic, no problem..Grrr - what am i doing wrong??
It doesnt save your settings either - another gripe for another thread

I don't have any issue taking close up pictures, if it's too dark it will use the flash, if it's light enough, it won't.
Works fine for me

The LG camera IS poor!!!

Here are a few hints to get a better image. Due to WP7 not keeping your camera settings, you need to set them every time you start the Camera app.
1- Use the the Intelligent Shot options (Smart Scene does a fairly good job) to adjust to your environment,
2- Do not use Beauty Shot unless you are taking photos of people, it doesn't make the photos pretty.
3- There is an Anti Shake option at the end of the camera settings menu...It is basically a software image stabilizer, and works very well.
4- Don't let the phone decide whether to use the flash or not, and set it yourself for sensitive photographs. Brightness settings also help when played around with ( you have to figure out which settings work best in what conditions on your own)
5- Always, ALWAYS semi-press the camera button to let the phone focus and get the white balance...otherwise your photos will look like crap...then take a picture...you need to do this every time.
I sometimes have to "scan" documents and writings on the spot, so with these things kept in mind, you can take fairly decent photographs.
Also, I have done a bit of modification to make the flash better...In my opinion, it is too white. I took a very transparent yellow plastic, and cut it to exact size...it fits in well on the top of the flash (since it is slightly in the phone, rather than flat), and my photos now seem a lot warmer...
I do wish the camera was a bit sharper and had better lowlight performance of course...
PS: And obviously nothing compares to Nokia phones' cameras...well, except the iPhone in some cases...

What is wrong with S8 front camera autofocus

Hello. I am new owner of S8. As they claim front camera now has autofocus so selfies will be now "sharper" .
I dont know if I just have wrong model but when I am doing selfies really close to front camera they are really sharp.
However if I move camera little bit further it start re-focusing almost all the time. If I touch on the object sometimes it helps a little bit but it still not good.
The best result I could achive, you can see on the photo (and I tried many times and others were even worse). The text is totally unreadble. It is same with faces, but you can see it better on text.
I compared it to much cheaper phone Honor 8, which does much sharper photo without any autofocus.
Does any of you have the problem, or it is just me?
I tried restore camera setting but it didnt help.
Thanks for feedback. (cause I have no feedback from samsung )

I got the s8 plus and for me the front camera is beast! I know back on the s7 the camera was eh and the keyboard lag was real so I got the edge. It could be the camera or you could be snapping the camera too fast. Takes a sec to grab the image.

Do you have selective focus on? This mode will blur background to simulate portrait mode with telephoto lens on DSLR. I find it useless, but stupid iphone has it so why not galaxy?
Mine is not 100% sharp either (however much better than yours), but I have low light now and get shutter speed of 1/24sec, it's hard to hand held photo at 1/24sec without some shake. Need to retest this in full sun tomorrow.

pete4k said:
Do you have selective focus on? This mode will blur background to simulate portrait mode with telephoto lens on DSLR. I find it useless, but stupid iphone has it so why not galaxy?
Mine is not 100% sharp either (however much better than yours), but I have low light now and get shutter speed of 1/24sec, it's hard to hand held photo at 1/24sec without some shake. Need to retest this in full sun tomorrow.
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Hi, no I dont. And this is another problem. When I try to do picture in this mode it always say me something like "Picture was taken but the effect of contrast cannot be used because no object was reckognized" . So there must be something defenetly wrong.
And when I was doing photo I was waiting more than 5 secs to focus but the result was still same. And I put phone on the table so I didnt move with it at all.

dominik01k said:
Hi, no I dont. And this is another problem. When I try to do picture in this mode it always say me something like "Picture was taken but the effect of contrast cannot be used because no object was reckognized" . So there must be something defenetly wrong.
And when I was doing photo I was waiting more than 5 secs to focus but the result was still same. And I put phone on the table so I didnt move with it at all.
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Thats sounds similar to message I got when using selective focus. It tells you that it couldn't recognize your face so the effect wasn't fully applied (in selective focus that effect is to keep sharp focus on face and blur everything else). Seems like you have some effect enabled and that could be your problem. I never got any msg, except for selective focus, but didn't have much time to play a lot.

pete4k said:
Thats sounds similar to message I got when using selective focus. It tells you that it couldn't recognize your face so the effect wasn't fully applied (in selective focus that effect is to keep sharp focus on face and blur everything else). Seems like you have some effect enabled and that could be your problem. I never got any msg, except for selective focus, but didn't have much time to play a lot.
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I tried factory reset as a last option and it still didnt helped. I reviewed lot of videos and pictures of S8 online and for sure mine is behaving different. Probably I will have to take my S8 to the nearest service..

Sounds like you do have a problem. I used my S8 and stood back and the picture was focused. Closer ones have always been focused.

I had the same issue, but really don't know If what I did was the fix, because this issue was happening every time I open the camera app after a while (like half an hour) and I had to knock my phone just to wake up my focusing sensor or what ever it called, but after I:
- re-enabled all the disabled bixby apps.
- stopped using my car magnet holder - so it never gets too cold because of the car's AC and never gets attached to a magnet.
after that, camera never miss-focusing anymore, now more than 3 hours.
So please, if anyone had this issue and:
- not using any magnet holder.
- not disabling bixby apps.
- not having the phone too cold.
please tell us to be aware.
I know it's not logic, as long as I can use the camera normally after I knock the phone, so it might be a hardware problem, but I'm sharing my experience with you just to find out the fix.
Thanks
Update: Nothing from the above was the issue, still; miss focusing, even after a factory reset... waiting for July update and see if they will fix it.

Hey there, I too have an issue in front camera of my galaxy s8 when I put it too far then it shows blurry image but when the camera is nearby the object then it shows some good quality, but not showing as much good as it was showing before .

i have the same issue. But the camera works when it wants to work... but sometimes is blury (most of times)