Database Users

Is the cam so bad?

Im dont know, every where I read, thay say that the cam is s..., and it takes 5 secs. from when I press till it takes the picture.
Is that right?

Stick with the Diamond, much better IMO. Only advantages of a HD is the bigger screen and more RAM, but I think the Diamond is much more useable.
To answer your question, that appears to be the case for me, yes.

"Only" the screen is a pretty major advantage, it's almost double the size. The Diamond isn't seriously usable for web browsing - the HD is. Ditto for video.

ChrisB said:
Im dont know, every where I read, thay say that the cam is s..., and it takes 5 secs. from when I press till it takes the picture.
Is that right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's rubbish and completely untrue. I find the camera to be quite excellent and picture quality very good in fact.
I don't blame you though for getting that impression. Before I got my own unit, I also had that false impression from reading all the complaints on this forum. But after getting my own HD, I'm really happy with it. This is despite not having flash.

eaglesteve said:
That's rubbish and completely untrue. I find the camera to be quite excellent and picture quality very good in fact.
I don't blame you though for getting that impression. Before I got my own unit, I also had that false impression from reading all the complaints on this forum. But after getting my own HD, I'm really happy with it. This is despite not having flash.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly the HTC Touch HD is a great phone. Some people reading forum like this think they get a good sampling of what people using the phone think about it. That is not true since it is mostly the maybe 1% that have troubles of some kind with their phone that write here. The rest of the people that are happy with their phone do not write about.
The only thing I can recommend for people considering buying the phone is to get the phone and try it out. You will most likely like it a lot.

Camera is not bad, but also not good. Don't buy it as a camphone.

I've got a nokia n82 and a touch hd.
If the cam is ****? Yeah, it is. Don't let people let you think different. I guess it's not worse than other htc-phones though, I haven't had one since the original touch (elf).
If it was daylight out here now (denmark, actually) I should have taken comparision shots for you, but it's not, and with the xenon flash on the n82 it is even more superior in this light.
That said, the touch hd is a fantastic device in every other aspect! I didn't buy it for the cam, and don't care about it's picture quality, since I've got my n82.

The camera is only suitable for taking pictures in well-lit area.
Forget about dark areas.
All in all I'm sufficiently pleased with it, as I did not expect anything great.

Hello
Yes the Cam is ****
very slow slow slow and it only does pictures in very light areas.
In the drak they are very dark - the missing flash is a desaster.
Do not buy the hd for taking pictures or videos
But also safe you monry on fu.. nokia modells

IMHO...
The quality of the photos that the Touch HD can take is far better than the three HTC devices I've used before. It's actually pretty good in my limited experience with it. However, the camera remains virtually unusable because of two things:
1 - the delay between tapping the screen and the photo taking the image while the camera fusses over the focussing and then thinks for a couple of seconds
2 - the lack of hardware button makes camera shake very hard to avoid
These two factors make it almost impossible to take a photo of a moving scene because of the unpredictability of the timing of the shot and the likelihood of camera shake.
Attached is a photo I've just taken in the low evening light that illustrates what should be a perfectly easy photo. I couldn't avoid camera shake even standing still and being ultra-careful. The exposure isn't bad though.

the cam is bad... only usable by normal daylight also video recording is very bad

well in normal daylight the cam is better than my n73. video is realy better...

Are there some tweaks or settings to speed up taking images? It's really slooooow...

TIP: Disable the "Auto Whiteness" in the camera.
I have spent the last 2 weeks playing with the camera and was very disappointed with low level lighting pictures at first, BUT! now I have ressolved this problem.
There is an option in the camera "Auto Whiteness", the sensor or software in the camera seems to be useless at judging lighting, so if you set this to manual and select the indoor lighting icon (looks like a light bulb) then the camera gives quite impressive low level lighting pictures.
Speed of the camera between pressing and taking a picture is about 3 seconds, not the worst shutter delay I have seen on a camera phone, but not the best. Hopefully HTC can address this with future software updates??

For me the main issue is the blurryness of virtually all pictures,
if its a picture of a person I have to ask them to be still, then I take a pic and then I have to ask them once more to be DEAD STILL.
Most people take stay still to mean don't walk off any where but with the Touch HD stay still means don't let one muscle move.
If you want a phone that takes decent picture then its not or you.
Its a multimedia phone (pics not included)

I have been playing with the HD for two days now, which meant finding all of the tweaks and then removing them until it works for me. The excellent tweak app (search for it here) recommends enabling the sport and burst modes of photo (works great) and then changing the maximum res to 3M (makes my phone crash!)
Anyway if you want to take really good SHAKE FREE pics the ONLY way is through the burst/sport options. The auto focus for the 'normal' cam is so crap that the shutter stays open forever. In sport or burst mode the camera has to ditch the refocus and just shoot - out of the 5 in sport or 30 in burst you will have two or 10 decent pictures. This was exactly the same on my old HTC P3900.
The video is still completely crap - although much improved if you shoot as for MMS.

If we're talking about very low light, even my Canon camera does not give good result. So I don't expect miracle from HD. Having said that, I have taken quite a lot of indoor shots with lights on and the result is not noticeably worst than what my Canon camera can deliver.
As for motion, I actually don't find any problem there. I have taken quite many shots with car moving towards and away from me and the sharpness is still there. No blurring at all.
I find vido recording to be really good.
The lack of hardware button is a non-issue for me. I find it very easy to just touch the screen, the try to hold it still for the process to be completed.
This is the best camera I've ever had in a phone, and I find myself using it quite a lot since getting my HD.

This is seriously the worst camera I've ever had in a phone. And the sad part is the auto focus which is way too slow and cannot be disabled. No other tweak will help really unless somebody will figure out how to set focus to infinity permanently.

Attached are photos taken with the HTC Touch HD at night in New York City last week:

YESSSSSS IT SUCKSSSSSSS!
Auto light balance is useless, shutter speed is miserably slow (not even for a still photo) , no flash , video is worthless. 5 MP not in full screen (in full screen it is 4MP) .
If you have kids and want to take a photo for them then please wait till thy sleep and start shooting , other wise you will be wasting only your time and battery .
It is even too bad in watching movies without setting hours and hours converting them!
I hope it is not a hardware issue and only software that can be updated later .
No cam-mobile , yes surf-mobile and nav-mobile.

Camera sucks without flash.

Why does my s5's camera suck without flash? It gets so grainy! And the front camera is also ****, my S3 takes way better pictures! Anyone else have this problem?

The S5 flash seems close to half the power of the S3 so obviously that makes a huge difference in low light, So this more than cancels out the S5s improved low light ability in the sensor.

Your camera has a problem. Clean the lens carefully and if it does not help, try to compare with another S5.

Cleaned it, Still same.. It doesn't focus as much too..

Low light shots without flash are terrible, well lit shots are very good though. I think your camera is normal.

homer285 said:
Low light shots without flash are terrible, well lit shots are very good though. I think your camera is normal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think so too. But what really annoys me is when the camera is on auto mode, you snap a picture in "sort of" low light, and the freakin "hold the camera stable until picture is takenÉ message stays on screen for like 15-20 seconds, How annoying is that? Other S phones never had that.

That second pic is normal for the S5 camera unfortunately in low light it not very good, you need to have a very steady hand and turn on image stabilization to get any kind of decent shot, or just use the flash if you intend to do any close up shots in low light.
As for the front camera I've seen worst, the best I've seen to date is from the iPhone 5S, no matter what lighting conditions are like it always gives a great image from the front camera.
Tbh i do find the S5 camera abit hit & miss in both picture and video, if the conditions are right then images are some of the best you see from a smartphone, with only the Nokia 1020 being the exception , but as soon as the light becomes slightly less than ideal it's starts to struggle, where the other's will do a better job.
I think Samsung have finally realized this, so when the Note 4 arrives it will come with a now rumoured new 12mp Sony Sensor with OIS & a F2.0 lens which should in theory give it much better performance in low light, and that being the case I will buy the Note 4 on launch come September.

try to turn on stabilization and hdr

After having used a Lumia Icon for two weeks, and having returned it during my "upgrade" window, it's hard to not compare the camera quality. My S5 performs very well outside in well lit scenarios, but most cameras do. I too have noticed the low light/indoor lightning suckage, especially compared to the Icon. I don't mind a photo being a little dark (that can be auto fixed with image software), but it's incredibly frustrating getting out of focus shots more often than not just because of a little less than optimal lighting situation (not talking about night shots). I leave HDR mode on full time now, and it has improved the quality/consistency some. I only use image stabilization in low light situations when I know there won't be a lot of movement involved. All of the pictures I take are through the built in camera app. I haven't ventured to other camera apps yet, but I figure it wouldn't make a huge difference.
Ultimately, I decided on functionality (android) over camera quality as I don't take pictures on a day to day basis to justify the lack of apps on the 8 ecosystem. I still enjoy my phone's use in my day to day though.

The camera is not the best, it takes several seconds to take a pic sometimes, which easily becomes blurry and out of focus... I wanna take pic not a movie, this hold still thing really annoy you after a while..

polish_pat said:
I think so too. But what really annoys me is when the camera is on auto mode, you snap a picture in "sort of" low light, and the freakin "hold the camera stable until picture is takenÉ message stays on screen for like 15-20 seconds, How annoying is that? Other S phones never had that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Turn off image stabilisation if you don't need it and that problem will be fixed. It's the image stabilisation waiting for you to stop moving the phone that is causing the delays.
Also, back on main topic... try manually changing the
ISO settings to see if high value is causing your issues. High ISO = noisy low light pic.
kgyirhj said:
The camera is not the best, it takes several seconds to take a pic sometimes, which easily becomes blurry and out of focus... I wanna take pic not a movie, this hold still thing really annoy you after a while..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Camera Blurry

Hey all, received my Note 4 today and the camera quality isnt great, the pictures look blurry even when keeping the camera perfect still. I have taken the plastic film of the lens. Just wondering if anyone else is having this problem

Can you upload an example? Does this happen in low light, outdoors or both?

They were all taken indoors, some with light from room light and sun light through window and others just with a room light (on ceiling). Obviously one with a flash (flash was on auto for all of them but was only used on one after changing iso and white balance). They all just seem a bit grainy and blurry... or is it just me, ill try get some outside tomorrow

Indoor shots will look worse because the ISO will be higher and there's more chance of blurriness with a slow shutter.
Also make sure that you take a photo soon after a focus lock. When I'm indoors,I tend to use touch to shoot and touch on the part of the image I want the camera to focus on.
Sent from my SM-N910U

indoor the camera sucks. the only mini fix i have found is to take iso off auto and put it on 100 for indoor shots.

Ill use the touch to take pic and try the iso at 100, i dont understand cameras lol

Also i read somewhere to put the metering mode on matrix, its comes on centre weighted so should i leave it on that?

The Note 4 camera isn't very good. For perfectly still shots it's not so bad but any movement at all and the pictures turn into a blur fest. There is something wrong with the software on the phone, there is lag in places there should not be. The note 3 out performs the 4 by a large margin. I think this lag is the reason the camera cannot handle movement. I have tested several Note 4's. Some from TMO and some from Verizon (mine is Verizon) and it affects all the ones I tested except for the demo model I tried at Target. For some reason that one blurred much less and was much quicker when snapping pictures.
I use my camera a lot, this will probably be a deal breaker for me. I was hoping to see a good rom that would fix the lag issues and hopefully the camera problems with it.

Couldnt it be fixed in a firmware update? I have also noticed it to be a bit sluggish in places.
Theres also a hair inside the camera, underneath the glass but luckily its not over the lens,theres a hair inside the heart rate sensor bit as well. So dont know if that will affect anything

Schwuar said:
Couldnt it be fixed in a firmware update? I have also noticed it to be a bit sluggish in places.
Theres also a hair inside the camera, underneath the glass but luckily its not over the lens,theres a hair inside the heart rate sensor bit as well. So dont know if that will affect anything
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That right there would be the ultimate deal breaker for me. Any hair, human or otherwise, in my phone is an automatic return or warranty repair. I can handle some non-uniformity of the screen and stuff like that, but hair? Ick.
I've noticed that the indoor camera sucks pretty bad. Everything's a bit yellowish. Images can be adjusted a bit with the included software, but still not great. Outdoor photos are not so bad. But considering how hyped the camera was on this phone, it's a major letdown.

I think the camera is great considering it's a phone and not a digital camera (people seem to forget that sometimes) Almost all Android camera's perform bad in low light because of shuttertime limitations in de Android camera API (it simply does not provide long opening times) . Not much any Android smartphone manufacturer can do about that. Also if you're using flash indoors it's a LED not Xenon flash. Even the cheapest digital camera is using a real flash and outperforms a LED flash device.
regards
Seems it will get much better possibilities in Android L
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8274/understanding-androids-camera-hal3

marleyb said:
I think the camera is great considering it's a phone and not a digital camera (people seem to forget that sometimes) Almost all Android camera's perform bad in low light because of shutertime limitations in de Android camera API (it simply does not provide long opening times) . Not much any Android smartphone manufacturer can do about that. Also if you're using flash indoors it's a LED not Xenon flash. Even the cheapest digital camera is using a real flash and outperforms a LED flash device.
regards
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All true. They just need to stop hyping these cameras as digital camera replacements and all that. It sets unrealistic expectations.

marleyb said:
I think the camera is great considering it's a phone and not a digital camera (people seem to forget that sometimes) Almost all Android camera's perform bad in low light because of shuttertime limitations in de Android camera API (it simply does not provide long opening times) . Not much any Android smartphone manufacturer can do about that. Also if you're using flash indoors it's a LED not Xenon flash. Even the cheapest digital camera is using a real flash and outperforms a LED flash device.
regards
Seems it will get much better possibilities in Android L
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8274/understanding-androids-camera-hal3
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This camera is worse than what it should be. I hate to see apologists come in and make light of something that is obviously very wrong with the note 4.

TIGGAH said:
This camera is worse than what it should be. I hate to see apologists come in and make light of something that is obviously very wrong with the note 4.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And your information is based on what? It's no apologize that Android camera API is limited, it's a fact. What you don't understand about that? In other words you can put a professional CCD chip in a Android phone and it can only profit to certain amount of it because of OS limitations to access the hardware. Lucky the Google developers have seen the light and in Android L there will be improvement.

Hell no! Ur camera is ok! Its just ur eyes
Sent from my SM-N910C using XDA Free mobile app

marleyb said:
And your information is based on what? It's no apologize that Android camera API is limited, it's a fact. What you don't understand about that? In other words you can put a professional CCD chip in a Android phone and it can only profit to certain amount of it because of OS limitations to access the hardware. Lucky the Google developers have seen the light and in Android L there will be improvement.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have very realistic expectations of what the camera should/can do and it doesn't do it. Also the in general lag is not right for the processor this thing has.
Like I said the note 3 has it over the 4 performance wise.
I'm hoping it's just simple software fix and things will be in an acceptable state.

TIGGAH said:
I have very realistic expectations of what the camera should/can do and it doesn't do it.
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's your expectation, I can't argue with that. I do know for sure there is no Android Smartphone on the market, which camera performs better then a cheap 60 bucks digital camera . Which is logical because of OS limitations I mentioned.
TIGGAH said:
Also the in general lag is not right for the processor this thing has.
Like I said the note 3 has it over the 4 performance wise.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The lag (if there is any) is mainly caused by TW AFAIK . I can tell you from first hand that the Note 3 does not perform better then the Note 4 as they are laying both in front of me now in my desk. Also you have take in account, that the Note 3 is longer on the market and most bugs (if any) are tackled with software updates, while the Note 4 is just 4 weeks on sale.
TIGGAH said:
I'm hoping it's just simple software fix and things will be in an acceptable state.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're disappointed in your new phone because of your own expectations, if you can't live with it ,trade it in against? Honestly I wouldn't know which phone to choose then myself.

Thanks for this thread. Its convinced me to stick with my note 3 after all. I've been waiting for an honest discussion on medium/low light shots indoors with the note 4.
Funny how no review sites pick up on this issue. Hopefully lollipop will make my note 3 take better shots anyway.
To me there is no good reason now to get a Note 4, especially with lag reports.
A n6 is maybe still a consideration having dual speakers, which is now the only significant upgrade to me. That or pass on upgrading this year.

IMO the lag on the note 4 is no worse than that on any other android phone I've had (I'm on the third plus three different tablet models) and I don't think it's all that bad.
Drop by your local store and give it a try for yourself though from what I've read, there's no compelling reason to upgrade from a note 3.

skibadee said:
Thanks for this thread. Its convinced me to stick with my note 3 after all. I've been waiting for an honest discussion on medium/low light shots indoors with the note 4.
Funny how no review sites pick up on this issue. Hopefully lollipop will make my note 3 take better shots anyway.
To me there is no good reason now to get a Note 4, especially with lag reports.
A n6 is maybe still a consideration having dual speakers, which is now the only significant upgrade to me. That or pass on upgrading this year.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Some reports did compare..... and note 4 outperforms note 3 buy a huge margin.
1. Not all cameras have ois, not even the note 3. Note 4 has it and that allows for relatively long shutter speeds like 1/8s (I've seen note 4 do 1/4 once but that's rare). That's a huge upgrade from note 3.
2 . The note 4 uses sony's IMX 240 sensor which is 1/2.6 inch size. The note 3? And older generation sensor is of a smaller 1/3.06 size. Now. Note 3 is 13MP and note 4 is 16MP. So individual pixel size of both cameras is of the same 1.12 um size. However it's a known quantity that IMX 240 's has better iso performance than I'm 135. Thus note 4 should have better low light shots.
3.its been known that the note 3 takes bad low light shots due lack of ois and the old IMX135 sensor.
4. Almost all galaxy series engage in some kind of "image stacking" software to reduce noise in low light shots. Aka night mode. This is probably low light shots EXIF data is eroded .
As for the lag. What lag ? Jerkiness in viewfinder? Lag in auto focus?
From phonearena
" Outdoors at night, the Galaxy Note 4 soaks in quite a bit more light than the Galaxy Note 3, which results in more visible illuminated details at the expense of overexposure. Photos taken by the Galaxy Note 3 look decidedly darker and noisier in comparison. They are also much softer, while the Galaxy Note 4 retains fairly sharp detail. Low-light photography has seen a big improvement in the new phablet, and by dialling down the exposure setting a notch, you will emerge with more usable night photos than before. "
From Engadget
"But low-light performance is what impressed me the most about the Note 4. While ISOCELL helped improve the GS5 over the Note 3, it still wasn't very good. Optical image stabilization has made a tremendous difference here; objects that barely show up at all on other Samsung cameras can be easily seen on the Note 4. In fairness, the images still don't look as natural here as they do on the iPhone 6 Plus, but this is by far the best nighttime imaging performance I've seen on a Samsung phone."
If your note 3 does better low light shots than note 4. Your phone is probably faulty or you picked the wrong settings for the camera.
It's funny how so many people here expect unrealistic results from this camera. Is this camera better than a PnS camera? Nope.
This this camera worse? Not really.
If you're talking about junk market for PNS cameras. They use a 1/2.3 inch sensor which is not all much bigger than note 4.
A lot of them don't have OIS or Sony's newer image sensors ( Sony's sensors are widely used in many brands).Note 4's image quality is probably better
If you're talking about the mid segment. They use approx a 1/1.7 inch sensor which can probably do a little better low light shots. But they are not really cheap anymore. Eg canon s120. Olympus xz2 etc...
Note 4 loses out a bit here. But that's cause these cameras are meant to be an upgrade from smartphone cameras
If you're talking about about the premium segment. Eg canon gx7 gx1 Sony rx100. Most of them have 1 inch sensors which boast relative great low light performance.
(They still suck compared to mirrorless or dslrs though). However they are probably as expensive as your note 4 or even more.

Camera issues with shutter lag, inconsistent HDR, etc

Hello everyone!
I have the Verizon S10+, March security patch. I just wanted to compare my camera experience with other people.
So I came onto the Galaxy S10+ from the Pixel 3, and some of the differences in the camera have stuck out to me. The first one is the shutter lag. Quick note - I'm not talking about shutter speed or exposure time or anything like that. I mean the difference between hitting the capture button and the phone actually taking a photo. On the Pixel, it snaps the picture the instant my finger hits the button. With my S10+, I tap the button, and it waits for half a beat before actually taking the picture. How long seems to depend on the lighting conditions. If I'm in a well lit situation, it's maybe a quarter second. But if I'm in less than ideal lighting, it's sometimes a pause of a full second between me hitting the shutter button and the camera actually taking the picture. This also causes the camera to fail to respond if I'm trying to take pictures in rapid fire. With my Pixel, I can hit the shutter button ten times in rapid fire, and it takes ten pictures every time. With my Samsung, in ideal lighting, doing the same thing will yield maybe five or six pictures, and if the lighting isn't good, it might only take two pictures. Is this just how the phone is? Or is there maybe something wrong with mine?
I've also noticed that whatever option you've selected for HDR seems to have no impact on how the phone actually takes pictures. I can turn HDR off completely, and it will still process HDR. I'll take the picture, then quickly tap on the link to the gallery and the picture will open and show the spinning circle as it processes for a couple of seconds and the HDR takes effect. Other times I'll have HDR set to always apply, but then it still doesn't use HDR and all the highlights will be blown out. With Live Focus, HDR usually doesn't engage. But 20% of the time, it does - I'll take a couple of Live Focus shots back to back, and in one of them all the highlights will be blown out but in the other, the HDR processing seems to have kicked in. Is there any rhyme or reason to the HDR? Do your choices in the settings menu actually make any difference, or is Samsung just trying to trick us into thinking we have a choice?
I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts and experiences!

The pixel cam is definitely more responsive, part of which may be due to the fixed focus lens but I don't know for sure. I can say that holding the shutter on S10 takes burst photos much faster than OnePlus 6t, for what that's worth.
As for the hdr, nothing to add.. but I agree it's confusing

Kevin-DC said:
Hello everyone!
I have the Verizon S10+, March security patch. I just wanted to compare my camera experience with other people.
So I came onto the Galaxy S10+ from the Pixel 3, and some of the differences in the camera have stuck out to me. The first one is the shutter lag. Quick note - I'm not talking about shutter speed or exposure time or anything like that. I mean the difference between hitting the capture button and the phone actually taking a photo. On the Pixel, it snaps the picture the instant my finger hits the button. With my S10+, I tap the button, and it waits for half a beat before actually taking the picture. How long seems to depend on the lighting conditions. If I'm in a well lit situation, it's maybe a quarter second. But if I'm in less than ideal lighting, it's sometimes a pause of a full second between me hitting the shutter button and the camera actually taking the picture. This also causes the camera to fail to respond if I'm trying to take pictures in rapid fire. With my Pixel, I can hit the shutter button ten times in rapid fire, and it takes ten pictures every time. With my Samsung, in ideal lighting, doing the same thing will yield maybe five or six pictures, and if the lighting isn't good, it might only take two pictures. Is this just how the phone is? Or is there maybe something wrong with mine?
I've also noticed that whatever option you've selected for HDR seems to have no impact on how the phone actually takes pictures. I can turn HDR off completely, and it will still process HDR. I'll take the picture, then quickly tap on the link to the gallery and the picture will open and show the spinning circle as it processes for a couple of seconds and the HDR takes effect. Other times I'll have HDR set to always apply, but then it still doesn't use HDR and all the highlights will be blown out. With Live Focus, HDR usually doesn't engage. But 20% of the time, it does - I'll take a couple of Live Focus shots back to back, and in one of them all the highlights will be blown out but in the other, the HDR processing seems to have kicked in. Is there any rhyme or reason to the HDR? Do your choices in the settings menu actually make any difference, or is Samsung just trying to trick us into thinking we have a choice?
I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts and experiences!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exact trouble here. My s7 makes photos so much faster

Hi all, I know this is an old thread but I just got the S10+ coming from a S8+ and I am having the same issue.
I am really frustrated with the lag after hitting the capture button and actually taking a photo. On the S8+ the shutter was super snappy, I could take multiple photos in succession without issues, but with the S10+ the lag is so bad I can only take a couple of photos even though I press the shutter button multiple times. I'm on the Snapdragon version with the latest Android 10 and One UI 2.1 update.
Did anyone find a solution to this?

The HDR issue drives me crazy. HDR applied to almost all the pictures EVEN IF IT IS TURNED OFF. Very frustrating. It seemed it solved finally after june update but the issue came back with the july update. I can't say for sure the last update is the main culprit but the issue came back after its install. I'd like to decide wether i want to use HDR or not but there's another thread on Samsung forum with the same topic dated back to the phone's release. There is no real chance it will be solved ever i think. :-\

Bad auto focus

Hey all -
I just wanted to see if anyone else was experiencing this. I've noticed the auto focus isn't very smart, for lack of a better word. In almost all phones I've used lately, you just need to point the camera and it determines what the subject is and locks on to it. But this phone never seems to focus by default on what I'm trying to take a picture of. Like if my dog is napping, and I point the camera right at the dog and take a picture, the dog will be blurry and out of focus, and the wall 15 feet behind the dog will be pin sharp. It's the same if I take a picture of a person - they will be out of focus and the wall behind them will be in focus. If I tap to focus it usually works fine, and I haven't seen it do the "focus hunting" I've heard about with the Ultra model. But still - it's annoying that this phone needs me to specifically select the point of focus. Other cameras are smart enough to automatically determine "there's a face right there, focus on that by default." I'm not sure if that's true of this phone in general, or if I'm just "lucky."

you are not alone. Overall, my S20 camera is essentially unusable compared to my Pixel 3. I contacted Samsung support and they said an update is coming that should fix it but it seemed like he was talking out of his ass. This camera is the worst I've used in the last 5 years, maybe more. Every single picture is blurry, and the pictures are super washed out. Low light pictures are totally worthless.

i'm SO happy i didn't jum into preorder and had the patience to wait for the feeedbacks from owners and reviewers. I'm definitely skipping this S20 series ....

Main sensor is great. But has issues: VISIBLE HOT PIXELS. Every single S20 I checked out was having this issue. No one really cares about that. It's a hardware fault that every single S20 has but again... everyone is ignoring that.

I don't have any auto focus or hot pixel issues with my phone...It did run hot the first couple of days while playing with the phone. After the optimization of the battery ran it's course the phone is a lot cooler and the battery life is better. I have no complaints regarding the camera, except for the ar part...struggling to get the measurement part to work....luckily not a big issue. Obviously when zooming in 30x it's very noisy and grainy...Have not used the 8k part...the stabilization works well and 4k looks good