I give up on this camera... - X Style (Pure) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

No matter what I do I can't seem to get a clear picture. Everything is blurry. I can't figure out if my expectations are just too high.....I came from an LG G4 but still. How are you guys getting good pictures? I'm talking 5% of the pictures I take are passable. Maybe I have a faulty camera? Anyone else find the camera to be garbage? I've looked through the camera threads and people seem happy overall. It can't just be me.
Sent from my XT1575 using XDA Free mobile app

Moto camera app sucks...did you try a different app?
Sent from my XT1572 using XDA Free mobile app

I tried Open Camera and am using Google camera currently. And I'm no Ansel Adams but I takes lot of pictures and have always been able to figure out how to take a decent shot on every device I've owned until this one.
Sent from my XT1575 using XDA Free mobile app

Are the pictures blurry or noisy?

They're blurry. That the thing, that's new to me. Good lighting with as steady a hand as I can muster still results in a blurry shot. I'll take one now and post if I can.
Sent from my XT1575 using XDA Free mobile app

This is probably a stupid suggestion, but have you tried just wiping the lens and making sure it's clean and clear? Honestly I've had that problem before where it's been smudged without my noticing and it obviously makes every picture screwed up. I know it's not likely, but something that's worth a shot I've found! Other than that I know nothing about cameras and coming from an HTC One I know nothing of a quality photo...

No, I agree with @jiggyb21, I just bought the Moxo X and came from the Galaxy S6. The camera on the Moto seems like pure garbage to me, and I think it's because we are coming from phones with superior cameras. People who came from phones with worse cameras will obviously think the Moto X camera is great right?

I don't have the steadiest of hands, but I haven't run into a problem like what you are describing. Have you given some thought that you might have a faulty device? It uses phase detection for focus, so if every picture is blurry you may have an issue with the actual camera module.

I've tried a few camera apps, and though pics come out good, man do I really have to keep a steady hand. Move it a hair and any text blurs. Why not lean it up against something to take your handling out of equation and voice command take pic and see what comes up.
Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk 2

It would be nice if you could post some samples. I'm not in love with the camera but I have consistently been able to snap photos that are good enough quickly

I don't even know if I uploaded the pics correctly and if not I'll fix it later while I'm watching the Giants beat on the Eagles. Something interesting happened while taking these pictures. I am in 100% optimal lighting conditions and these are basically the best 4 shots I could possibly get out of this camera. I asked around to the people here on the jobsite with me and everyone thought the pictures were just fine. Yes, they aren't blurry to the point of being unreadable by any means but they are quite blurry. I guess it could just be me but I would still argue it's not. Before anyone says anything about how this is just a smartphone and it's only a $400 smartphone at that and it's good enough, I know that and maybe people who haven't used a good smartphone camera don't know what they're missing. If that's the case, fine, and that's why I started this thread was to find out. My last 4 phones were Xperia ZL, Z2, Z3 and LG G4. We all know the G4 and S6, to name two, have incredible cameras and have OIS. The first 3 I named weren't and don't. They were all rated as average cameras and they don't have OIS. I have hundreds of pictures taken in similar conditions with the Sonys and they didn't suffer from blur. Like I said these 4 pictures were surprisingly good IMO. Most I take are MUCH more blurred and most of the pictures I take aren't in this perfect a light. So I'll have to post more pictures from my collection at home to really show off the bad ones.
If you zoom in a little on the pics its almost a 3D art poster kind of eye strain. Again, I'm not talking about level of detail, just the blurriness.

I think part of the pictures of blurry because of shallow depth of field due to lower aperture setting in the software algorithm. It seems the software is trying to compress too much noise. Although I have not personally used it, try the following link for the alternative camera and report back the results. Hope this works out for you:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/moto-g/themes-apps/app-camera-galery-t3216944

trace1er said:
No, I agree with @jiggyb21, I just bought the Moxo X and came from the Galaxy S6. The camera on the Moto seems like pure garbage to me, and I think it's because we are coming from phones with superior cameras. People who came from phones with worse cameras will obviously think the Moto X camera is great right?
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Click to collapse
Not really. I have a DSLR so that's my standard on PQ. In daylight, nothing should be blurry at 100% zoom on even a $200 phone. You don't need flagship to take a good photo at 1/125 second shutter speed. It's either defective camera unit or something is wrong with the setting. Just look at all the photos people have posted on this forum.
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jiggyb21 said:
I don't even know if I uploaded the pics correctly and if not I'll fix it later while I'm watching the Giants beat on the Eagles. Something interesting happened while taking these pictures. I am in 100% optimal lighting conditions and these are basically the best 4 shots I could possibly get out of this camera. I asked around to the people here on the jobsite with me and everyone thought the pictures were just fine. Yes, they aren't blurry to the point of being unreadable by any means but they are quite blurry. I guess it could just be me but I would still argue it's not. Before anyone says anything about how this is just a smartphone and it's only a $400 smartphone at that and it's good enough, I know that and maybe people who haven't used a good smartphone camera don't know what they're missing. If that's the case, fine, and that's why I started this thread was to find out. My last 4 phones were Xperia ZL, Z2, Z3 and LG G4. We all know the G4 and S6, to name two, have incredible cameras and have OIS. The first 3 I named weren't and don't. They were all rated as average cameras and they don't have OIS. I have hundreds of pictures taken in similar conditions with the Sonys and they didn't suffer from blur. Like I said these 4 pictures were surprisingly good IMO. Most I take are MUCH more blurred and most of the pictures I take aren't in this perfect a light. So I'll have to post more pictures from my collection at home to really show off the bad ones.
If you zoom in a little on the pics its almost a 3D art poster kind of eye strain. Again, I'm not talking about level of detail, just the blurriness.
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It's a f 2.0 lens. You gonna have blurriness around the edge of photo if you are taking it that close. It has nothing to do with OIS.
In any case, you can read the professional review of the XPE here.
http://www.dxomark.com/Mobiles/Moto-X-Style-Mobile-review-Style-and-Substance

If you're in good light, this is arguably one of the best phone cameras out there. Your pictures should be nice and crisp. Try this: take your camera outside during the day and take a few shots of the horizon or something. Then post the pictures here and we'll tell you (hopefully) if you've got a faulty unit. It sounds like your phone is not performing as mine is. I'm even satisfied with some indoor shots with this camera. I have done professional photography, so I am well-versed in cameras (color, WB, ISO, exposure, f-stop, etc.).
Even from reading reviews and comparisons from the web and tech reviewers, this camera performs with, and sometimes beats the other current flagship models out there. I happen to agree with them. From reading this thread though, maybe your camera isn't the only one with this problem.
Anyway, try to post a couple of pictures up. A link to an external host like photobucket or something like that would probably be better than uploading straight to XDA, due to compression and size limits.
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Edit: looks like I missed a page
Those photos don't look that bad. What sort of blurriness are you talking about? The bokeh from taking close up pictures? Bokeh is a natural blurring effect you get from a larger aperature lens not being able to capture the entire depth of field. That's normal. The focused part of those pictures don't look blurry to me.
As an aside, any indoor shot will not be optimal lighting, unless you have a lighting kit or something to really brighten up the scene. Optimal lighting would be outside, and when the sun is not directly overhead. This is a very quick summation of optimal light, but you get the point.

Gr8man001 said:
I think part of the pictures of blurry because of shallow depth of field due to lower aperture setting in the software algorithm. It seems the software is trying to compress too much noise. Although I have not personally used it, try the following link for the alternative camera and report back the results. Hope this works out for you:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/moto-g/themes-apps/app-camera-galery-t3216944
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Click to collapse
Wow, thanks, that camera works great, I always enjoy having the face detection feature it makes focusing on faces much faster.

Gr8man001 said:
I think part of the pictures of blurry because of shallow depth of field due to lower aperture setting in the software algorithm. It seems the software is trying to compress too much noise. Although I have not personally used it, try the following link for the alternative camera and report back the results. Hope this works out for you:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/moto-g/themes-apps/app-camera-galery-t3216944
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your tip. After turning off NR in advanced setting, I tried a couple of indoor shots of some writings on my note book. Please excuse the terrible lighting and my bad handwriting, but it's very easy to tell which shot had the NR off. Yes the one with NR off has a dirtier background, but the pen strokes has much better contrast from the paper. That's probably one of the reasons why the default setting produces blurry photos.

Yea when taking photos of dogs in low light I only managed to have 1 or 2 come out bad and that was from me moving the phone. But then again I am used to shooting 50asa film freehand.

lack of optical image stabilization rearing it's ugly head.. who knows why the hell they couldn't use a sensor with it, but it's quite disappointing. but turning off nr helps a lot.. we need a dev to come in and work on a true camera mod for this phone only. I tried to get my bud xdabbeb to make a mod (as anyone who had the g2 knows his xcam mod was killer!) but he isn't planning on buying this phone. ugh.
Sent from my Moto X Pure Edition

jonathanbailie said:
If you're in good light, this is arguably one of the best phone cameras out there. Your pictures should be nice and crisp. Try this: take your camera outside during the day and take a few shots of the horizon or something. Then post the pictures here and we'll tell you (hopefully) if you've got a faulty unit. It sounds like your phone is not performing as mine is. I'm even satisfied with some indoor shots with this camera. I have done professional photography, so I am well-versed in cameras (color, WB, ISO, exposure, f-stop, etc.).
Even from reading reviews and comparisons from the web and tech reviewers, this camera performs with, and sometimes beats the other current flagship models out there. I happen to agree with them. From reading this thread though, maybe your camera isn't the only one with this problem.
Anyway, try to post a couple of pictures up. A link to an external host like photobucket or something like that would probably be better than uploading straight to XDA, due to compression and size limits.
---------- Post added at 04:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:42 PM ----------
Edit: looks like I missed a page
Those photos don't look that bad. What sort of blurriness are you talking about? The bokeh from taking close up pictures? Bokeh is a natural blurring effect you get from a larger aperature lens not being able to capture the entire depth of field. That's normal. The focused part of those pictures don't look blurry to me.
As an aside, any indoor shot will not be optimal lighting, unless you have a lighting kit or something to really brighten up the scene. Optimal lighting would be outside, and when the sun is not directly overhead. This is a very quick summation of optimal light, but you get the point.
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Thank you and this is why I wanted feedback. I posted the pictures I did (close-up), because, to me, they were the most objectifiable shots I could take while at work. The text just isn't as clear as other shots I've taken with other phones. I called it optimal lighting because I was in a 6x6 room with three windows and a skylight on a sunny day with no direct sunlight. The lighting felt like the kind any decent camera would take advantage of. To me, that's optimal..but I understand that's a strong word and not scientific. The fact that it scores so highly in professional reviews is what has me frustrated. The only thing I can deduce is that a professional, lab environment is more controlled and repeatable than my layman's point and shoot approach. They must be using a tripod, right? This phone has everything else I want and I just want to like the camera. So believe me, I want to figure out how to enjoy the camera. I will take more shots tomorrow and post them and I hope you and others with knowledge will chime in. I just know that with the other smartphone cameras I mentioned earlier, 8 out of 10 shots were keepers and with this one it's more like 1 out of 10 and that's not jiving with everyone else. Thanks again.
Sent from my XT1575 using XDA Free mobile app

looking at the pictures, they seem just fine to me. the blurred part (glue) at the bottom of the bottle is just from it using a wide aperture. the images are not tack sharp but this is a cellphone camera and small dof. I dont see motion blur.
problem with auto cameras is that you dont know what priority it has. to use a wide aperture to get a decent shutter speed and not have to use high iso or the opposite.
for proper exposure you have to adjust and juggle the 3 parameters (iso/aperture/shutter) to get a proper image.
wish the phone had controls like the LG G4 which has aperture iso shutter WB and EC.

Related

[PHOTOS] Trip to Japan with the HTC One Camera - Pushing the Limits of the Camera

Hi all,
TL;DR - Pretty pictures taken with the HTC One here: Click
I've been very interested in the HTC One's camera ever since it was announced, as I believe that the philosophy behind the trade-offs made in its design are a step forward for the mobile phone camera industry.
I've recently returned from a trip to Japan and as an experiment, used the HTC One as my only camera (clearly not because my P&S was stolen two years ago!). I have taken nearly 8,000 shots over the 14 days I was in Japan and after nearly a hundred (if not more) hours spent in post-processing, I think I have a decent set of pictures.
I have annotated some of the pictures in a travel-journalistic manner. If you are a experienced traveller, I am probably not saying anything you do not already know. If you have never been to Japan, I hope they provide you with some insights.
A few observations I've made in the process of shooting said pictures:
The wide angle lens on the HTC One is wonderfully versatile, especially for landscape and architecture shots. Framing the shot is effortless and as it turns out, of utmost importance.
The most controversial aspect of the One's camera, the 4MP resolution does come with a very real drawback. You have little room in post-production to recover a badly framed shot. Cropping in post-production is often an unhappy compromise as you are left with less room to compensate for noise and blur. I would hazard to say that shooting with only the One for an extended period of time may be a great way to improve your composition skills.
The HTC One's camera software and auto-focus is fast and responsive, you can compose, re-focus/expose and shoot in a blink of an eye, which is something I took advantage of to take the multiple exposures required for the HDR pictures.
While no aspect of the HTC One's camera is exceptional, the package of a very fast f2.0 lens, optical image stabilization and above average sensor sensitivity means that vis-a-vis other mobile phone cameras, you will nail shot after shot in daylight and have a decent chance of grabbing something usable in low-light.
Will I do something like this again? Unlikely. The next time I can afford to travel, I will almost certainly be packing a decent camera. Do I regret the experience? Definitely not. Shooting with a camera like the One forces you to learn to frame your shots well. I like to think that technically, I am a decent photographer, but as far as composing a picture well, I have a long way to go.
Links to the various albums below. Sorry if you dislike Google+, but its easy to upload and annotate and it has a really clean interface. The albums are all public, so there is technically no need to sign in, but Google+ prompts you to login if you happen to be signed into another Google service. If you really want to avoid signing in, simply open the links in a incognito window.
If you are impatient, Kyoto and the Highlight albums are probably the best.
Comments, feedback and questions welcome. Wasn't sure if I should have created a new thread, if not, please merge into the photograph thread, thanks moderators.
Highlights
Tokyo (東京)
Odaiba (お台場)
Sensoji Shrine (浅草寺)
Meiji Shrine (明治神宮)
Tsukiji Fish Market (築地市場)
Hama-Rikyu Gardens (浜離宮恩賜庭園)
Osaka (大阪)
Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan (海遊館)
Nara (奈良市)
Himeji (姫路市)
Kyoto (京都)
Kanazawa (金沢)
Shibuya Scramble Crossing (Youtube Video)
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Photomatix Presets
edit: converted text to links
edit2: added link to timelapse of Shibuya scramble crossing
edit3: link to the photomatix presets I've used
Wow! Those are some very nice photos! Just goes to show how much power is behind our phone. It makes me want to go out and use my camera now.
Excellent shots! You clearly have a lot of talent! And that is some good post-processing too.
It would be great to know if you touched up the HDRs in post-production in anyway or are they mostly untouched?
ankanb said:
Excellent shots! You clearly have a lot of talent! And that is some good post-processing too.
It would be great to know if you touched up the HDRs in post-production in anyway or are they mostly untouched?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most of the HDR shots are not in-camera HDR shots, they are multiple pictures of the same shot combined in post.
Every picture has been touched up in post. The natural looking ones are probably just simple lighting/contrast adjustments, the surreal looking ones took more effort.
Love Japan. Absolutely love Kyoto. You took some really good shots
One thing I am a bit disappointed with is the amount of noise the camera has. (still love it hough)
Some of your shots (especially the HDR) are way too noisy for my liking, but that's a matter of taste or sometimes plain nitpicking.
Which settings did you mainly use?
Did you leave the phone in charge of most of the settings or did you do it manually?
I agree, you took some beautiful shots!
Makes me want to travel. Lol.
MartinS13X said:
Love Japan. Absolutely love Kyoto. You took some really good shots
One thing I am a bit disappointed with is the amount of noise the camera has. (still love it hough)
Some of your shots (especially the HDR) are way too noisy for my liking, but that's a matter of taste or sometimes plain nitpicking.
Which settings did you mainly use?
Did you leave the phone in charge of most of the settings or did you do it manually?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With respect to the noise, agreed. In most cases, with some work, as its only really bad for the uniform areas of the picture, the noise is entirely cleanable in post. But in most cases, I've chosen not to for effect. And the HDR process does tend to accentuate the noise and would typically not be visible if I had processed it for a natural look.
Still, it doesn't surprise me that much. I picked up a Fujifilm f100fd, a P&S as my last camera. It was supposed to be really good with low-light photography due to its excellent noise control. While clearly better then the HTC One, I found myself running into the same problems when post-processing the f100fd's shots vis the HTC One's shots. I think if you really want clean, low light shot, a DSLR/interchangeable lens camera with a fast prime lens is the only way to go, that or a tripod, depending on the picture you want.
Sharpness at -2 for virtually all the shots. Occasionally exposure at -1 is very useful, when you are sure that you can capture enough detail in a darker picture. You're essentially telling the camera, hey, I'm OK with a dark picture, take the next shot as fast as a shutter speed as you can. For that reason, almost all the aquarium shots are with exposure -1, as you don't really care about the walls of aquarium being properly exposed, you just want the fish exposed.
For the multiple shots needed for the HDR pictures, tapping at a bright spot, taking a picture, then quickly tapping at a dark spot, then taking another picture... The problem is that sometimes having the camera focus at a bright/dark spot means you screw up focus entirely.
The HTC One's backlight mode is incredibly useful when you want to take portrait shots with something bright in the background. I've used the landscape and HDR modes a few times, but I'm still not entirely sure what landscape mode gets me.
So... Long story short, normal mode, with sharpness at -2, with lots of tapping on the screen.
edit: oh, also, I manually flashed to 4.2.2, which meant that I had access to AF/AE lock. That came useful for the epic panorama of Himeji castle's surroundings.
Exposure -1 is indeed good in some cases. I've used that too.
I also want to try setting the ISO manually in dark photos as I believe there is room for lower ISO in some cases and the camera just increases it a lot.
I'm also not a fan of noisy, instagram-y photos like some of yours but you have some very nice shots.
I saw a link with a timelapse video. What's the deal with that? Is it yours?
Ooops, error.
Corduroy-21 said:
Exposure -1 is indeed good in some cases. I've used that too.
I also want to try setting the ISO manually in dark photos as I believe there is room for lower ISO in some cases and the camera just increases it a lot.
I'm also not a fan of noisy, instagram-y photos like some of yours but you have some very nice shots.
I saw a link with a timelapse video. What's the deal with that? Is it yours?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The timelapse video is mine yes. If it helps, the noise is inherent in the picture, and not added for "authenticity"
edit: I think the One generally makes good decisions when it comes to ISO, it priorities shutter speed over anything else, which I think, given the fact that in any low-light shot, you are going to get unhappy amounts of noise, is a good choice. A blurred shot is usually totally unusable.
shasderias said:
The timelapse video is mine yes.
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How did you do it?
Did you use the One?
Corduroy-21 said:
How did you do it?
Did you use the One?
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Yup. Sideloaded the stock android camera, used the timelapse function. Waited...
The pictures you have posted are just amazing.
Although I have a HTC One but I don't take much pictures. You have motivated me to take more pictures from this phone now.
The filters you have used in this are given ones or some other application for that?
Wow. I just went through every album. Those all turned out amazing.
Great pics! :good:
rahulwadhwani said:
The pictures you have posted are just amazing.
Although I have a HTC One but I don't take much pictures. You have motivated me to take more pictures from this phone now.
The filters you have used in this are given ones or some other application for that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No filters used, photos are all taken normally and edited in post. Photoshop for all editing, Photomatix for most of the HDR pictures.
shasderias said:
Yup. Sideloaded the stock android camera, used the timelapse function. Waited...
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Click to collapse
which timelapse function did you use? How come my phone doesnt have it?
aceonetwothree said:
which timelapse function did you use? How come my phone doesnt have it?
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Click to collapse
I didn't use the HTC One's camera app, I sideloaded the camera app from stock android (the one with photosphere) to do the timelapse.
Incidentally, the photospheres for some reason, turned out super low-res.
How do you manage to take photos with the phone using 3 exposure values, going into the menu and changing the value after each photo while keeping the phone perfectly still?
Love these! The Shibuya Scramble pictures gave me to flashbacks to The World Ends With You.

Photographer's perspective on the LG G3

These topics have been widely discussed, I just find this funny. I do professional photography, and I thought this phone would be great for me. Not only could I show off my photos on a glorious 2k screen, but it was supposed to have a great off-duty camera as well. Ironically, it's instead hitting some photographer pet peeves real bad.
1) The screen sharpening is bad. I see amateur photographers get over enthusiastic on sharpening, cause the sharper the better, right? No, you make ugly artifacts like halos. Now my entire phone does it nonstop. It hurts! This goes beyond the font issue that's widely been talked about. I love viewing photos through my Nexus 7 or HTC M7 because it's like looking through a window. Photos on the G3 just look artifical.
2) Another is the camera noise reduction. Noise is bad, so let's crank the noise reduction. No, some grain and more detail is much preferable to pics that look like watercolors.
3) I knew this one going in, but as the Andantech review pointed out, the color accuracy is bad. I can spend time editing a photo on my phone and paste it to Facebook, just to realize once I'm viewing on a pc that the pic looks nothing like my meticulous edit. Great.
I know I'm hypersensitive to these issues because of my profession. My wife didn't notice the sharpening. But it's funny that what I thought would be my ideal phone is such the opposite.
supposedmonster said:
3) I knew this one going in, but as the Andantech review pointed out, the color accuracy is bad. I can spend time editing a photo on my phone and paste it to Facebook, just to realize once I'm viewing on a pc that the pic looks nothing like my meticulously edit. Great.
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Click to collapse
How long ago was last time you calibrated your PC monitor? Does your monitor have sRGB mode? And, BTW, maybe you even use some notebook with cheap junky TN panel in the first place? :laugh:
I use an ASUS PA246 wide gamut monitor regularly calibrated with a Colormunki Display, so yes, I have a good benchmark.
Sent from my LG-D851 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
supposedmonster said:
so yes, I have a good benchmark.
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Click to collapse
Glad for you, well then did you try to compare pix from the net to view both on monitor and on G3 and compare colors? Like I did
Check that topic also, maybe you bought G3 with blueish panel
Man this was not an easy shot to pull off. It's hard to tell from the pic, but LG is on the left and Nexus 7 is on the bottom. The LG would equate to quite a few notches of saturation boost in Lightroom.
This photo doesn't quite show it well, but the Nexus is actually slightly less saturated than the calibrated monitor.
The colors aren't that bad in either devices (I mean you can only expect so much, I get these aren't meant to be crazy calibrated panels), but I'd rather edit on the Nexus and find them slightly more vibrant on other devices than on the LG and find it decidedly dull.
Sent from my LG-D851 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
supposedmonster said:
These topics have been widely discussed, I just find this funny. I do professional photography, and I thought this phone would be great for me. Not only could I show off my photos on a glorious 2k screen, but it was supposed to have a great off-duty camera as well. Ironically, it's instead hitting some photographer pet peeves real bad.
1) The screen sharpening is bad. I see amateur photographers get over enthusiastic on sharpening, cause the sharper the better, right? No, you make ugly artifacts like halos. Now my entire phone does it nonstop. It hurts! This goes beyond the font issue that's widely been talked about. I love viewing photos through my Nexus 7 or HTC M7 because it's like looking through a window. Photos on the G3 just look artifical.
2) Another is the camera noise reduction. Noise is bad, so let's crank the noise reduction. No, some grain and more detail is much preferable to pics that look like watercolors.
3) I knew this one going in, but as the Andantech review pointed out, the color accuracy is bad. I can spend time editing a photo on my phone and paste it to Facebook, just to realize once I'm viewing on a pc that the pic looks nothing like my meticulous edit. Great.
I know I'm hypersensitive to these issues because of my profession. My wife didn't notice the sharpening. But it's funny that what I thought would be my ideal phone is such the opposite.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm just curious about number 3 up there, and I'm not trying to be an ass, but why would any professional photographer spend time editing a photo on a phone meticulously, instead of putting the photo on the PC and editing it with PS? I mean, if you edit it with the PC, its a lot easier, and you also get a WYSIWYG.
Haha, well my camera has WiFi. When in on vacation it's fun being able to post professional quality pics to social media from my phone.
Sent from my LG-D851 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
The G3 display can be somewhat manually adjusted in color contrast, did you tweak it a bit? Maybe it'll improve.
Thanks, I have read about that. Without being able to use a preview image to calibrate I think it'd drive me crazy. Plus I doubt it'll help because it seems to only adjust color and contrast, not saturation, which is the bigger issue.
What bugs me more though is the sharpening, but I have faith that'll be fixed either by LG or the community since enough people have raised a hallaboo.
Sent from my LG-D851 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
I can live with the screen sharpening (since it's all software and don't affect the photos themselves). I can also live with so-so color reproduction. But gawd, that NR pisses me off. What's the point of having a good sensor when you're gonna mess up the photos with mediocre processing. That being said... photos still look pretty decent in good lighting ;P
supposedmonster said:
These topics have been widely discussed, I just find this funny. I do professional photography, and I thought this phone would be great for me. Not only could I show off my photos on a glorious 2k screen, but it was supposed to have a great off-duty camera as well. Ironically, it's instead hitting some photographer pet peeves real bad.
1) The screen sharpening is bad. I see amateur photographers get over enthusiastic on sharpening, cause the sharper the better, right? No, you make ugly artifacts like halos. Now my entire phone does it nonstop. It hurts! This goes beyond the font issue that's widely been talked about. I love viewing photos through my Nexus 7 or HTC M7 because it's like looking through a window. Photos on the G3 just look artifical.
2) Another is the camera noise reduction. Noise is bad, so let's crank the noise reduction. No, some grain and more detail is much preferable to pics that look like watercolors.
3) I knew this one going in, but as the Andantech review pointed out, the color accuracy is bad. I can spend time editing a photo on my phone and paste it to Facebook, just to realize once I'm viewing on a pc that the pic looks nothing like my meticulous edit. Great.
I know I'm hypersensitive to these issues because of my profession. My wife didn't notice the sharpening. But it's funny that what I thought would be my ideal phone is such the opposite.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am sorry but you have me totally confused.......
I agree the G3 does have over sharpening which depending on how and what you shoot can have detrimental effects on the scene shot.
However, why on earth are you getting so annoyed with what is in effect simply a smartphone camera sensor?
Although I do not take photos as a profession I have however owned a camera since... Hang on a second......1963. Throughout time I learned many various methods and art in photography, travelling the world shooting all manner of photos with compacts and SLR's to the more recent DSLR and smartphone.
Yet, there is no way on earth would I take a professional shot with a smartphone nor would I expect it to achieve something which could be of use in a professional manner.
I do apologies but it does annoy me when I hear from someone first stating they are a 'professional' and use this word as their basis for a debate.
If you have an issue with the G3, fine I can live with that as you are very much correct, certain aspects of the software could be improved but let us not forget.
1. It is a smartphone.
2. It is software which means if you do not like the camera app that controls the shooting then use a different camera app.
I personally use the app 'A Better Camera' which is excellent.
I am sure as a professional photographer you must have heard of this app and learned the author is not just another coder but does have an understanding of photography.
With 'A Better Camera' as your tool you will find first it gives you back the manual controls and second it then allows you to be as creative as a smartphone will allow you.
Having said all this I have never ever ever been happy letting the camera dictate the shot but the G3 is the first type of camera that I am happy shooting 'casual photography' in auto mode.
Beards said:
I am sorry but you have me totally confused.......
I agree the G3 does have over sharpening which depending on how and what you shoot can have detrimental effects on the scene shot.
However, why on earth are you getting so annoyed with what is in effect simply a smartphone camera sensor?
Although I do not take photos as a profession I have however owned a camera since... Hang on a second......1963. Throughout time I learned many various methods and art in photography, travelling the world shooting all manner of photos with compacts and SLR's to the more recent DSLR and smartphone.
Yet, there is no way on earth would I take a professional shot with a smartphone nor would I expect it to achieve something which could be of use in a professional manner.
I do apologies but it does annoy me when I hear from someone first stating they are a 'professional' and use this word as their basis for a debate.
If you have an issue with the G3, fine I can live with that as you are very much correct, certain aspects of the software could be improved but let us not forget.
1. It is a smartphone.
2. It is software which means if you do not like the camera app that controls the shooting then use a different camera app.
I personally use the app 'A Better Camera' which is excellent.
I am sure as a professional photographer you must have heard of this app and learned the author is not just another coder but does have an understanding of photography.
With 'A Better Camera' as your tool you will find first it gives you back the manual controls and second it then allows you to be as creative as a smartphone will allow you.
Having said all this I have never ever ever been happy letting the camera dictate the shot but the G3 is the first type of camera that I am happy shooting 'casual photography' in auto mode.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Speaking of which, is it possible to set long exposure (for night shots with a tripod, for example) with A Better Camera? Other than the automatic "Night Shot"...
fabripav said:
Speaking of which, is it possible to set long exposure (for night shots with a tripod, for example) with A Better Camera? Other than the automatic "Night Shot"...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not presently...... But note, this is not the problem with the G3 or A Better Camera.
It is Android or should I say Google who limited the speed to just under 1sec.
However, under Android L all will change as among the 400+ camera api's introduced camera speed is one of them. So 'hopefully' developers will raise to the challenge and add this vital missing setting.
Beards said:
Not presently...... But note, this is not the problem with the G3 or A Better Camera.
It is Android or should I say Google who limited the speed to just under 1sec.
However, under Android L all will change as among the 400+ camera api's introduced camera speed is one of them. So 'hopefully' developers will raise to the challenge and add this vital missing setting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, can't wait for that update for many reasons, camera included.
It's weird though that the Oppo Find 7 camera (for example) has a shutter speed that goes up to 32 seconds. How did they manage to make it avalaible? The sensor is a simple Sony IMX214.
I wonder if all the features of Camera FV-5 work on the G3, anyone tried it yet? (my G3 has yet to arrive)
fabripav said:
Yeah, can't wait for that update for many reasons, camera included.
It's weird though that the Oppo Find 7 camera (for example) has a shutter speed that goes up to 32 seconds. How did they manage to make it avalaible? The sensor is a simple Sony IMX214.
I wonder if all the features of Camera FV-5 work on the G3, anyone tried it yet? (my G3 has yet to arrive)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Oppo Find 7's camera doesn't actually keep the lens open for 32 seconds, it does a trick similar to what Camera FV-5 does in that it takes a series of shots from a thumbnail (hence why it's small and lacks any detail).
Re your query on Camera FV-5 ~ everything with the exception of ISO works. With ISO the dials say it has altered ISO but when you take the shot you find it has altered nothing.
A Better Camera on the other hand does alter the settings and does apply them to the shot.
It's the only app out there which utilises all the manual controls that are open to write permission, this also includes AE and WB Lock which again no other camera app uses.
[/COLOR]
fabripav said:
Yeah, can't wait for that update for many reasons, camera included.
It's weird though that the Oppo Find 7 camera (for example) has a shutter speed that goes up to 32 seconds. How did they manage to make it avalaible? The sensor is a simple Sony IMX214.
I wonder if all the features of Camera FV-5 work on the G3, anyone tried it yet? (my G3 has yet to arrive)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes it does. I haven't tried the long exposure in FV-5 though.
Beards said:
Re your query on Camera FV-5 ~ everything with the exception of ISO works. With ISO the dials say it has altered ISO but when you take the shot you find it has altered nothing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Camera FV-5's ISO setting works fine for me.
ISO 100 1/60 F/2.4
http://i1.minus.com/iMbhMmPuhI3Es.JPG
ISO 1600 1/680 F/2.4
http://i7.minus.com/iNJO0u9CN5xvf.JPG
I'm a photographer (;P). I know what I'm talking about.
You have the D851 which is Tmob.. which doesnt have the sharpening effect.. at least anecdotally. same model i have and theres zero sharpening going on. the colors mind you are off, but its no galaxy S4 or G2.. but as was stated dont plan to edit on your phone and you wont be frustrated by using the wrong tool for the job.
dont bring a 400mm telephoto zoom to a job that requires a 35mm prime or vice versa.
Itaintrite said:
[/COLOR]
Yes it does. I haven't tried the long exposure in FV-5 though.
Camera FV-5's ISO setting works fine for me.
ISO 100 1/60 F/2.4
http://i1.minus.com/iMbhMmPuhI3Es.JPG
ISO 1600 1/680 F/2.4
http://i7.minus.com/iNJO0u9CN5xvf.JPG
I'm a photographer (;P). I know what I'm talking about.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really...... Thank you.
When was the App last updated?
Beards said:
Really...... Thank you.
When was the App last updated?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm using v1.7.3. Updated June 27th.
Itaintrite said:
I'm using v1.7.3. Updated June 27th.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great... I'll give it another go against A Better Camera; although ABC does have many more controls.

HTC One M9 Camera discussion (not for photo samples)

Albert Poon said:
May I ask you guys with M9 to take pics using manual mode? A tripod, phone holder, low ISO, long explosure to take some night views?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This was missing in the flickr album. Long exposure 1/4, 1/2 or 1s shots. And please use flickr so we can see exifs easily. board attachments and imgur strip exifs out. I notice the phonearena samples have no exifs in them at all.
Though i have to say i like this one. Just enough silhouette to set the mood.
ISO 80 and 1/40 WHAT!!! for late afternoon Seattle in winter. I can't tell if its HDR or not.
---------- Post added at 09:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:43 PM ----------
xxquicksh0txx said:
https://plus.google.com/10388377056...6126393456474303042&oid=103883770561517758752 Link to the beetle picture on his Google+ with a resolution of 1108 x 625. Definitely cropped/compressed
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Taken with VSCO cam, ISO 50, 1/268. So ample light.
Also used flash. Sharpness is set to soft.
A nice photo.
---------- Post added at 09:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:17 PM ----------
vegetaleb said:
Here a comparison of crop between M9 and Note 4 in not very low light conditions taken by the Tweakers review, you can clearly see the superiority of the Note 4 in the details like the logos of Goodyear and the wheel:
I know it's not final software but this M9 camera is giving the same results the SE C905 could give 6 years ago
M9
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"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
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Note 4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Note 4 is ISO 400, 1/10
M9 is ISO 640, 1/14
About half a f-stop difference.
What if the M9 tried to get that with ISO 300 ie ISO 200 +0.3 at 1/7 ? or go slower still ISO100+0.3 at 1/3 ? can't do these tricks with the note, slowest it will get is 1/8 and then its auto night mode kicks in which did not happen in this picture. S5 & note 4 have improved their low light capability over their predecessors in auto but i bet you can come close to matching it if not exceeding it with manual on m9.
Light in this shot is quite low btw.
th3 said:
This obsession is what makes every product better in every field, than its predecessor.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That pair is not as important as you think it is and that applies for all with good light.
Where this 'trounces' occurs is in low light. I've already said what needs to be done.
Without this obsession, there can be no better or worse product, and you'll still be saying "good enough" to the HTC Desire camera
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
with macros yeah i would because there is no difference there. I've seen three year old devices do excellent macros. Hint: macros are not a good demonstration of what the latest camera can do.
The only real innovation we've had in sensors is BSI over the last two years. More sensitive in low light. You couldn't do that with 2013 devices, m7 was the sole exception. The rest is processing, how much of it or lack thereof.
On a more general level the trick with these devices is to know when to compromise and when to be maximalist. There is no perfect device so what you end up with is what you can tolerate over what you cannot do without. Every device has this trade off. Unfortunately you are alone with making this decision. Unless you are lucky to find others whose requirements match yours closely. Now do you see why i said minor. its minor in a larger context.
What you're saying... 'Moving the goalpost' it's called. Common trick.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no tricks. calling it straight.
i don't trust auto.That on some devices its always flawless is a myth. auto goes wrong even on dslrs. what will you do then ? blame the device or your own ignorance. better to understand why and what went wrong and then fix it. and you can.
What i'm sensing here is an unwillingness to do so. That is something else.
Your opinion is not supported by the data we all have.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That does not make what i said wrong. Its up to people here to provide that data. particularly low light with manual.
Its right because i've seen the same done with numerous devices already. This is how cameras work. They need light.
Give them that and you get a good shot. simple.
---------- Post added at 10:19 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:14 AM ----------
tryfound said:
No, your whole post is invalid. I'm testing AUTO, feel free to grace us all with your superior photography skills when you get your M9.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
actually i should have said your tests were pointless and it was a waste of my time to go through them. test the note 4 in low light with manual in m9 that's what you should have done.
I wanted to see manual being used in the low light. You've got no excuses when the camera provides it. If you can't do that then its your problem not the m9.
bad auto does not mean bad camera. bad auto will be fixed. The Z1 took 3 months to get it right. What did people do, the lamers whined whereas the rest got busy with manual and got good shots from day 1.
make up your mind or sell.
---------- Post added at 10:45 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:19 AM ----------
vegetaleb said:
At last a camera comparison between M9 and Note4 http://www.phonearena.com/reviews/HTC-One-M9-vs-Samsung-Galaxy-Note-4_id3963/page/3
In daylight the Note 4 is significantly better, the M9 will smudge
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Show me smudge in daylight, i want to see how much. actually link the shots.
In low light even resized to 640x480 the M9 is very blurry and smudgy, the Note 4 is millions years ahead.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All the low light shots have the m9 using high iso in guess what auto. The reviewer did not even try manual and blurred one of the shots because he could not hold a 1/7.
Conclusion: unless you want to use your photos only from daylight situations and only resized to Facebook and other social medias (of course no crop at all) . you should consider the Note 4 as a very good choice of camera phone in every situations.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you realise that to display on a HD device you only need 1MP or on a full HD it only takes 2MP. Anything more than that gets resampled.
You don't let facebook or anybody else resize it you do it yourself then upload wherever.
tryfound said:
You're so full of yourself. How dare I waste your precious time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Look, you're not helping me, i'm helping you to help yourself as well as others in this thread.
Make up my mind or sell? Sell what? Some people here asked to see comparisons with the Note 4 and I gave them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And i'm pointing out why there were inadequate. They do not add anything above what reviews are saying.
I did not bother going through the imgur stuff since there are no exifs to see there. Assessing image quality let alone commenting without exifs is pointless.
To suggest that I should be tweaking manual settings on an M9 to achieve the quality of the Note 4's auto shots is beyond comprehension.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
auto shots are average x average, is this what people base their opinions on ?
manual means you take a test auto shot then see whether you can improve it in manual. That is how you will exceed what the reviews have shown and we get to see the best this camera can do. This is what any owner that wants to improve and exploit manual is going to do over time.
Why someone would not want to improve his shots is beyond my comprehension.
tryfound said:
Some more shots with the M9, large res then small res second. Had to use imgur because of filesize so these are compressed images, don't bother zooming for details, some of the higher res images I took have been reduced to a size smaller than the 'small' res images due to their original filesize, I guess that's imgur's way of compressing.
http://imgur.com/PeWfBMx
http://imgur.com/CNrpmW7
http://imgur.com/fOi00v3
http://imgur.com/dMQ1yXV
http://imgur.com/JmvdebB
http://imgur.com/MnF3Fue
http://imgur.com/2AtDjvr (HDR)
http://imgur.com/mP0g0aP (HDR)
http://imgur.com/NApwPvt
http://imgur.com/U8yHyuV
http://imgur.com/i04j8vr
http://imgur.com/1FPUAw7
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just looked at images and they look really good. I am surprised M9 managed to capture that pristine detail I never seen before. White balance too looks so great not like previously green tint that was all over images.
One thing I am not able to find is camera data in adobe bridge and also colour space is untagged. That usually happens when photo being stripped of exif data. Have you by any chance gave some editing to them?
Thanks
I agree with a pack that camera should perform to the best on auto. If it doesn't , software has to be optimised if it's not then it's engineers faults Or hardware limitations.
it applies to the majority of the smartphone photographers . People want point and shoot.Even being enthusiast photographer and love digging my camera and phone camera I hate when auto underperforms when I simply want to take my phone out of the pocket and shoot.Every enthusiast can tweak but that defeats AUTO purpose .
There are average performers good and very good. Unfortunately M9 is not very good.Good ? Maybe....if light is favourable...at the moment it is consistently weak in certain situations. The usual wash out reminded me of the spill that when lets say camera lens gets in the studio shot or outside and for this purpose hood is used . This is one of the speculations I come up with. Somehow HTC phones consistently suffer from that. Could be they have same team of engineers that can't find the key to successful Software optimization or not so decent hardware just guessing here. Being visualphile that particular trade off with HTC devices just kills me.
nebulaoperator said:
I agree with a pack that camera should perform to the best on auto. If it doesn't , software has to be optimised if it's not then it's engineers faults Or hardware limitations.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
.
I've seen this issue with other devices. xperias camera software was never quite ready at launch. Lots of bashing. Took them a few months to get it right. Mostly auto. Then shots come out with lower ISO which you could have got yourself if you tried. Image quality is better now. why ? iso is lower. So if auto is taking high iso then low iso will get you a better shot.
So when people say camera is not working its auto. No other issues i can see so far. They will fix it but in the mean time if manual settings are tweaked you will get the results you want today. Most do not know how to do that or worse do not want to.
it applies to the majority of the smartphone photographers . People want point and shoot.Even being enthusiast photographer and love digging my camera and phone camera I hate when auto underperforms when I simply want to take my phone out of the pocket and shoot.Every enthusiast can tweak but that defeats AUTO purpose .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
General advice i give to people who cant take photos is go with the koreans or apple. if you want more then look at others.
First time i came across an iphone camera after seeing the usual controls in nokias and android was wtf do i do with this. Some shots can't be got with auto. when there is no access to manual then you are stuck. take it or leave it. its only a phone camera, you're not supposed to do anything more. Who said so ?
Many people take shots and figuring out who is at fault is a tricky business. Of course the tendency is to blame the device but the person taking the shot is the most responsible, always.
There are average performers good and very good. Unfortunately M9 is not very good.Good ? Maybe....if light is favourable...at the moment it is consistently weak in certain situations.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Low light with auto. From what i've seen consistently boosts auto up. There are even night modes which to date i've not seen anybody even try. HELLO!
So auto is not picking these modes for some reason. Its a bug. But if you set it yourself then what is the result. Much better i bet.
The usual wash out reminded me of the spill that when lets say camera lens gets in the studio shot or outside and for this purpose hood is used .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A lens hood decreases lens flare and saturates colours. Take a shot in shade of a sunny area. If you're getting lens flare then its clearly user error. Not just with this device but with any. I would just use my hand out of camera to block some of the light or avoid unwanted reflections. Here is a good example
https://www.flickr.com/photos/palmsolo/sets/72157651089646798/with/16274675233/
cloudy day, massive light box in the sky. Colours are all rich. Which is best. i cannot tell
interestingly enough the low end devices suffer less from this problem because the sensors are not as sensitive. They can take good shots in awful bright light which would be washed out with more capable sensors. Not much use indoors though.
This is one of the speculations I come up with. Somehow HTC phones consistently suffer from that. Could be they have same team of engineers that can't find the key to successful Software optimization or not so decent hardware just guessing here. Being visualphile that particular trade off with HTC devices just kills me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The ones typically from what i've seen blow out the sky. They are a little more quirky in getting those blue skies. Overexposed. HDR is one way to do it but it can be tricked also. i remember this work around from the m8 forum where this guy pointed close to the sun to lock exposure and then recomposed back on the scene. The picture was remarkably better. You don't have to do this all the time only in certain situations.
Review on bunch of cameras.
Gizmodo: The Best Smartphone Camera: Samsung Galaxy S6 Edition. http://google.com/newsstand/s/CBIw4ZO08yA
tryfound said:
Some more shots with the M9, large res then small res second. Had to use imgur because of filesize so these are compressed images, don't bother zooming for details, some of the higher res images I took have been reduced to a size smaller than the 'small' res images due to their original filesize, I guess that's imgur's way of compressing.
http://imgur.com/PeWfBMx
http://imgur.com/CNrpmW7
http://imgur.com/fOi00v3
http://imgur.com/dMQ1yXV
http://imgur.com/JmvdebB
http://imgur.com/MnF3Fue
http://imgur.com/2AtDjvr (HDR)
http://imgur.com/mP0g0aP (HDR)
http://imgur.com/NApwPvt
http://imgur.com/U8yHyuV
http://imgur.com/i04j8vr
http://imgur.com/1FPUAw7
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
jauhien said:
Some yesterday snaps here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/we88grvt72bldy8/4PDA_REQUEST.zip?dl=0
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
One Twelve said:
.
Disclaimer: I should learn how to use quotes.
I've seen this issue with other devices. xperias camera software was never quite ready at launch. Lots of bashing. Took them a few months to get it right. Mostly auto. Then shots come out with lower ISO which you could have got yourself if you tried. Image quality is better now. why ? iso is lower. So if auto is taking high iso then low iso will get you a better shot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Whether it's ISO OIS or else it does not stop camera to perform well. Take A look at Iphone 6 it works wonders. Low light is not on the par with M7 m8. The thing you have to understand , strongly camera orientated phone should not come with a sticker on the box " want a better image use manual"
[/QUOTE]So when people say camera is not working its auto. No other issues i can see so far. They will fix it but in the mean time if manual settings are tweaked you will get the results you want today. Most do not know how to do that or worse do not want to.[/QUOTE]
A lot people say because AUTO doesn't work. Why would I have buy "they will fix it" if I pay 500-600 GBP for a phone. It doesn't work like that. And in most cases software improved performance but only to a point .I own M7 and know it's weaknesses.And I don't want to use manual though I know my phone from inside to outside.
[/QUOTE]General advice i give to people who cant take photos is go with the koreans or apple. if you want more then look at others.
First time i came across an iphone camera after seeing the usual controls in nokias and android was wtf do i do with this. Some shots can't be got with auto. when there is no access to manual then you are stuck. take it or leave it. its only a phone camera, you're not supposed to do anything more. Who said so ?
Many people take shots and figuring out who is at fault is a tricky business. Of course the tendency is to blame the device but the person taking the shot is the most responsible, always.[/QUOTE]
I saw ifone users don't even know AE/AF lock exist till I showed. Iphone 6 has the simplest UI that can be invented I also call it Dummy proof. I think you can get an app to have access to tweaks option otherwise it's a bit limited to my taste. I can blame phone camera without long hesitation for two reasons: if hardware sucks or software or both. Then no amount of tweaks can help you. M7 is notorious for washouts, poor dynamic range. I found HDR was never a strong suite of M7 neither M8 or M9. However if you can tweak settings you might get away bringing images to photoshop. That's what I do. On the other hand only minority people are enthusiast like we are and the majority should be at least faulted for what smartphone manufacturer didn't do in the first place. If iphone , nokia, samsung(from 2014) proved there is a lot more that can be done with camera.
[/QUOTE]Low light with auto. From what i've seen consistently boosts auto up. There are even night modes which to date i've not seen anybody even try. HELLO!
So auto is not picking these modes for some reason. Its a bug. But if you set it yourself then what is the result. Much better i bet.[/QUOTE]
Low light was nevera weak spot for HTC One line(until now M9) it was cloudy weather condition with little contrast, also situation when I have half frame window in and the other half room. It would go into extremes overexpose the light in the window or underexposedarks barely visible. Sensor and software is not coping with dynamic range. I kind of like night mode but found it to slow in some situation due to the shutter speed so I just used normal mode it did great though. I wish I could try RAW mode but unfortunately I am selling my phone today ( Not sure if RAW will be brought to lollipop for M7)
[/QUOTE]A lens hood decreases lens flare and saturates colours. Take a shot in shade of a sunny area. If you're getting lens flare then its clearly user error. Not just with this device but with any. I would just use my hand out of camera to block some of the light or avoid unwanted reflections. Here is a good example
https://www.flickr.com/photos/palmsolo/sets/72157651089646798/with/16274675233/
cloudy day, massive light box in the sky. Colours are all rich. Which is best. i cannot tell
interestingly enough the low end devices suffer less from this problem because the sensors are not as sensitive. They can take good shots in awful bright light which would be washed out with more capable sensors. Not much use indoors though.[/QUOTE]
I worked with photographer who used hood for the headshots and it was game changer.
For instance Iphone6 is least prone to that error but most Android camera phones I came across are. I was surprised by Note 4 results and S6 I would never think they can do so well. So it must be bug or hardware or both as I mentioned earlier. Nice photos from M9 but WB is somehow a bit off sometimes on the blue side( couple of weeks before it was to yellow green Funny enough you are the first I came across that used hand to block the light I do that too. I guess we both come from the same/similar trade.
[/QUOTE]
The ones typically from what i've seen blow out the sky. They are a little more quirky in getting those blue skies. Overexposed. HDR is one way to do it but it can be tricked also. i remember this work around from the m8 forum where this guy pointed close to the sun to lock exposure and then recomposed back on the scene. The picture was remarkably better. You don't have to do this all the time only in certain situations.[/QUOTE]
AE/AF is a very handy tool. I am glad smartphones have this simple yet very effective feature.
Quadrider10 said:
Review on bunch of cameras.
Gizmodo: The Best Smartphone Camera: Samsung Galaxy S6 Edition. http://google.com/newsstand/s/CBIw4ZO08yA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't think the M9 looked bad. Need to use a computer instead of my note 4
Sent from a mobile gadget...
---------- Post added at 05:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:52 PM ----------
And guys, chill out. I don't think M9 will have the best camera, but it will hopefully be enough. What I'm worried about is the speed of the camera and SOT. I will probably buy it anyway because I love HTCs mix.
Sent from a mobile gadget...
You're not helping anyone mate. Pig with lipstick is still a pig. No matter how much spin you are putting on it.
Everything you are saying is your subjective opinion not backed by any reviewer or already debunked. No data at all.
I don't see any fruit in continuing this back and forth "I think" or "you can do this in software" discussion with you. I, and 99% of users, only care about how the product performs out of the box. A few may go further, with manual. That's it.
Lame apologist excuses don't hide that. If you can do x with M9, you can also do better with S6/iP6/N4 etc starting from a better base.
I'll have the M9 31st March. Then, we'll see.
One Twelve said:
Look, you're not helping me, i'm helping you to help yourself as well as others in this thread.
And i'm pointing out why there were inadequate. They do not add anything above what reviews are saying.
I did not bother going through the imgur stuff since there are no exifs to see there. Assessing image quality let alone commenting without exifs is pointless.
auto shots are average x average, is this what people base their opinions on ?
manual means you take a test auto shot then see whether you can improve it in manual. That is how you will exceed what the reviews have shown and we get to see the best this camera can do. This is what any owner that wants to improve and exploit manual is going to do over time.
Why someone would not want to improve his shots is beyond my comprehension.
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One Twelve said:
That pair is not as important as you think it is and that applies for all with good light.
Where this 'trounces' occurs is in low light. I've already said what needs to be done.
with macros yeah i would because there is no difference there. I've seen three year old devices do excellent macros. Hint: macros are not a good demonstration of what the latest camera can do.
The only real innovation we've had in sensors is BSI over the last two years. More sensitive in low light. You couldn't do that with 2013 devices, m7 was the sole exception. The rest is processing, how much of it or lack thereof.
On a more general level the trick with these devices is to know when to compromise and when to be maximalist. There is no perfect device so what you end up with is what you can tolerate over what you cannot do without. Every device has this trade off. Unfortunately you are alone with making this decision. Unless you are lucky to find others whose requirements match yours closely. Now do you see why i said minor. its minor in a larger context.
no tricks. calling it straight.
i don't trust auto.That on some devices its always flawless is a myth. auto goes wrong even on dslrs. what will you do then ? blame the device or your own ignorance. better to understand why and what went wrong and then fix it. and you can.
What i'm sensing here is an unwillingness to do so. That is something else.
That does not make what i said wrong. Its up to people here to provide that data. particularly low light with manual.
Its right because i've seen the same done with numerous devices already. This is how cameras work. They need light.
Give them that and you get a good shot. simple.
---------- Post added at 10:19 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:14 AM ----------
actually i should have said your tests were pointless and it was a waste of my time to go through them. test the note 4 in low light with manual in m9 that's what you should have done.
I wanted to see manual being used in the low light. You've got no excuses when the camera provides it. If you can't do that then its your problem not the m9.
bad auto does not mean bad camera. bad auto will be fixed. The Z1 took 3 months to get it right. What did people do, the lamers whined whereas the rest got busy with manual and got good shots from day 1.
make up your mind or sell.
---------- Post added at 10:45 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:19 AM ----------
Show me smudge in daylight, i want to see how much. actually link the shots.
All the low light shots have the m9 using high iso in guess what auto. The reviewer did not even try manual and blurred one of the shots because he could not hold a 1/7.
Do you realise that to display on a HD device you only need 1MP or on a full HD it only takes 2MP. Anything more than that gets resampled.
You don't let facebook or anybody else resize it you do it yourself then upload wherever.
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th3 said:
You're not helping anyone mate. Pig with lipstick is still a pig. No matter how much spin you are putting on it.
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Went right to the end for the punchline
I'll have the M9 31st March. Then, we'll see.
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Hah so despite the s6 camera 'trouncing' the m9, you actually went in for what ? .....<drum roll>....the M9 <applause>
Confirms what i said earlier, the image quality differences weren't enough to deter you.
Lame apologist excuses don't hide that. If you can do x with M9, you can also do better with S6/iP6/N4 etc starting from a better base.
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yeah so why didn't you get one of them then ? riiiiightt. Why the narrow obsessions with image quality somehow don't pan out in the end. Bigger forces at play.
With ip6+ and 3rd party camera with manual controls. you can improve over stock auto. With the same on the iP6 or even iP5x and a steady hand you can come close if not match the plus.
S6 & N4 or even the G3 don't offer shutter speed control so there is no way to tell how effective their OIS is, its just stated and i believe its there but no way to tell like say with the iP6+ that can do a 1/4 handheld. Night mode on the recent samsungs is good. Much improved over earlier versions. They boosting sensor gain and fiddling around. To get a similar shot would require an exposure two times longer with other devices including the m9. So you will have to work at it.
No idea when raw support will come for the above. But i bet you get it on the m9 before them. Your details issues will disappear at that point but you have to process each image yourself.
Everything you are saying is your subjective opinion not backed by any reviewer or already debunked. No data at all.
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So you do not understand that delaying shutter and lowering iso will improve image quality in low light ? This applies only with stationary subjects btw, forget doing it with people or anything that won't sit still.
Sop with any camera that allows manual control, i can show you manual lumia 930 vs note 4 where it gets pretty close and auto did not. When more people post later you'll see what i mean.
I'm most interested in the low light shots and rarely bother with daylight comparisons because they are pretty similar. In fact my problem with smartphone cameras is too much detail strange as that may sound. because it makes isolating subjects harder. Everything is so damn clear. Because its the equivalent of an f11 lens in 35mm speak. Depth of field is deeper. Great for macros but not others.
I don't see any fruit in continuing this back and forth "I think" or "you can do this in software" discussion with you. I, and 99% of users, only care about how the product performs out of the box. A few may go further, with manual. That's it.
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If you want better photos what i said works. 99% or not is meaningless. This is xda, do 99 % care about rooting, custom firmwares, or any number of hacks people share here ? So what 99% are you referring to and why do they matter. If anything i'm more interested in the 1%.
what i've said wrt to manual is no different. In fact its common knowledge to anyone who has a clue.
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*Emix* said:
https://curved.de/news/galaxy-s6-one-m9-iphone-6-im-grossen-kameravergleich-236192
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Why they didn't use iP6+ ?
1. night shots all soft because iso got boosted on m9. 2nd shot wrong wb for m9. 4th shot all have blown lights, cannot do this without blending.
2. again iso got boosted on m9. second selfie, because background is brighter so iso drops and looks normal.
3. is about where you set exposure.
4. macros are similar. contrast can be improved in post.
5. panoramas, heh all not to my liking because of cylindrical projection. no straight horizontals with such a wide fov.
6. food, can be improved in post or use manual. That ISO is maybe close to 600 try to get it at half.
curiousgeorge1893 said:
Not quite on topic but I've got an M8 coming, I'm ditching my Xperia Z2 for it, is that a good idea do you think?
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What is it about the Z2 that you don't like ? You'd be trading fantastic video stabilisation for none.
The scene modes should help in low light if you use them right. However the lack of shutter control can be frustrating. A quick tweak can't be done. More trial & error.
I was put off by the 4MP camera as i admit I like to zoom and crop, however I like a phone that is good in lowlight.
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What does 4MP do ? sharpens the mind. You have to think more carefully about what you want to get it right. If you want to zoom & crop then you need to be closer to your subject. if you can't do that then 4MP is out.
Also, I like a phone that offers manual controls and shutter speed, HTC phones are the only ones that do this plus a like a phone that has a good flash and takes photos quickly.
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m8 is a fast shooter in auto. But this gap has been closed with the S6 and the S5 is fast too. Have you considered them ? No shutter control though. Given what they've done may or may not be that critical. These samsungs are primarily auto shooters. If they get what you want great, if not don't complain because you can't do much.
As for similar manual controls the hybrid zooms had them first and optical zoom is a plus. crop in camera not afterwards. K zoom or wait for the successor. Slower though. And apertures are smaller. 3.1 all the way to 6.3. Working OIS.
I was planning on getting a secondhand M9 later in the year but to be honest I am disappointed as I feel that HTC have go fowards then 2 steps backwards with the M9 camera. Whilst it's great it has a higher resolution, the f/2.0 aperature in the M7 and M8 is now f/2.2 on the M9, in my opinion it should have been f/2.0 or f/1.9, also lack of OIS is disappointing and it seems lowlight on the M9 isn't as good as the M8? Very disappointing if so.
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The difference between f2.0 and 2.2 is a quarter a f-stop. That's like getting a shot at ISO 200 instead of 250. Or 1/50 instead of 1/40. Its insignficant as one or the other parameter will compensate anyway so not really as notable as reviewers make out.
However the m9 isn't as fast a camera as its predecessors.See the camera speed benchmark. Almost twice as slow as the m8. And the Z2 is faster than the m9. Does this matter ? only if you're rushed. And if you are you're not going to get very good shots to begin with. Is the choice no shot or passable. In that case look at an advanced compact with a 1 inch sensor. Much more light, faster lens and better quality. For the same money.
BoneXDA said:
I do notice the white balance shifting sometimes on the goldish side around sunlit areas, and the M9 tends to underexpose in such conditions.
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I've noticed twice that it gets confused with halogen and neon lights, turning cream and red into green. With a yellow i can see how green can happen by wb adding blue, so just need to use a fluorescent wb or more. But cream into green is inexplicable for me. If its a bug then only a firmware update can fix it.
---------- Post added at 08:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:25 PM ----------
curiousgeorge1893 said:
I like the Z2 but not the post processing, it smudges details, I read on here that the Z3 does the same?
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Whenever camera has to produce a jpg and do it fast it has to make a call between preserving detail (ie more noise) or smoothness (less noise). I've seen smudging happen with vegetation, it happens with all jpg outputting devices to varying degrees. To make larger features look good means smaller are going to appear less sharp. Must have the lowest ISO with a longer shutter that means anything that moves is out unless light is good or smudging gets worse.
Only way is raw but you have to process every image yourself, and its a much bigger file so it will be slower than 4mp jpg.
Compare these two from nexus 5. Jpg vs processed RAW. Pull the full resolution and pixel peep all you want.
The originals come from fv5 site.
You control what should be more in detail or not instead of some average one size fits all algorithm with an impossible task that is optimised for speed by trading off image quality. Image quality here isn't file size but a function of how much luminance and chroma noise is preserved or not.
That algorithm and its implementation is the source of lots of heated argument over which is the better camera. Silly really.
SPreston2001 said:
The whole camera comparison may be silly, but 90% of users just want to pick up the phone and snap good pics. Most users don't fiddle around with the camera settings or even know what they do for that matter lol. All they see are which photos look the best when they pick up their phone and take a pic. The M9 camera seems to be alot better than the M8s camera but it still tends to fall behind Apples and Samsungs imaging abilities.
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Then those people should stick with the brands mentioned. Those brands are for people with no interest in photography. WHAT took the shot is more important than WHO took it. That is the mindset auto everything encourages, what did the owner do, just press a button. Still I would not be surprised to find people even on those boards complaining about something or the other.
Where i'm coming from is what if you don't want those brands for whatever reasons. What then ?
You wait for firmware upgrades and you learn how to get better shots. What went wrong and how to get around it.
My attitude is you are stuck with this thing and you are going to have to make the best of it. Few months later you will find people here doing just that. A review can never match it.
One Twelve said:
Then those people should stick with the brands mentioned. Those brands are for people with no interest in photography. WHAT took the shot is more important than WHO took it. That is the mindset auto everything encourages, what did the owner do, just press a button. Still I would not be surprised to find people even on those boards complaining about something or the other.
Where i'm coming from is what if you don't want those brands for whatever reasons. What then ?
You wait for firmware upgrades and you learn how to get better shots. What went wrong and how to get around it.
My attitude is you are stuck with this thing and you are going to have to make the best of it. Few months later you will find people here doing just that. A review can never match it.
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So HTC phones are for people who have interest in photography?? Lol they usually have the worst cameras amongst flagship devices yet theyre for photography minded people?? You act as of HTC is the only manufacturer that has the ability to tweak the camera settings. Most "serious" photographers won't use a cellphone to take a pic. The whole idea of cell cams is to capture quick and beautiful everyday life pictures. The ability to tweak the settings is just a added bonus for those who want to get a little more serious with it.
But to each his own I guess. When it comes to cell cams I just wanna pull it, out take a pic, and expect it to look good. If tweaking the settings to get the perfect shot is for you then that's fine. But all I'm saying is those same things can be done with other manufacturers cams too.
gavinfabl said:
This is a photos thread. We need photos! The weather for another day is gales and heavy rain here, so ruined my planned day of shooting again. Using manual settings I have captured some good shots (but private photos of family). Lowering resolution down a fraction helps in lower light. Auto is OK but when I take control even with a single tweak the difference is noticeable. I've used the S6 and S6 Edge and compared it with my Note 4. The S6 has a good auto mode.
This is my S6 and S6 Edge camera shots , and vs Note 4 camera. http://gavinsgadgets.com/2015/03/19...sung-galaxy-s6-and-s6-edge-plus-camera-shots/
I will have more in depth analysis when it's stops raining .....
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Can't say my experience with the s6 / edge was similar. On the camera front yes the camera is fast. But I found a huge issue with white balance and somewhat heavier than normal post processing (pretty evident when you look at the photos on a camera). The problem is even in pro mode, the camera still struggles with white balance. I am a white balance whore to be honest and when I see a camera struggle, I shudder.
Touchwiz lagged for me. Immensely. I kept flicking through the homescreen, not many widgets above the stock ones, and there were multiple times the device just locked up. Even after rebooting the device quite a few times, there was lag. Off topic, I watched the verge podcast recently and they also affirmed a lot of the lag I experienced with my model.
So far, I'm semi disappointed. The devices are light (like physically, I expected something much heavier). The GS6 felt boxy and somewhat sharper for my tastes while the Edge just "fit" in my hand like a really nice glove. I was stunned that the edge was the more interesting feeling device. Both devices are fingerprint magnets though almost to the point of being disgusting. After 10 minutes of handling, I was in awe with the amount of smudges and oil the back of the device accrued from general handling.
Handling is something that the Edge excels in for the most part. It feels "natural" to swipe at an edge point and get a hamburg menu from Google. And you do in GMAIL, Google Play, and a myriad of other areas. It just feels like touchwiz didn't necessarily provide too many gesture driven tasks that would really take benefit of the edge display. II mean sure you get the call context menus and the light up gimmick, but that's about it sadly. The shame of it all is that above that, the GS6 is a beautiful iphone 5-5s ripoff and the Edge is something of a quagmire begging for a developer to put it to good use. It can be obtrusive but not so much to the point it ruins the user experience.
Overall, I'm left somewhat underwhelmed with the devices. Sure, the screen is gorgeous with marvelous viewing angle fitting for a flagship. But it feels like the GS6 / edge is a iterative step in a unique and bold direction that didn't fully deliver.
Shame actually. Most people will love the GS6 / Edge. Me, I'll be forever disappoint
SPreston2001 said:
So HTC phones are for people who have interest in photography??
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What purpose is there to provide manual controls then ? nokia started this btw.
Lol they usually have the worst cameras amongst flagship devices yet theyre for photography minded people??
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its a mindset that comes naturally to those that are into photography. They are going to try a great deal more before throwing in the towel.
Very obvious when i see Jesse's photos. You make the shot not the camera. newbies whenever they see a nice photo always want to know what camera took the shot. The person, well he just clicked. How hard could it be. They like to hide behind their cameras. Often i see shots that are horribly taken and well it was the camera's fault.
HTC is a bad camera with people who cannot take a photo. I've never bought into the 4MP was bad. A full HD screen can only display 2MP anyway. if you're not zooming or need to then you're focus is on how nice the shot looks rather than whether you can count hairs on somebody's head. I've seen people post nice photos here. if you need to crop your photos then you ain't thinking about your shots or your use case exceeds what 4MP can provide.
You act as of HTC is the only manufacturer that has the ability to tweak the camera settings.
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lets be clear on what manual settings i'm referring to here. Who else offers shutter speed control ?
apple only woke up to the fact in their latest OS. prior to which you could do squat cos um turtle neck deemed it unecessary. Nokia had them early and the cheapest lumias 635 ? do too. samsungs don't not even in their latest. neither does moto, or LG which went backwards with the G3 or Sony. The Chinese provide some more. So yeah HTC since the m8 was the only android offering on a fixed focal lens that offered shutter control. Makes it easy to fix things if you were so inclined. Samsung's galaxy camera is the only other that can claim to have had it first on android earlier and its a compact.
Most "serious" photographers won't use a cellphone to take a pic. The whole idea of cell cams is to capture quick and beautiful everyday life pictures. The ability to tweak the settings is just a added bonus for those who want to get a little more serious with it.
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A cam is a cam and you can learn photography with any cam and play more with one that allows manual settings. I don't have a DSLR because i've not got to the point where i need one. I take shots every day and i like to tweak them because auto cant get it right. Its very normal to have access if not always necessary. But i'd rather have them and not need them than the other way around.
If you drive a stick shift you won't enjoy driving a cruiser.
But to each his own I guess. When it comes to cell cams I just wanna pull it, out take a pic, and expect it to look good. If tweaking the settings to get the perfect shot is for you then that's fine. But all I'm saying is those same things can be done with other manufacturers cams too.
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I never expect it to look good, if it does then conditions were perfect and i was lucky, i will usually take a auto shot and if it fine leave it at that or try to tweak things about and take a couple more. I always try to take more than one. A phone is going to get thrown into so many varied situations that would challenge a pro. To expect to get it right in one take with a phone camera when pointing at anything you can think of isn't realistic.
nebulaoperator said:
Whether it's ISO OIS or else it does not stop camera to perform well. Take A look at Iphone 6 it works wonders. Low light is not on the par with M7 m8. The thing you have to understand , strongly camera orientated phone should not come with a sticker on the box " want a better image use manual"
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A tweak here or there will always improve a shot. How many people know that. Then there is the question of will. if its there and you don't use it then its not the camera's fault. It is there for flexibility.
iphone 6 no, but 6+ will get shots at 1/4. Apple thinks slower than 1/12 is not feasible for iP6. To go slower than 1/4 have to use 3rd party soft to tweak things. iphone camera has always been capable but until ios8 there was no way to access camera parameters so low light was never good.
I saw ifone users don't even know AE/AF lock exist till I showed. Iphone 6 has the simplest UI that can be invented I also call it Dummy proof. I think you can get an app to have access to tweaks option otherwise it's a bit limited to my taste.
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yes its useful there is also a way to do some exposure comp but it changes metering to spot from average or whatever apple equivalent is. A review was comparing 6 & 6+ and saying photos looked better with 6+ until i saw the exifs and pointed out both were using different metering. So of course shots will look different.
With the latest ios you have much more options than before. Curious apple did a u turn there. But not stock just with 3rd party software.
A lot people say because AUTO doesn't work. Why would I have buy "they will fix it" if I pay 500-600 GBP for a phone. It doesn't work like that. And in most cases software improved performance but only to a point .
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So wait for a few months then decide. As for firmware improvements. If you take a shot with firmware a at ISO 200 and compare with firmware b at ISO 200, there will be little difference.
What i mean is they can lower ISO for lower light shots so it does not boost it so high. This will improve auto some. But to go further it requires manual. Possible now, if somebody would try.
They can improve white balance with auto but it will get tricked some times so only up to a point.
I can blame phone camera without long hesitation for two reasons: if hardware sucks or software or both. Then no amount of tweaks can help you. M7 is notorious for washouts, poor dynamic range. I found HDR was never a strong suite of M7 neither M8 or M9. However if you can tweak settings you might get away bringing images to photoshop. That's what I do. On the other hand only minority people are enthusiast like we are and the majority should be at least faulted for what smartphone manufacturer didn't do in the first place. If iphone , nokia, samsung(from 2014) proved there is a lot more that can be done with camera.
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They are trying to make it easy for the average person in the hope of selling more products. The traditional way is to learn how to use the product. I know the washouts you mean, blown skies etc. But once a person is aware of that you can improve it.
Low light was nevera weak spot for HTC One line(until now M9) it was cloudy weather condition with little contrast, also situation when I have half frame window in and the other half room. It would go into extremes overexpose the light in the window or underexposedarks barely visible. Sensor and software is not coping with dynamic range. I kind of like night mode but found it to slow in some situation due to the shutter speed so I just used normal mode it did great though. I wish I could try RAW mode but unfortunately I am selling my phone today ( Not sure if RAW will be brought to lollipop for M7)
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So what are you getting ?
freedcam can already output raw on m7 & m8 and by the looks of it m9 too. htc made this easy.
I worked with photographer who used hood for the headshots and it was game changer.
For instance Iphone6 is least prone to that error but most Android camera phones I came across are. I was surprised by Note 4 results and S6 I would never think they can do so well. So it must be bug or hardware or both as I mentioned earlier. Nice photos from M9 but WB is somehow a bit off sometimes on the blue side( couple of weeks before it was to yellow green Funny enough you are the first I came across that used hand to block the light I do that too. I guess we both come from the same/similar trade.
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It was an accidental discovery. I was taking shot of somebody outside the house from inside with a tab (!) and wondered why the clothes were so saturated.
There is something up with the m9's WB i can see from numerous photos. But nobody is trying manual to fix it.
Was looking at latest world press photo contest. Many with pro dslrs and i saw one person entered an iphone photo and its in the list of winners. Out of 95k entries !!! smartphone photo..Can you believe it
Lol this thread is very entertaining to say the least
twoeleven99 said:
Lol this thread is very entertaining to say the least
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So what's your take on the M9 pictures, if I may ask?
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One Plus X Camera Samples

Here are some one plus x camera samples, I hope this thread helps others to get an idea about one plus x camera.
Video Samples of One Plus X Camera by some youtuber.
Front Camera - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMyjawiSG4s
Rear Camera - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAvlGPNpxvw
TL;DR, it looks like the X will probably have a decent daylight camera that produces somewhat soft & noisy images in low light, with quick focus & decent colors but a so-so AOSP-ish camera app.
GSM Arena's hands-on review is one of the few with any camera samples or evaluation.
HDR Off
HDR On
The image quality can vaguely be described as good. We could only test it indoors in poor lighting conditions. Considering the odds were stacked against it, we'd say the camera fared well and despite the lighting, the images are usable with good amount of detail and acceptable amount of noise. We'd like to test it more thoroughly in different lighting conditions but from our brief experience with it we are willing to bet the overall image quality is going to be pretty good.
The camera speed is also impressive. The camera launches and shoots quickly. The phase detection autofocus occasionally falters but is still quick even in low light.
The camera software is similar to the one on the OnePlus 2, which means it's really not very good. It follows the Google Camera app too closely, which honestly is far from user-friendly. There aren't many shooting options available and the app makes you feel like a novice who has just figured out how to take a picture. Those who want more control are bound to be left frustrated.
The camera app doesn't have any quick launch gesture by default but you can assign any of the capacitive buttons below the display to launch the camera by double tapping, but this only works if the phone is unlocked.
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---------- Post added at 10:40 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:31 AM ----------
Add this to the evaluation:
engadget.com said:
An immediate worry is the OnePlus X's camera -- the 13-megapixel sensor is supposed to be a highlight of the device, but I wasn't all that impressed. On the 28th floor of a tower in central London, the photos it spat out looked a little soft and noisy. With large windows on either side, the room wasn't exactly dark or dingy, so low-light performance could be an issue.
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cnet.com said:
I snapped a few photos and images looked sharp with accurate colors. The camera also operated quickly, with touch focus that adjusted smoothly. Its interface is kept to a minimum with few on-screen editing options.
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COOL
cool
One Plus X Quick Camera Overview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87CxoFJBq2o
Looks good to me but then im not a photografer
I have a z3 compact and I consider the X. Even though the z3c is, by many, appreciated for it's camera, for me, it's terrible. Mainly because of the freaking long time it takes to snap a photo (impossible to get a good photo of my kid). So I'd take a downgrade in "perfect conditions" for a faster camera that's reliable of snapping usable pics.
What do you reckon?
Adebisi666 said:
I have a z3 compact and I consider the X. Even though the z3c is, by many, appreciated for it's camera, for me, it's terrible. Mainly because of the freaking long time it takes to snap a photo (impossible to get a good photo of my kid). So I'd take a downgrade in "perfect conditions" for a faster camera that's reliable of snapping usable pics.
What do you reckon?
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Hard to say. At this point we have very little information on the camera since no full reviews have been published.
Adebisi666 said:
I have a z3 compact and I consider the X. Even though the z3c is, by many, appreciated for it's camera, for me, it's terrible. Mainly because of the freaking long time it takes to snap a photo (impossible to get a good photo of my kid). So I'd take a downgrade in "perfect conditions" for a faster camera that's reliable of snapping usable pics.
What do you reckon?
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Agreed. Who knows, with a bit of editing, the photos might turn out to be pretty good. My old HTC One V had only a 5mp camera, but it was really fast. In good lighting and with a little tweaking, it managed to take some surprisingly good photos. I think the OnePlus X camera will do just fine, especially for the price.
Sent from my iPad Mini Retina using Tapatalk
Here are mine ! I'm not a photographer at all. I'm an amateur, i even was a little bit shaky on the flower picture
Front camera
PoloB49 said:
Here are mine ! I'm not a photographer at all. I'm an amateur, i even was a little bit shaky on the flower picture
Front camera
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Can you post some low light / night photos?
Thank you so much
qwerty123321 said:
Can you post some low light / night photos?
Thank you so much
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It would be great if you wouldn't quote his entire post including the pictures.
Here's a look at the OnePlus X's camera:
OnePlus X camera samples: What does $250 get you? | technobuffalo.com
qwerty123321 said:
Can you post some low light / night photos?
Thank you so much
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It's night outside, i used night mode with the app ProShot.
In normal mode :
The images look quite good. I wasn't expecting them to be that good.
How is the camera performing in taking quick snapshots? That will be my primary use for the camera.
Thanks mate
I found this interesting comparison with the camera on the Galaxy S6 Edge+.
ubergizmo.com said:
While the S6-series win if images are viewed in detail on a computer (no contest), they look quite similar on a phone screen or on Social Media. This means that for most usages (FB, Instagram, email, text…) the OnePlus X photo quality is quite comparable to the best out there. It is only when you inspect the photos from up close, that the higher resolution of high-end phones truly shows the difference:
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Source: ubergizmo.com
Please delete
I can't find the Option in the camera APP to change the storage mode from pictures to SD card. Anybody know that?
criz.89 said:
I can't find the Option in the camera APP to change the storage mode from pictures to SD card. Anybody know that?
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Exactly my question.
Why do low light shots have so much noise in them? My Nexus 5 has that too, I'm sure there is a technical term for it; what does one look out for when buying a camera to avoid that? Is there a way to clean it up with software?
Naatan said:
Why do low light shots have so much noise in them? My Nexus 5 has that too, I'm sure there is a technical term for it; what does one look out for when buying a camera to avoid that? Is there a way to clean it up with software?
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The main problems are a small sensor (collects less light) and sub-par lensing giving a high f-stop (lets in less light). The software has to compensate by increasing ISO (sensitivity of the image sensor), and that's what causes the noise. It can't be photoshopped out completely, and trying will always cause a loss of image detail.
What to look for: A camera with a large sensor, large pixels, low f-stop and image stabilization.

Xperia XZ Camera: How to Optimize Manual Mode Tutorial/Tips

Is there any thread here that talks about how to optimize the manual mode capabilities of the XZ camera? This phone has, I believe, the best camera potential; only that it needs to be unleashed via its manual mode settings. Inputs from photography enthusiasts would definitely be much appreciated. Perhaps XZ owners can even share their photo captures and the camera settings used. TIA.
Sent from my F8331 using XDA-Developers Legacy app
http://blogs.sonymobile.com/news/
If you'd look around the web you'd probably find some nice mobile tutorials.
Some of them share the knowledge with the general good photoraphy rules.
I've learned almost anything myself, just experimenting over the years.
Learn what different settings do. ISO, Shutter Speed, Aperture, Metering.
Then learn about "composition".
Then start experimenting! To be able to take good quality photos you need tons of practice. So much that when you see a scene you want to snap a photo of, in your head there already should be a raw idea of what camera settings you need based on the amount of light you have, the effect you want to achieve and what effect will this photo have on people who see it.
Photography is a very complex subject, that's why a good course isn't very cheap. It's also very addicting and results are awesome as soon as you are a medium trained photographer.
What Ive found is.. in manual mode... start with 8mpx @ 16:9 on bright clear days and leave night / low light photography alone at first.. as the results can be very poor with artifacts if your not used to how phone sensors work, you may also find that you have to drop the EV down a touch.. -0.3 or even -1.0 as, like all mobile phones, it has a wide - angle lens, so it can overexpose sometimes.. also start with setting "metreing" to "touch" or "centre" .. this means it will the light reading from where you "touch" on the screen or from the "centre" of the screen.
Also, Android phones are mini Linux computers and computers mess up and sometimes a photo can turn out a complete mess for no reason.. or you moved.. whatever, so....IMO, a good ratio of good to bad images is... if you take 10 shots and you lose 2 or at the most, 3 of them.. thats an acceptable loss for a Digital IS camera.. however, 4 to 6 .. ide look at your technique or even camera issues
Ive found there is very little if any difference between 8 and 23mpx.. just take it slowly, experiment and dont take too much notice of "youtube" reviews.. alot of them are Samsung / Apple biased..
Sadly, SONY has gotten themselves a bit of a poor reputation because their cameras/speakers and battery life have been very hit and miss since the Z1, and alot of folk.. love to bash SONY because their camera software and optics have been terrible, IMO.. SONY shouldve fired their camera software department years ago.. but the XZ has improved the camera alot.
Remember that every single mobile camera looks different on every phone and image quality is in the eye of the photographer, not youtube.. and there alot of very knowledgable girls and boys on XDA.. Im a candid photographer (i photograph situations or "real time moments").. search the forum and youll find great tips and tricks
Have a look at this... it mainly points at Windows Phones... but the photography basics are all the same for any device / phone or DSLR
http://forums.windowscentral.com/gu...so-you-want-take-better-pictures-[guide].html
Enjoy
Copying from another post I wrote on the subject:
Very generally speaking, since the aperture is fixed (at f/2.0), the USUALLY best way to take a sharper photo is to use as low of an ISO you can.
PERSONALLY I find that a lot of the oversharpening you get with Xperia cameras comes from the auto mode using too high ISO. If you define the ISO yourself in manual mode, the SONY camera will automatically choose a shutter speed.
So, the bottom limit of the ISO you can set will generally be if the image is too dark, or you can't hold the phone steady enough for a longer exposure. As a general rule of thumb, in broad daylight with great lighting you can use ISO 50 or 100. Indoors during the day I might try 200. At night indoors, like in a restaurant I'll use 400. And in darker shots I'll try ISO 800.
I would try not to mess with EV unless you absolutely need it in order to get a picture of something at all. Regarding megapixels, 8mp seems to be best on these phones as they use the full 24mp to supersample data for the 8mp photo.
Thread is here: https://forum.xda-developers.com/xperia-xz/help/manual-camera-settings-t3501516
maidguitar said:
Copying from another post I wrote on the subject:
I would try not to mess with EV unless you absolutely need it in order to get a picture of something at all. Regarding megapixels, 8mp seems to be best on these phones as they use the full 24mp to supersample data for the 8mp photo.
Thread is here: https://forum.xda-developers.com/xperia-xz/help/manual-camera-settings-t3501516
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Agreed about the 8mpx ..
Do you not find with phone cameras, because of their wide angle lens, you need to drop the EV a half or even a full stop?...
NightOrchid said:
Agreed about the 8mpx ..
Do you not find with phone cameras, because of their wide angle lens, you need to drop the EV a half or even a full stop?...
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At the ISO's I use, things tend to be pretty good I think. If there was ever a situation where I'd have to drop EV something like a full stop I'd just set ISO lower. I don't think I've ever had to drop EV when at ISO 50. That said, I've never really cared about getting the "perfect" photo with my phone. The XZ tends to take really great looking phone-display-sized photos. If I'm really fussed to want to take nice photos, that's when the Nikon gets brought along :good:
https://www.instagram.com/dominikstrycharski/
Sony Xperia photos only
maidguitar said:
At the ISO's I use, things tend to be pretty good I think. If there was ever a situation where I'd have to drop EV something like a full stop I'd just set ISO lower. I don't think I've ever had to drop EV when at ISO 50. That said, I've never really cared about getting the "perfect" photo with my phone. The XZ tends to take really great looking phone-display-sized photos. If I'm really fussed to want to take nice photos, that's when the Nikon gets brought along :good:
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Hmm.... Ive only had the XZ 2 days, so im quite new to its updated camera... but Ill give that a try.... Ive found certainly with SONY phones of the past.. Z2, even the Z5P... they lower the ISO to 50 by default.. which can give a softer brighter image. I also have a CANON DSLR, so yes.. you can never get a perfect shot with any phone.. even the "babe" of youtube reviewers, the S7E... but its good to have a good Phone camera in your pocket for those moments
Ill post back how i get on
---------- Post added at 03:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:18 PM ----------
doministry said:
https://www.instagram.com/dominikstrycharski/
Sony Xperia photos only
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They are great quite interesting photos and great quality.. what settings did you use?
NightOrchid said:
Hmm.... Ive only had the XZ 2 days, so im quite new to its updated camera... but Ill give that a try.... Ive found certainly with SONY phones of the past.. Z2, even the Z5P... they lower the ISO to 50 by default.. which can give a softer brighter image. I also have a CANON DSLR, so yes.. you can never get a perfect shot with any phone.. even the "babe" of youtube reviewers, the S7E... but its good to have a good Phone camera in your pocket for those moments
Ill post back how i get on
---------- Post added at 03:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:18 PM ----------
They are great quite interesting photos and great quality.. what settings did you use?
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Always Manual. Usually 8mpx.
Just applying settings according to situation:
- ISO - as low as possible
- Or sometimes shutter speed (XZ)
- EV in my case - always below 0
- Sometimes White Balance according to the weather and lighting
- It's also important to choose proper light metering
- Always touch to focus, it's important to test it - usually some focus points give much better results than others...
In Manual
Shutter Priority,you can set EV trying to reduce ISO
Keep press the diaphragm button on the camera,you can get WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get)
Release the button,XZ take the picture just like screenshot
I hope you can understand what I was saying.
I pose a viedo on youtube "Xperia XZ&XC How to take picture at night "

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