Database Users

Annoyances

I love my Galaxy Camera and to be fair there isn't a great deal wrong with it but I thought I would share just a few niggles I have found that I hope Samsung could improve on.
1) is the prompt on a cold boot asking if you want to use the external SD card as the default storage. Make it the default permanently (just like you can on a smartphone).
2) is the default action of extending the lens when you turn on the camera. It's handy for a quicker shot I agree but it worries me that the barrel might get damaged that time you accidently turn it on in inside a bag or coat or the annoyance of sending the camera off balance as you hold it to check your emails. I believe a setting to toggle this feature on and off could be implemented.
3) the setting for voice activated camera functions is not remembered. You know when you frantically keep saying "Cheese" only to find it's turned itself off.
4) the default keyboard is reset to stock keyboard on a cold boot. I prefer Swiftkey but have to reset this every time I cold boot.
5) the cover on the USB port is fiddly to remove to charge the camera. I agree there should be some sort of cover as it would be ugly without one, but it's a pain to open and the flap gets in the way of the cable. I am sure a slightly better design could be found.
6) no auto screen brightness setting.
7) for such an expensive camera, why wasn't some sort of case included in the box?
These aren't major issues and the Pro's outway the Con's in abundance. I just thought I would share my observations to anyone interested and maybe add your own. Perhaps someone at Samsung might even take them on board!

apprentice said:
I love my Galaxy Camera and to be fair there isn't a great deal wrong with it but I thought I would share just a few niggles I have found that I hope Samsung could improve on.
1) is the prompt on a cold boot asking if you want to use the external SD card as the default storage. Make it the default permanently (just like you can on a smartphone).
2) is the default action of extending the lens when you turn on the camera. It's handy for a quicker shot I agree but it worries me that the barrel might get damaged that time you accidently turn it on in inside a bag or coat or the annoyance of sending the camera off balance as you hold it to check your emails. I believe a setting to toggle this feature on and off could be implemented.
3) the setting for voice activated camera functions is not remembered. You know when you frantically keep saying "Cheese" only to find it's turned itself off.
4) the default keyboard is reset to stock keyboard on a cold boot. I prefer Swiftkey but have to reset this every time I cold boot.
5) the cover on the USB port is fiddly to remove to charge the camera. I agree there should be some sort of cover as it would be ugly without one, but it's a pain to open and the flap gets in the way of the cable. I am sure a slightly better design could be found.
6) no auto screen brightness setting.
7) for such an expensive camera, why wasn't some sort of case included in the box?
These aren't major issues and the Pro's outway the Con's in abundance. I just thought I would share my observations to anyone interested and maybe add your own. Perhaps someone at Samsung might even take them on board!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just received my Galaxy Camera today and I have to say I am very impressed with it. Setup was a breeze (I'm used to Android) and I was up and snapping pretty quickly. Without reading the non existent manual (I downloaded a PDF version from Samsung) I was able to take pictures MUCH better than I did with my previous S3, or my current Nexus 4, all on Auto settings (which is good as I know nothing about cameras).
I would agree about the annoyances, but I know about most of them before I even got the camera, and I personally don't think they are enough to put someone off buying this camera.

point 1: I think this is exactly the same as on smartphones right now, but on smartphones you rarely open the camera app before the memory card is mounted.
if the camera app would start after the memory card is mounted it would probably remember your previous setting, but because it's the first app to start it will always revert to internal storage.
point 4: not specifically a galaxy camera problem.
I have smart keyboard pro installed, and its always smart keyboard pro that pops up.
I haven't seen the Samsung keyboard since the day I got my camera.
point 6: this is something they can't add anymore.
the galaxy camera has no light or proximity sensors so it has to rely on the camera sensor for brightness, which is only really doable in the camera app(which is also the only place where you have automatic brightness)

Point 2
Enable swipe screen in settings.
Sent from my SGS3 using Tapatalk
ROM Sotmax Ultimate V10
Kernel Yank555.lu-V2.8d

corrsea said:
Point 2
Enable swipe screen in settings.
Sent from my SGS3 using Tapatalk
ROM Sotmax Ultimate V10
Kernel Yank555.lu-V2.8d
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ha! I hadn't thought of that.. thanks that's one problem solved.

corrsea said:
Point 2
Enable swipe screen in settings.
Sent from my SGS3 using Tapatalk
ROM Sotmax Ultimate V10
Kernel Yank555.lu-V2.8d
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the tip.

But there's more...
- if the tiny lens cover gets wet (one or two raindrops are enough) it doesn't shut properly anymore
- the gallery app is extremely slow if you have more than just 10 folders. I have about 40 picture folders on dropbox and as the app syncs all the folders it takes ages to scroll through them
- the media service grows and grows until the internal memory is full, I had to delete its data several times already
- user expericience is not consistent: in the gallery there are no Android buttons, for going back to a previous page/folder you need to reach up to the upper edge of the screen for the return or home buttons
- the zoom rocker should be more sensitive or even two-staged. The steps the barrel does now are too big in my opinion.
- there should be a WB option in Auto mode.
Except the first point those are all software related issues which might or might not be resolved in a future update....
Sent from my GT-P6800 using XDA Premium HD app

paulikxp said:
But there's more...
- the gallery app is extremely slow if you have more than just 10 folders. I have about 40 picture folders on dropbox and as the app syncs all the folders it takes ages to scroll through them
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can recommend QuickPic. Very snappy gallery app.

Ezzy77 said:
I can recommend QuickPic. Very snappy gallery app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I'm not mistaken QuickPic doesn't support Dropbox... And that's crucial with all my important pictures being there.

Camera: can't focus near objects. No macro mode?!

Guys, I didn't find the macro mode inside camera setting and the auto focus simply can't focus when I try to shoot an object near the camera, differently from Note I and Note II. Even on Galaxy S II the focus of near objects is better.
It's like impossible to take detailed near pictures, I always need a minimal distance of about 20 centimeters.
Any workaround except from installing a third-party camera app?
Edit: The minimum distance needed to focus to work is about 20 centimeters. Less than this the camera simply can't focus!

viniciusrsouza said:
Guys, I didn't find the macro mode inside camera setting and the auto focus simply can't focus when I try to shoot an object near the camera, differently from Note I and Note II. Even on Galaxy S II the focus of near objects is better.
It's like impossible to take detailed near pictures, I always need a minimal distance of about 20 centimeters.
Any workaround except from installing a third-party camera app?
Edit: The minimum distance needed to focus to work is about 20 centimeters. Less than this the camera simply can't focus!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i have the same problem

I just tried and I must admit, that you are probably right.
Also there is no macro setting in the advanced options.
Is this software or hardware related ?
Edit:
Looks like its only software related as these guys are reporting to use another camera app

Sheeezy said:
I just tried and I must admit, that you are probably right.
Also there is no macro setting in the advanced options.
Is this software or hardware related ?
Edit:
Looks like its only software related as these guys are reporting to use another camera app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I already heard before that this was a software related issue. It's shamefully incredible that a powerful device comes with a basic feature messed up like on this case!

I used to have the same problem. but i found solution which is downloading alternative application for macro mode
i am now using FV-5 camera application which has macro mode. and it works pretty good as note 2 which i used before note 3
i recommend this app for whomever has been suffering from this issue.
in my opinion there is no problem in terms of soft or hard ware. i dare assume that samsung didn't add this function for some reason.

Camera with surround shot for Galaxy s4 lollypop

Is there finally at least one normal solution to get surround shot mode (aka photo sphere, 360 photo, vr panorama, orb) at samsung galaxy S4 GT-I9505? I want it to work fast, save images to SD card, use samsung camera's drivers.
Stock camera is well, but there is not such mode there. There is easy way to make surround panoramas, but it has some incomfortabilities:
There is Google camera, which has photo sphere mode, but it has poor settings and can only save pictures in internal storage, not on the SD card. Is it possible to make Google's camera to be a "system application" to be possible to write to sd?
Also I have found an easy solution to install apk from here. It is stock camera from google play edition smartphone. It do not requires root. It was for Android 4.2, but apk works normally on Lollipop. It also has poor settings and saves only on intermal storage.
It seems, that for making good pictures the solution (for me for now) is keeping stock camera with its cool features (autofocusing, animated picture, etc) and one of above cameras for spherical shots.
But also I wanted to ask, maybe there is a solution to port one of samsung's devices camera, which has surround mode to galaxy s4? I think that should be good, due to samsung are using specific hardware drivers for their camera and shots should be bettes quality.
I did a discovery about what cameras has such mode.
As I understand, Note 4 camera has no such mode. But Note 3 camera has.
In this thread they say that they ported Note 3 camera to sgs4. But it is for Android 4.4.2. Is it possible to install it on Lollypop? Because in that case I could keep only single camera application on smart phone.
I also tried that s5 camera port on stock lollypop 5.0.1, but it did not worked for me.
As I understand, in s5 and s6 cameras there is surround mode, but you need to separately download it from galaxy apps.
I tryed to install that ROM which include S6 camera, but in Galaxy apps there is no even one application. So is there a way for somebody extract needed apk from Galaxy apps store (by installing on their S6 for example and extract from file system) and publish it for s4 users?
So, exprienced developers, please help.

Lowering Camera Resolution

Hi!
Personally, I find 21 MP to be a bit excessive in terms of how much space pictures take up, so I'm wondering how I should downscale my pictures from this phone.
1. Lowering the resolution inside the camera app.
2. Get another app to shrink my pictures after I take them.
My concern is that if I set a lower resolution inside the camera app, I will only be using a portion of the pixels on the sensor or the app might use a really fast compression algorithm that produces low quality output. Does anyone know what really happens when you don't select the highest resolution inside the camera app?
Thanks in advance!)

I shoot in 16x9 which lowers resolution to ~16 mp

siyangqiu said:
1. Lowering the resolution inside the camera app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you're rooted then I can help you, if not then I can't.
If you are rooted you can enable developer options within the moto camera app (not to be confused with developer options within the phone settings).
There are a few ways to do it but the way I used was the xposed module "moto checkbox".
If you use it just go to camera options and enable development settings (it says something like that). Be sure to go to statusbar options and check " use AOSP icons" too, else it'll replace your data indicator icons.
Don't touch anything else within the module because it wasn't made for our phone. It sounds like a lot but it really isn't.
I think you can download a modified moto camera somewhere but this was the easiest way for me since I use xposed anyways. If you can find a modded apk then you won't need root I don't think.
Anyways, once you get it working there'll be a little ladybug looking button when you swipe out the settings wheel in the camera. Click it. From there you have access to lots of settings. You can change resolution like you want and it doesn't use crappy compression. You can do this for video too, and the camera preview itself, and much more. Here's some screenshots. Have fun :good:
Sent from my XT1575 using XDA Labs

Found it the apk! And apparently it works on most Android phones as well! Thanks!
http://www.phonearena.com/news/How-to-install-the-new-Moto-Camera-app-on-your-Android-phone_id76816

Alternatives to GCamera & Open Camera for S8 Exynos (SM-G950FD) Running LineageOS 18.1 ?

Yesterday I finally tried LineageOS 18.1, within 20 minutes I had it running on my Samsung Galaxy S8 ! It was the easiest, the fastest, and I can't stress how much I love it being so lightweight compared to my S8 pre-LineageOS. I can also see within a day, my battery is not dropping as much.
After playing it for a while, I realize the included camera app is not as great as the one from Samsung. Even my middle-range Samsung A50s phone's camera looks better than my S8 now. I tried to install several Google Camera Ports from this website for Samsung Galaxy S8 Exynos (SM-G950FD). List of GCamera Ports that I tried :
From Arnova8G2 (the most updated mod, tried both Version 7 and Version 6).
Original version 7 would work, but opening the camera took me 3-4 seconds. Changing between mode also took 3-4 seconds and both Portrait and NightVision Mode didn't work, there's no HDR options, and picture couldn't be stored as well.
Using .xml file provided, both Portrait & Nightvision mode still didn't work, I couldn't get 16:9 resolution as well, but I could at least store a picture and there's HDR options.
From burial (last update was from 2020), even with .xml settings provided, app keeps crashing.
From IDan (last update was from 2019), GCamera wouldn't even open.
I also tried to use Open Camera, however the quality was just as bad. And for some reasons, HDR wouldn't work. Instead of storing a single HDR image, it would store 3 different images with different exposures, but not combined into one HDR image.
If anything, the reason I bought my S8 primarily was because its camera quality. I feel like the OS is now perfect for my phone, I just need to find a nice, working camera app. Any camera app suggestions ?