Database Users

Camera/Picture quality

Anyone have any recommended settings for best picture quality? The out of the box settings seem to be taking pictures that are dark and a bit blurry/washed out and pixelated.

i've noticed this myself as well. I've seen the picture threads and know what this can do, but I'm wondering if i have settings messed up.

This may sound stupid, but if you haven't, wipe your lens off.

I totally agree the pics are not 8MP quality IMO. I did wipe my lens off to make sure but it didnt make a diff. Not happy with my cam at all. I have taken a few good pics but for the most part they look blurry and very pixelated.

one of the biggest disappointments of my Eris was how awful the pictures were.
My DroidX is taking awesome photos, though. I tend to keep the photo mode in steady hand mode, and am pleased with the quality overall. I don't expect images taken on a cell phone to match my Canon KissX2 (called the EOS Rebel XSi in North America), but in a pinch it takes nice pictures with a little forethought.
Here's a sample over the car seat photo of my son having some onigiri in a moving car... resized to 25% in photoshop, then saved for web at max quality... the jpeg itself is 400k+ but compressing it would produce artifacts, and you're speaking of quality. I suppose I could have left it full size, but then it's like 2MB+. You get the idea.
http://i1030.photobucket.com/albums/y361/ixobelle/roi_to_onigiri.jpg

All my droid x pics are blurry..wtf
Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

Mess with the settings. Also it is set to 6mp out of the box.
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App

I use a program called Vignette seems to help a lot on the quality
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App

Mine works great. Yeah there are some blurry pictures but 85% are clear and crisp. I played with both 6mp and 8mp. The 6mp for widescreen looks nice on my Vizio.
I have played with Panaoramic however the downside is 2mp.
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App

I bought Vignette last night and it takes awesome pictures.
Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

You just need a steady hand and play with the settings.
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App

Close ups with flash are very clear for me but anything thats over 6 ft away seem to have the blurriness issue. I also have a Droid Inc and it does not have the same issues.

My photos are great with good lighting, but pics with flash just SUCK. But I expected that tbh...

I purchased Vignette from the market for the Droid X and with the camera set to fixed focus it helps the picture taking tremendously. Seems that the auto focus from the stock camera app is having trouble focusing. I wish there was an option to disable it.

Reddog80p said:
I purchased Vignette from the market for the Droid X and with the camera set to fixed focus it helps the picture taking tremendously. Seems that the auto focus from the stock camera app is having trouble focusing. I wish there was an option to disable it.
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I think that Vignette is absolutely a must have for really crisp pics. I am using the Steady Shot option with 8MP Superfine and the onscreen touch to take the shot and it has made a huge difference for me. Thanks for the hint on fixed focus, I'll give that a try next. Since we know the hardware can take really good pics maybe Motorola will get on the stick too and improve the Camera app.

dscottjr81 said:
I totally agree the pics are not 8MP quality IMO. I did wipe my lens off to make sure but it didnt make a diff. Not happy with my cam at all. I have taken a few good pics but for the most part they look blurry and very pixelated.
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original factory settings are at 6 mp's not 8

getting the most from the camera?

Hello
anyone have any tips for getting the most from the camera? just using the stock cam, but unless the photo is taken with the lighting from the sun, it looks abit poo
anyone have any tips for making it that tiny bit better?

Get vignette.It is a paid app but totally worth it.

CLEAN THE LENS.
There's so many threads on here with pictures from people's phones, and they're all fuzzy because the lens has something on it. Even if you can't see anything, wipe the lens before taking a photo.

isthisreallife said:
Get vignette.It is a paid app but totally worth it.
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i hve vignette, but in my opinion it looks alot crapper then the stock so i uninstalled, though i didnt refund it

aussiesausage said:
i hve vignette, but in my opinion it looks alot crapper then the stock so i uninstalled, though i didnt refund it
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Same here.
Sent from my X10i using XDA App

aussiesausage said:
i hve vignette, but in my opinion it looks alot crapper then the stock so i uninstalled, though i didnt refund it
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Tbh vigette is actually, i just take the pictures using the stock camera app and from there i just edit the pictures using vigette
Sent from my X10a using XDA App

well generally x10 camera suffers from over exposing, and pictures lack of contrast and they are bit washed out. Stock camera app has greatest usabillity, because yu can choose macro and sport modes (with others aswell) nad you can change exposure, but in terms of image processing it is worst, because it uses highest JPEG compression(think they improved it in 2.1) and colours al always pale (except reds).
Vignete is good cause it uses flash, and uses minimum JPEG compression but they are both behind Camera 360 app, which has best image processing.
EDIT: I added a reply from Tuxstyle on one simillar topic I started:
"Well, more important than those modes is:
- use the EV compensation.
go with it minus one or two steps and keep the sun behind you.
also, lowering the EV helps in low light too because will reduce the ISO.
ofcourse, in low light you will need better hands
- another very very important thing is: metering modes.
for macro images use spot (also use spot if you have most of the image around your object with one color: ex. a kid in the snow. in this case camera will do the metering where your focus point is ... the kid ... so the kid will be "better exposed").
use average for landscapes and other "wide" images ....
center ... well, for close stuff.
- do not enable image stabilization.
trust your hands
the camera on X10 is compressing the images way too much so, they become soft.
image stabilization will make them even more soft than that.
What i don't like about the X10 camera is the focus.
I have no idea how is choosing the focus point(s) so, i decided the camera app is crap.
I started to use vignette but is slow as a pig riding a donkey so, i moved on.
Camera360 is working fine.
You have time to wait for the pic to be saved and you know you won't loose a good shot?
Vignette is better. Better quality and best focus from this 3 apps.
Camera 360?
Focus almost as good as vignette.
Quality almost as good as vignette but if you zoom a little you can see the difference.
Speed? A Ferrari vs. Ford Focus (not RS ) if you compare it with Vignette
Hope this helps."

Bad pictures from camera

Hi.
I just received my Arc and I'm shocked by something : the camera does bad pictures, cause the codec is lame. A 8Mp photo take less than 1Mo.
Can someone fix that in a rom or a kernel or is this to hard to do ?
Thanks.

the photos from almost every other Arc are incredible.. I suspect you have a problem... maybe you're settings are wrong .. or there's a fault.
Look here for examples of how good it is.. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1035589

Look at one of mine (all are the sames).
http://sberfini.developpez.com/DSC_0005.jpg
http://sberfini.developpez.com/DSC_0010.jpg
By the way I'm using an LT15i (3.0.2.A.181) not rooted nor unlocked.

I've just rooted by arc. Is there a way to fix the jpeg compression ratio? It's way too high by default and images are losing details as a result.
Sent from my LT15i using XDA App

you can try vignette that barely compresses at all - but everyone is pretty much saying that the photo's from stock cam are still better!

im_iceman said:
you can try vignette that barely compresses at all - but everyone is pretty much saying that the photo's from stock cam are still better!
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Thanks mate. Yeah I noticed almost everyone's saying that...but if one was to put the facts together, picture size alone for a 8MP resolution image can't be less than 1MB...
Will try Vignette and see if it's better. I just hope there's some kind of tweak (like in the HTC HD2) where you could set the compression ratio to further improve the quality.
Sent from my LT15i using XDA App

You should try checking your camera setting OP.
Vignette is good, except it takes longer to preview the image in real size, and the unnecessarily 5~6x larger files with slightly worse quality than stock camera app.

ArcOnFire said:
You should try checking your camera setting OP
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What's settings are you talking about ?
What's the difference between the one's who have a good quality photos and the others ? The firmware ? They have a LT15a instead of a LT15i ?
Please help me to understand.

Did you use auto scene recognition? The picture has some heavy noise in it, so I suspect you play with exposure value or select night scene mode.
2nd picture is blurry; Did you hold your arc firmly when taking the picture ?

Yes I'm using the auto scene detection. Should I disable it ?
For the fisrt picture, the flash was activated.
And yes, I was holding it firmly.

I use auto scene detection for most of my photos and they seem much better quality than yours there. Try some outdoor shots and post them, indoor ones can have a lot of noise if the light is low anyway.
I once had similar problems with a nokia n95. Everyone was posting great shots and mine were horrible. Turns out the handset was faulty.

Optimal Camera Settings

Currently using CM7 and I'm not really happy with the camera picture quality (with any rom). Not looking for another app to replace the stock one. I'm interested in tweaking the contrast, saturation, sharpness, exposure, and white balance to produce the optimal picture quality.
So my question is what settings are you using to produce top quality images from the camera?

I've pretty much given up on this phone providing a decent photograph. My BlackBerry Pearl took better shots tbh.
HTC Vision (G2) - CM7 B75 w/AUS radio

Wow... Really? My blackberry pear suck hella lot. There must be something wrong with your phone.
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA Premium App

I would like an optimal setup for the camera as well.

There is no such thing as optimal exposure and white balance settings. It depends on the conditions. For instance, increasing exposure will help in low light situations, but will make the photo look overexposed in brighter situations. Picking the white balance setting that corresponds to the type of light typically looks better than auto, but the wrong one will look terrible.
Taking good photos is an art, and it takes practice. Its not just a matter of picking a couple of catch-all settings.
Also, many poorly lit photos can be corrected after-the-fact pretty well using easy apps like Vignette or Picsay Pro.

redpoint73 said:
There is no such thing as optimal exposure and white balance settings. It depends on the conditions. For instance, increasing exposure will help in low light situations, but will make the photo look overexposed in brighter situations. Picking the white balance setting that corresponds to the type of light typically looks better than auto, but the wrong one will look terrible.
Taking good photos is an art, and it takes practice. Its not just a matter of picking a couple of catch-all settings.
Also, many poorly lit photos can be corrected after-the-fact pretty well using easy apps like Vignette or Picsay Pro.
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As a photographer i totally agree!

+2 if you know what your doing this is the best 5mp cam ive used in quite a while.
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA Premium App

Silly me, I want non blurry photos quickly and easily. It's a cell phone, not a high end standalone camera.
Snapping a quick pic of something is what a lot of people use their phone camera for. Having to fiddle with exposure, shutter speed, light balancing, etc every time is a pain.
Anyone know of a camera app that does better than stock for general pics?
HTC Vision (G2) - CM7 B79 w/AUS radio

onelikeseabass said:
Silly me, I want non blurry photos quickly and easily. It's a cell phone, not a high end standalone camera.
Snapping a quick pic of something is what a lot of people use their phone camera for. Having to fiddle with exposure, shutter speed, light balancing, etc every time is a pain.
Anyone know of a camera app that does better than stock for general pics?
HTC Vision (G2) - CM7 B79 w/AUS radio
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Click to collapse
Vignettes auto focus and auto white bal etc is pretty good, my choice over stock app, though it takes hella longer to process images as it doesnt compress them as much.
Although the number one cause for blurry pics is a fingerprinted cam lens, always give it a wipe once and a while.
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA Premium App

ptesmoke said:
Vignettes auto focus and auto white bal etc is pretty good, my choice over stock app, though it takes hella longer to process images as it doesnt compress them as much.
Although the number one cause for blurry pics is a fingerprinted cam lens, always give it a wipe once and a while
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Click to collapse
Thanks, I'll give Vignette a whirl.
Re: blur, I guess I meant noisy more than blur. I keep the lens clean. The images just don't come out crisp/clean unless I'm outside and it's high noon with not a cloud in sight.
HTC Vision (G2) - CM7 B80 w/AUS radio

Camera 360
I tried the stock app on CM 6.1, Vignette, and Camera 360 all shooting the same indoor shot under fluorescent lighting. Camera 360 had the sharpest and best coloring of any of the three. I use it now as my main camera app. I don't know if it's the best, but it's the one I like the most.

onelikeseabass said:
Re: blur, I guess I meant noisy more than blur. I keep the lens clean. The images just don't come out crisp/clean unless I'm outside and it's high noon with not a cloud in sight.
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What that person said, about the #1 cause of blurry pics being fingerprints, is hogwash. The main reason for blurry photos is an aperture that is too small, and ISO that is too low for the lighting conditions, resulting in the shutter having to stay open longer to capture the image. This allows more time for the camera or subject to move while the shutter is open, which causes a blurry photo.
http://www.digital-photo-secrets.com/tip/129/the-top-4-causes-of-blurry-photos-and-how-to-fix-them/
Photos can also appear noisy or over-processed. This is due to the camera trying to increase the ISO (light sensor sensitivity), or manually increasing the ISO, to compensate for low lighting.
Point and shoot cameras try to do the work for you by automatically adjusting the aperture, ISO, and shutter speed. So the recommendation for a different camera app (which all handle these adjustments slightly differently) is probably a good place to start if you aren't comfortable making the adjustments manually (and its often not convenient).
But practice and understanding how cameras work goes a lot farther. You'd be surprised at how much you can improve your photos with simple tricks that don't involve camera settings. Just slightly shifting the point of focus can significantly improve the amount of light entering the lens. Or bracing the camera/phone on a stationary object (like a piece of furniture, or a building column) to create an impromptu tripod, can control the camera jitter just enough to get a less blurry photos in low light.

Found this in the Desire HD section, though some of the options aren't available to us.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=875230&highlight=camera+settings

boost3d23 said:
Found this in the Desire HD section, though some of the options aren't available to us.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=875230&highlight=camera+settings
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Interesting read, thanks for linking it. Although to clarify your comment, some of the options discussed on the guide aren't available on non-Sense ROMs. But those on Sense have all the options available.
Also interesting to see the Desire and Desire HD cameras compared side-to-side to the iPhone 4. I know the camera on the Desire Z (or even my older Touch Pro 2) is decidedly better than the iPhone 3GS. My wife owns a 3GS, and she is always commenting on how much better the photos taken by my phone are. But I know Apple made some improvements to the camera for the iPhone 4, so I was wondering how things netted out. While the Desire Z was not specifically compared, its newer than the Desire (and same MP), while being the same generation as the HD (but the HD is 8 MP). So I'm just guessing the Desire Z falls somewhere in between the two in photo quality.

Nothing beats the iPhone 4 when it comes to the camera and the photo/videos - I'm jumping ships when the iPhone 4S hits T-Mobile!
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App

What i dont like about the cam is the noise. at first (scaled to fit the screen) it looks very good. once you transfer it to your pc and view the normal size, noise is all over.
any setting to reduce that? ISO?

ptesmoke said:
+2 if you know what your doing this is the best 5mp cam ive used in quite a while.
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA Premium App
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Click to collapse
I've got to say that the camera on this thing is the one thing I was disappointed with when moving from my Nokia N95 8gb. That thing had the best camera I've EVER seen on a phone, and I think it was a combination of a better sensor and a considerably better (and larger) lense. This thing takes decent pictures, and they actually look good when printing in like a 4x6 or smaller, but the quality overall is pretty disappointing. I've given up on getting better pictures out of it and just take what I can.

TL24 said:
Nothing beats the iPhone 4 when it comes to the camera and the photo/videos - I'm jumping ships when the iPhone 4S hits T-Mobile!
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You have any proof to back that statement up? Because the side-by-side comparison in the linked guide above clearly shows the photos on both the old Desire, and the Desire HD are significantly superior to photos taken on the iPhone 4, for indoor conditions.
Hyperbolic statements, with no proof make you sound like Steve Jobs.

Cm7 already has a built in mod to allow you to take pictures in 720p and you can activate deblur fhor our unsteady hands. Its in the settings tab of the camera on cm7 just scroll down a little
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA Premium App

rajbaba2 said:
Cm7 already has a built in mod to allow you to take pictures in 720p and you can activate deblur fhor our unsteady hands. Its in the settings tab of the camera on cm7 just scroll down a little
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They still look like crap.
HTC Vision (G2) - CM7 B91 w/AUS radio

Is THIS really all the camera is capable of?!?

Or is mine bad?!? Seriously, is no one else getting this problem with blown highlights and over-exposure, or are y'all accepting it? I bought this phone for its "superior camera" and while yes it can take pictures in low light I was not willing to give up taking good pictures in good lighting >8(
I installed Android Revolution 8, then 9, to get the "updated" camera- stock kernel, Dev. Ed.
Attached photo taken with stock camera with auto settings, no custom settings, no hdr (though that has been disappointing as well). Oh and white balance was about 5-800 Kelvin too yellow as well... (sigh)
So do I send it back to get cameras as good as everyone else's or start watching the Sony rumors again? Because my 18 month old Galaxy Note could get this picture right...
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 2

The camera is awesome, its just you have to play around with the settings. Cange the sharpness to -1 and contrast to +1 for day light pictures. Also focus manually before taking pics.
Sent from my Nexus 10 using XDA Premium HD app

What were u expecting from a phone camera?
If you want realy good pictures you need to buy a good standalone camera..
The time isnt still there (and will be for along time) before phone cameras can compete with good standalone cameras...

I also find the camera disappointing. I love the software features like Zoe, but I personally can't rely on this camera to quickly capture a good picture. And I don't think the low light performance is very good either.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

Those pictures do not look nearly as good as pictures I have taken with mine,using stock settings. Here's a couple for example. The pictures look a lot better in original format as well in full resolution.
Sent from my HTC One using xda premium

I love this camera, it lacks the raw specs but it manages to capture those special moments very well, better than even a camera.

The camera has impressed me so far, especially the speed and the amazing colours.
Completely stock trickdroid settings for camera here
@jeeptrash love your cat
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 4 Beta

My camera is working fine too
it's not perfect but it works

john291 said:
What were u expecting from a phone camera?
If you want realy good pictures you need to buy a good standalone camera..
The time isnt still there (and will be for along time) before phone cameras can compete with good standalone cameras...
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John, my expectations are to not move BACKWARD in quality. Trust me I carry my X100 half the time, but the other half this phone was supposed to fill in and it doesn't cut it.
It's your phone also blowing highlights and having white balance problems? I'm trying to understand if this behavior is typical or not.
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 2

The overexposure thing is a little annoying it's true. HDR mode seems to recover lost shadow detail but doesn't seem to help with blown-out highlights.
Setting contrast to +1 is definitely *not* going to help it.
When you know there will be difficult highlights, setting exposure to -1 in normal non-HDR mode seems like the only response. Not ideal I know. Especially when making such a simple, temporary adjustment requires a lot of fiddling around with menus.

Yep, been playin with my camera all day, had no work in. Found the adjustment settings werent fine enough - swung too much one way or the other on +/- 1.
And indoor pictures where theres any daylight showing (doors/windows etc) caused the images to be washed out, even when focused on the lightest part first.
I think the hardware is fine, just some software improvements are needed. So its not all bad.

davedigerati said:
John, my expectations are to not move BACKWARD in quality. Trust me I carry my X100 half the time, but the other half this phone was supposed to fill in and it doesn't cut it.
It's your phone also blowing highlights and having white balance problems? I'm trying to understand if this behavior is typical or not.
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 2
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Click to collapse
Hello yes it have the white balance problems sometimes..
I think they need to finetune the software better..
But it can also make some nice pictures too...
But a fine tuned software would be great..
---------- Post added at 10:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:07 PM ----------
davedigerati said:
John, my expectations are to not move BACKWARD in quality. Trust me I carry my X100 half the time, but the other half this phone was supposed to fill in and it doesn't cut it.
It's your phone also blowing highlights and having white balance problems? I'm trying to understand if this behavior is typical or not.
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
By the way this was a simple picture i took out of my window..
Here i like the shadow detail and the natural look of it..

The camera does over expose yes. If you want an easy to use camera. Get the S4/iPhone 5.

Can you control, ISO, shutter speed, Exposure compensation?
Turn ISO off automatic and set it to like 50

Terrorantula said:
Can you control, ISO, shutter speed, Exposure compensation?
Turn ISO off automatic and set it to like 50
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can control iso but you cant get below 100..
The shutter speed cant be controlled manual..
The exposure can be set.

Terrorantula said:
Can you control, ISO, shutter speed, Exposure compensation?
Turn ISO off automatic and set it to like 50
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ISO & exposure yes, you can, and even better if you want to monkey with settings for every shot I recommend FV-5 which I use frequently
https://play.google.com/store/apps/...NvbS5mbGF2aW9uZXQuYW5kcm9pZC5jYW1lcmEucHJvIl0.
The point of my post though is not to find workarounds but to see if this is COMMON, or my camera chip has issues.
I'm puzzled by the lack of complaints out there and feel like the photo I posted was a good example of average sunny day conditions, done badly. Indoors, low light, we're fine, it's the sunny days that are the issue.
Everyone quiet means either
a) everyone is accepting poor quality sunny day photos
b) my camera has issues and everyone else's is fine
c) everyone is feeling a little bit bad that the camera they were promised would offer 'a great leap in the quality of point-and-shoot photos and video' (http://www.htc.com/www/zoe/) frankly isn't, and reluctant to say so, or
d) other?
So everyone shooting sunny day pics please chime, in I appreciate your input- if your pics are coming out great without clipping I'll start the RMA process, or if yours are getting blown I'll fire up the angry fan-boi machine and pester every HTC channel I can hit with requests for a camera update.
Cheers,
Dave

The latter option.

I second, go for the latter
Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app

davedigerati said:
ISO & exposure yes, you can, and even better if you want to monkey with settings for every shot I recommend FV-5 which I use frequently
https://play.google.com/store/apps/...NvbS5mbGF2aW9uZXQuYW5kcm9pZC5jYW1lcmEucHJvIl0.
The point of my post though is not to find workarounds but to see if this is COMMON, or my camera chip has issues.
I'm puzzled by the lack of complaints out there and feel like the photo I posted was a good example of average sunny day conditions, done badly. Indoors, low light, we're fine, it's the sunny days that are the issue.
Everyone quiet means either
a) everyone is accepting poor quality sunny day photos
b) my camera has issues and everyone else's is fine
c) everyone is feeling a little bit bad that the camera they were promised would offer 'a great leap in the quality of point-and-shoot photos and video' (http://www.htc.com/www/zoe/) frankly isn't, and reluctant to say so, or
d) other?
So everyone shooting sunny day pics please chime, in I appreciate your input- if your pics are coming out great without clipping I'll start the RMA process, or if yours are getting blown I'll fire up the angry fan-boi machine and pester every HTC channel I can hit with requests for a camera update.
Cheers,
Dave
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I have posted few times in this forum about disappointing camera or my expectation is too high. Maybe the next HTC software update would fix them. I like the speakers though which is undeniable to be the best.

Camera is superb.
But it's not all things to all men. If you prepared to fanny around with lighting, settings, angles etc for a photo, and expect a high res masterpiece, this isn't your bag. If you want a point and shoot camera which takes nr unbeatable pictures quickly, then this is it.
Mega bright lights will screw any photo up. Your picture is remarkable given the phone was able to cope at all.
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 2