Database Users

Poor Camera

hey, i just got a att 8525 and i'm wondering if there is a fix or what are the settings you guys use to get the most out of this camera.
thank you.

I don't really use the camera that much. It's OK in a pinch, where I might just need a quick snapshot of something that doesn't require much detail, sharpness, or image quality.
Considering the tiny nobrand lens, the always-loose macro switch, the unusable (except as a flashlight, thank you VJay) LED Flash, and the tiny 2MP CCD sensor ... I don't thinnk you're going to be in competition with Ansel Adams anytime soon.
When I need to do serious photography, I have a dSLR for that.
No fix or settings that I can think of are going to make the camera anything more than it is, a cellphone camera (and note that the word CELLPHONE comes first).
-pvs

theres gotta be something that can be done to imporve it....
anybody?

etnies said:
theres gotta be something that can be done to imporve it....
anybody?
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Wow, just how BAD are your pictures coming out? Are you trying to shoot in daylight or is the lighting very dim? Are you sure you're setting the camera up to produce 2MP shots? Or are you stuck on burst mode or something?
I mean, I don't USE the camera for much, but I feel I'm getting what it's capable of doing? Attached are a couple of shots I have taken. They aren't very good, but they aren't totally unusable.
What kind of results are you getting?
-pvs

I found that using Cool Camera yielded me much better pictures. The settings are much easier to change and the lag between clicking the trigger and the actual picture popping up is much quicker.
Not only that, but Cool Camera enables the LED as a proper flash, not just a flashlight that you have to keep turning on. Click the trigger, the flash fires off, picture is taken, more like a proper camera.
Check it out here:
http://www.ateksoft.com/download.html
It's the second file, CoolCamera v1.15.

camera takes shocking blury picture with the slights movements

camera takes shocking blury picture with the slights movemonts..... how do I fix this? The first Apple iPhone hasn't got this problem.... why do we have it on our new HTC phones ? I'm so wishing I never got this phone

lol, why don't you sell it then
There's nothing you can fix as it's not broken, why not try some camera apps, perhaps you might get better luck with them. Personally, I have no problems with any of it.

If you're taking pictures/video in low light it will start to blur. This is because the camera will try to get more light to the sensor for better, brighter images.
To "fix" this go to camera app>menu>image adjustments and set exposure to -2 and sharpness to -1 or -2. The image will be much darker now, but atleast you'll be able to record videos in darker places at 30fps.
RobSimmo is right, why don't you sell it then? I'm sure your iphone is much better.

Foladko said:
If you're taking pictures/video in low light it will start to blur. This is because the camera will try to get more light to the sensor for better, brighter images.
To "fix" this go to camera app>menu>image adjustments and set exposure to -2 and sharpness to -1 or -2. The image will be much darker now, but atleast you'll be able to record videos in darker places at 30fps.
RobSimmo is right, why don't you sell it then? I'm sure your iphone is much better.
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yep it is proven that low light capturing will result in blurry images. one of our forumer hamdir posted a very (I mean it) useful thread regarding camera. suggest that you have a read through it and play around with the configuration. this guide help me a lot!
edit with link: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=875230

One thing I've noticed is that turning off your Auto focus feature will actually help you to get rid of those blurry shots. Turn it to manual focus instead.

But wait! Why don't you buy a camera? clap clap
Right, enough being off -topic an mean It's just how HTC always built its phones. The camera failed always

RobSimmo said:
lol, why don't you sell it then
There's nothing you can fix as it's not broken, why not try some camera apps, perhaps you might get better luck with them. Personally, I have no problems with any of it.
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I would love to sell it but I just got locked into a 2 year contract with Vodafone.... I don't think people are hearing what I'm saying..... this camera takes amazing pics but for you to take really good pics you MUST hold the phone 100% still can't move it one bit.... how am I meant to take a picture in a night club and be 100% still.....do you get me ? Other phones can do it ?

Try the app Vignette which has anti shake setting

Camera quality is bad

So I've been taking a few pictures on my phone, and I have noticed that the Galaxy S2 is very very inconsistent in taking quality photos. I can have a great clear shot of some mid-ranged photos, but far distanced photos have horrible quality. I understand if you take pictures of something really far, obviously it won't be that good, but when I compared to my friends iPhone 4, the 8MP is barely on par with it. Do any of you know what might be the problem? I've tried using auto focus and manual focus, but it is always blurry.

It seems to be an hardware problem. I find the sgsw camera pretty good, especially the dynamic range. My only concern is with indoor pictures, a bit noisy and cold.

Can you upload and provide some shots samples?
Everything on auto? It might help to know which ROM/mod you are using.
I'm not an expert in mobile digital photography but if I can see your blurry distant shots it might be able to tell if I get better result with my device.

The S2 tends to like low shutter speeds (1/4s - 1/20s) ALL the frigging time.
It will select this slow shutter speed even when it should raise the ISO and get a faster shutter speed.
This is why the S2 often takes blurry photos, because even 1/15 or 1/19sec is not fast enough to take a photo sharply with a 28mm lens (effectively what the S2 is).
The slowest shutter speed the S2 should use is 1/30sec to ensure the photos aren't blurred by *camera* vibration/shake. (But, if the *subject* is moving, like a child, then 1/60s or 1/80s are the minimum that are needed to freeze the subject).
This is why the photos are so often blurry as soon as the light gets slightly low - cloud day, in shade, etc. I don't have a solution sorry!
Proof: check the EXIF data of the blurry photos you take. Most will have a stupidly low ISO (like ISO25, ISO50) and a stupid low shutter speed.

Yes I have noticed that the shutter speeds are quite low...now I'm assured that its not just me
I can take SOME really good photos, but almost every other pictures are very blurry even at a close distance.
Everything is on default, except I have enabled Anti-Shake or something like that, and I am using CheckROM 3.1.1 (KJ3)
The first 2 are taken at a considerably good range, with no zoom or any effects, just a normal shot, but then the outcome was very weird.
The last one was a closer shot, but in a darker area, and that one was a little bit more clear

I don't want to be captain obvious, and I am sure you are a better photographer than me but can you check if the focus mode is set to macro if it is then change to auto focus.
Since this happened to me once i set to macro and forgot and all the photos were blurry.
I just felt that might be the reason.

I am guessing that what you're doing is pressing on the "Capture" button without focusing on the subject yet?
I do find that it's best to press to focus on the area you want to take and then press the main capture button to capture it. It seems like the focus hasn't focused on what you want to take.
It's quite annoying because then that means I have to press in the middle and then press the capture button to take a decent shot. I wish I could just hold down the capture button to focus, then release to shoot.. which works sometimes but not as good as what I said above.

Here you have 2 images, far and close focus. You can see the great quality of the camera. Take a look at the focus settings: better in auto mode if you don't want to manage it in all photos. Maybe you have some problem in the camera hardware... so warranty is the best option here.

There are at least 2 types of camera modules in SGS II.
Check this:http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1098834
Mine also had this problem (blury at far objects), the soultion is set the metering to matrix in camera menu.It works for me.

iocar said:
Yes I have noticed that the shutter speeds are quite low...now I'm assured that its not just me
I can take SOME really good photos, but almost every other pictures are very blurry even at a close distance.
Everything is on default, except I have enabled Anti-Shake or something like that, and I am using CheckROM 3.1.1 (KJ3)
The first 2 are taken at a considerably good range, with no zoom or any effects, just a normal shot, but then the outcome was very weird.
The last one was a closer shot, but in a darker area, and that one was a little bit more clear
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are you using macro mode to take farer objects ?
thats why it is more clear when you are taking photo of the specimen (3rd one)
or the camera firmware is broken , if not ,it may be the hardware issue

I always touch the place where I want to focus, and that is why I am confused
Yes I was using Macro, but only because it had the best quality...Auto-Focus doesn't really help as it never focus properly, as in when I press the "Capture" button, most of the time it goes to red and doesn't turn green. I am holding the phone still and don't know why
The camera firmware is also up to date
What I don't get is that my old HTC Desire can take photos that are much more crisp than my Galaxy S2

Try resetting the camera settings see if that works,try a third party HDR camera app or Camera 360,if quility is still bad in the 3rd party app then it could be a hardware fault
Sichroteph said:
My only concern is with indoor pictures, a bit noisy and cold.
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auto contrast I find helps take better indoors

Cant say I've had any problems with the camera. Love the macro focussing.

It seems obvious that your device doesn't behave like it should and have focus problems. I can have the exact same results with macro mode activated (and not shooting close objects)
I would suggest :
- trying another camera app (like TheiPhoneKiller suggested)
- trying a totally stock rom
- trying a rom like CM7 or MIUI
If you still got totally unfocused shots, you may very well have an faulty device. Try to get a replacement unit if you can.
(And did you try the fix kisstom suggested?)

Well... my shots is certainly much more grainy, since i upgraded to 2.3.5 - even if shot outside in bright sunshine. And many of the pictures is becoming more yellow than before - especially when using the flash-LED, so something has happened when i upgraded... this is one of my big complaints about the new upgrade. My old W800i 2Mpx beats the SGS2 in pure quality of the pictures now (but that was also, and still is, a VERY good camera for a phone)...
When comparing the newest pictures to some of the old pictures i have shot in the past, it's clear to me that i have a loss of quality since upgrading. How do i check manually, if there's a new camera-software version available - as i can't seem to find any in the Samsung apps, even if i have read somewhere that there's a newer one, comparing to my version of the camera-software???
But a least it's still not as crappy as my old HTC's camera - THAT was lousy...

Frankly speaking, 'Camera quality is bad' makes no sense. If you've said it's bad than this or that then I'd take it. Have used all the SE phones as I loved their image quality and I'll say after playing with the Satio, C905 I don't think this one would beat them. We are talking about a small image sensor here. So the main job is how good the post image processing is, some part still depends on the lens though.
The thing is I didn't buy this one for camera, believe me or not, after purchase, that is almost six months now, I've shot barely 10 pics with it. For normal usage and as a professional can't go without 350D, and for short tours and holidays I still shoot with my C905 , but not GSII.
But still this Camera is capable of taking some great pics, posting some of them here, after seeing them you certainly can't say Camera quality is bad.
The very bests I've found,

-> ithehappy
Well - i used to have that image quality too, but it has become somewhat impossible to shot such good pictures, since upgrading... i suspect that it's because my camera firmware still is TBEC28 (but of course not sure of it)

iocar said:
I always touch the place where I want to focus, and that is why I am confused
Yes I was using Macro, but only because it had the best quality...Auto-Focus doesn't really help as it never focus properly, as in when I press the "Capture" button, most of the time it goes to red and doesn't turn green. I am holding the phone still and don't know why
The camera firmware is also up to date
What I don't get is that my old HTC Desire can take photos that are much more crisp than my Galaxy S2
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Confused!!! Are you saying that you always have macro focus on?
If so then turn it off. My cousin complained about the exact same thing, blurry and red box when trying to focus. Went through his settings, turned macro off and everything was good again.
Also auto focus will not work correctly if macro is on, unless your taking really close range pics, which is what macro focus is for.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium

well i am on 2.3.5 Images are really Perfect for me am seriously impressed the Quality iam on kI8 here is one example
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/708/20111118205552.jpg

iocar said:
Yes I was using Macro, but only because it had the best quality
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That's exactly why your pictures are blurry at a distance.
Macro focus is for close-up pictures, use auto focus for longer distances

Use this setting for Noise-free images!

I've come across a lot of people complaining about the camera not giving out noise-free images like it's supposed to. The trick is to use manual mode. I agree, if you use Superior Auto mode, it's a miss most of the times, and when it does work, it gives a purple-ish tint at the corners.
However, If you use manual mode and select the SCENE to NIGHT, the images come out amazing and noise-free!
[DO NOT JUDGE THE IMAGE BY WHAT THE VIEWFINDER SHOWS YOU. A lot of things happen when you press the shutter button. The viewfinder simply goes red for making it easy to focus. The final image in the gallery is a hundred times better]
The Scene modes are one of the most commonly ignored settings.
I hope this helps!

Thanks for this but i just tried it and even though it pretty light where i am taking the picture, the picture turns us a little blurry.
Possibly because night mode uses a longer shutter time which makes it more sensitive to motion blur?

Schadowx277 said:
I've come across a lot of people complaining about the camera not giving out noise-free images like it's supposed to. The trick is to use manual mode. I agree, if you use Superior Auto mode, it's a miss most of the times, and when it does work, it gives a purple-ish tint at the corners.
However, If you use manual mode and select the SCENE to NIGHT, the images come out amazing and noise-free!
[DO NOT JUDGE THE IMAGE BY WHAT THE VIEWFINDER SHOWS YOU. A lot of things happen when you press the shutter button. The viewfinder simply goes red for making it easy to focus. The final image in the gallery is a hundred times better]
The Scene modes are one of the most commonly ignored settings.
I hope this helps!
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USe night SCENE even if we are with light ? i mean DAY light

DjTony90 said:
USe night SCENE even if we are with light ? i mean DAY light
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How do you select a SCENE mode? I don't have any such option.
Never mind, I had it at 20MP.

Havent got around to really check out every setting in manual mode, bu I will for certain try this on oute tomorrow.

don't know why but right now scene mode shows up only on 8 megapixel and lower shots , so change your camera settings to access it.

I Use Manual mode, 20 Mp, ISO 50!!! Very important for controlling noise - still at pixel level picture is a mess but that is true for Every camera with such pixel density! And overall picture quality as seen on my sample is OK!

Isn't ISO50 only workable with very good lighting? I mean, indoors it's very tricky already...

dagrim1 said:
Isn't ISO50 only workable with very good lighting? I mean, indoors it's very tricky already...
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Photography is painting with Light, when light is not available there no much "painting" - Agree indoors when it's dark You should up ISO otherwise camera will go to very long exposures and You'll get blurry pictures.
What i was giving was setting for lower possible noise in pictures, settings will vary according to current lighting condition

pesho00 said:
Photography is painting with Light, when light is not available there no much "painting" - Agree indoors when it's dark You should up ISO otherwise camera will go to very long exposures and You'll get blurry pictures.
What i was giving was setting for lower possible noise in pictures, settings will vary according to current lighting condition
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Sure, but it's logical that a lower ISO will generate less noise, unfortunately then shutter times increase quickly resulting in moved shots. But it does seem an issue with auto mode that it increases the ISO values very quickly...
Ah well, hoping future firmware updates will improve things (if only had sony included OIS in this thing).

when i select Iso50 the whole of the viewfinder becomes VERY laggy. doesnt anyone else find this? (happens with both mine and my old z1 which was replaced)
very disappointed with the camera on this phone given that the camera is supposed to be the main selling point of the phone.

thefunkygibbon said:
when i select Iso50 the whole of the viewfinder becomes VERY laggy. doesnt anyone else find this? (happens with both mine and my old z1 which was replaced)
very disappointed with the camera on this phone given that the camera is supposed to be the main selling point of the phone.
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I have No such problem.

thefunkygibbon said:
when i select Iso50 the whole of the viewfinder becomes VERY laggy. doesnt anyone else find this? (happens with both mine and my old z1 which was replaced)
very disappointed with the camera on this phone given that the camera is supposed to be the main selling point of the phone.
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Same lagginess here, but only when the lighting is low/lower... Not as much as an issue for me.
Camera doesn't live up to it's expectations unfortunately, especially in lower light. (No, I don't expect awesome pics in lower light but coming from a Lumia920, which performed a whole lot better, yay for OIS, in that area it is kinda disappointing)

dagrim1 said:
Same lagginess here, but only when the lighting is low/lower... Not as much as an issue for me.
Camera doesn't live up to it's expectations unfortunately, especially in lower light. (No, I don't expect awesome pics in lower light but coming from a Lumia920, which performed a whole lot better, yay for OIS, in that area it is kinda disappointing)
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not tested it in "good light" to be honest since the whole point in changing the ISO is to compensate for the low light conditions you are trying to take the photo in.
its a little confusing since "Auto" iso setting is the only one which is not laggy. you can select iso50 or the top iso level (Can't remember what number it is) and its all just as laggy. you would have thought that Auto would imply that you would be using an automatically determined iso level, which would be more intensive on the phone than selecting an iso level manually (especially iso 50 which should be really less processing than"auto" would be.
---------- Post added at 09:53 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:50 AM ----------
ilovemyZ1 said:
After doing some more research I found the answer to our low-light camera problems! This trick works with all Sony phones and is easy to do.
What we need is this and this and image quality improves SIGNIFICANTLY!
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well, i have one of those and i can tell you that low light pictures on that are just as bad. a) it doesnt use the nice sony camera app. it uses the frankly rubbish Sony memories camera app which has next to nothing in terms of manual setting and b) you can't use a flash.
so no. it isnt the answer. at all.

ilovemyZ1 said:
haha maybe you should have got the QX100 instead
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maybe, but it was a freebie with my phone. i've used it a handful of times and its frankly crap.
might stick it on ebay later actually. i doubt the qx100 would be much better tbh as it'd still be using the same app. it'll still take about 30 seconds to connect the device to the phone and it'll still have the same crap wifi distance (about an arms length) before the phones viewfinder lags out badly.

thefunkygibbon said:
maybe, but it was a freebie with my phone. i've used it a handful of times and its frankly crap.
might stick it on ebay later actually. i doubt the qx100 would be much better tbh as it'd still be using the same app. it'll still take about 30 seconds to connect the device to the phone and it'll still have the same crap wifi distance (about an arms length) before the phones viewfinder lags out badly.
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The QX10 is pretty good in low light, the QX100 will be better with the large sensor and 1.8 aperture at the wide end.
Nothing can help the lack of flash for certain situations, but a lot of it comes from learning the camera.
Wifi isn't amazing, but it works further than that for me, and through walls. I'm trying to think of new ways to use that style of camera and have been experimenting.
Sent from my C6903 using Tapatalk now Free

Camera images are blurred.

Image looks clear and sharp before pressing the shutter but for some reason after it has took the shot and i view it's not as sharp and is slightly blurry, anyone notice this, steady hand by the way so it's not shaking that's for sure.

Ady1976 said:
Image looks clear and sharp before pressing the shutter but for some reason after it has took the shot and i view it's not as sharp and is slightly blurry, anyone notice this, steady hand by the way so it's not shaking that's for sure.
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Yes a little.
It helped if I pressed on the subject I wanted in focus, if that makes sense?

Ry2mkk said:
Yes a little.
It helped if I pressed on the subject I wanted in focus, if that makes sense?
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Manually focus (press the subject) is always recommended.

Yes that help a bit, so the autofocus is off or these cameras are not as detailed as they're saying, starting to lose faith in this phone, don't want to keep hold of it too long waiting for software that may or not fix these issues because it may not be accepted back.

Blurry or not in focus? These are two different problems. One is caused by lack of OIS \ hand movement, the other is just focus lock miss (can be corrected by tapping the object before).

galr said:
Blurry or not in focus? These are two different problems. One is caused by lack of OIS \ hand movement, the other is just focus lock miss (can be corrected by tapping the object before).
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I would say more not in focus than blurry even though edges of objects tend to fringe over and are a bit blurry depending on the shot. I get the manual focus thing, but what is the point of auto focus if it doesn't work correctly ? I don't have to manually focus shots on my cannon powershot sx 730 hs, I've never had an issue with focusing on any of my previous phones, hopefully it will be fixed in an update, even though there was already an update out the box with "camera optimisations" allegedly done, but obviously not quite right imo.

Another shot i just took if you look at the bottom of the mug where the text is, very clear in the viewfinder before the shot then after the shot suddenly gone out of focus, tried all settings no difference.

I find the photos of OP5 to be blurry too. They are way more blurrier than 3T.
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Ady1976 said:
Another shot i just took if you look at the bottom of the mug where the text is, very clear in the viewfinder before the shot then after the shot suddenly gone out of focus, tried all settings no difference.
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Are you taking photos in portrait mode? It seems like bokeh effect.

I've a quick question..since we're talking of cameras did you notice that in pro mode you'll have to tilt the phone slightly to the left in order to achieve a balanced line (as in the line turns green signalling the camera is balanced)? I tried keeping it straight in a table but the it always shows it's imbalanced...can anyone confirm? I really really hope I don't have a faulty piece...

Ok guys done more testing, it definitely is not focusing correctly, just gone to pro mode and left everything on auto but just adjusted the focus manually and it's way better. So all i can think of what is happening is after you take the shot in auto mode it's knocking the focus off slightly, look at the box of toys in manual focus then the other, also look at the numbers on the train then my manual focus version.
Edit, quality has changed slightly since uploading to xda.

Areebanwar said:
I've a quick question..since we're talking of cameras did you notice that in pro mode you'll have to tilt the phone slightly to the left in order to achieve a balanced line (as in the line turns green signalling the camera is balanced)? I tried keeping it straight in a table but the it always shows it's imbalanced...can anyone confirm? I really really hope I don't have a faulty piece...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you you have to tilt slightly to the left then yes just noticed that myself.

Ady1976 said:
Ok guys done more testing, it definitely is not focusing correctly, just gone to pro mode and left everything on auto but just adjusted the focus manually and it's way better. So all i can think of what is happening is after you take the shot in auto mode it's knocking the focus off slightly, look at the box of toys in manual focus then the other, also look at the numbers on the train then my manual focus version.
Edit, quality has changed slightly since uploading to xda.
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The difference is so marginal that i don`t see the difference between the 2 pics to be honest. Maybe its an issue for you but for me it looks like nitpicking. But you can wait for a firmware update or return/RMA the device.

Areebanwar said:
I've a quick question..since we're talking of cameras did you notice that in pro mode you'll have to tilt the phone slightly to the left in order to achieve a balanced line (as in the line turns green signalling the camera is balanced)? I tried keeping it straight in a table but the it always shows it's imbalanced...can anyone confirm? I really really hope I don't have a faulty piece...
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Click to collapse
gee2012 said:
The difference is so marginal that i don`t see the difference between the 2 pics to be honest. Maybe its an issue for you but for me it looks like nitpicking. But you can wait for a firmware update or return/RMA the device.
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It's marginal on here because xda has compressed the images so the focused one looks worse than it should.

Ady1976 said:
It's marginal on here because xda has compressed the images so the focused one looks worse than it should.
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Maybe share the pics on google drive to see the difference.

Okay thank you! I doubt it's a manufacturing defect..probably the software. Someone with a keen eye(unlike myself) could take a look at the camera module to see if it's a little shifted downwards...I feel so..I maybe(hopefully) wrong though!
And yes, I compared the photos/viewfinder with 3t.. it's pretty blurry! The EIS doesn't seem to kick in...

Ok 2 original images on zip, manual vs auto, don't use Google drive but here's originals in zip format.

Areebanwar said:
Okay thank you! I doubt it's a manufacturing defect..probably the software. Someone with a keen eye(unlike myself) could take a look at the camera module to see if it's a little shifted downwards...I feel so..I maybe(hopefully) wrong though!
And yes, I compared the photos/viewfinder with 3t.. it's pretty blurry! The EIS doesn't seem to kick in...
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Yep I'm not going insane then, just blurry out of focus shots a lot.

Last example, good lighting, I've labeled them in focus and out of focus in zip, look at the numbers and look look at the coloured buttons at the top of the train, I'm not saying it's much but I've seen enough to see pro mode manual focus is better to my eyes.

Ady1976 said:
Last example, good lighting, I've labeled them in focus and out of focus in zip, look at the numbers and look look at the coloured buttons at the top of the train, I'm not saying it's much but I've seen enough to see pro mode manual focus is better to my eyes.
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I know that your evidence points to your conclusion, but I can assure you that the focus is not the culprit here.
The issue is the postprocessing. OnePlus uses a muli-picture postprocessing to remove noise.
When you switch to manual mode, the amount of postprocessing used is highly minimized, because it is of course supposed to be a manual mode.
This is the exact same behavior the OP3/T has.
Check this video I did a while ago and keep in mind that nothing has changed since then and this is still happening on my device in auto-mode, mostly in artifical / dim lighting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbn9Lj6F6EM
Try for yourself by quickly going into the preview after taking the picture (although the OP5 processing might be faster).
Also, check the exif data in your photos!
The "in-focus" photo uses only half the ISO (320) and half the shutter speed (1/25s) compared to the "out-of-focus" photo with ISO 640 and 1/50s in auto-mode.
The out of focus photo should be at least as sharp, due to the quicker shutter-speed, but the higher ISO + postprocessing kills it!
The same applies to your first comparison (manual focus.jpg vs auto focus.jpg).
ISO is higher in auto-mode -> software applies more postprocessing due to more noise -> picture is killed
So after a year since the OP3's release nothing changed and the software still suffers from the same problems.
Really disappointing!

AcmE85 said:
I know that your evidence points to your conclusion, but I can assure you that the focus is not the culprit here.
The issue is the postprocessing. OnePlus uses a muli-picture postprocessing to remove noise.
When you switch to manual mode, the amount of postprocessing used is highly minimized, because it is of course supposed to be a manual mode.
This is the exact same behavior the OP3/T has.
Check this video I did a while ago and keep in mind that nothing has changed since then and this is still happening on my device:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbn9Lj6F6EM
Try for yourself by quickly going into the preview after taking the picture (although the OP5 processing might be faster).
Also, check the exif data in your photos!
The "in-focus" photo uses only half the ISO (320) and half the shutter speed (1/25s) compared to the "out-of-focus" photo with ISO 640 and 1/50s in auto-mode.
The out of focus photo should be at least as sharp, due to the quicker shutter-speed, but the postprocessing kills it!
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Interesting i shall check this out, but if that's the case why use so much processing in auto mode ? Why don't they leave the processing as the manual mode in auto mode when it is clearly much better ? I just don't get it.