Pixel 3a takes worse photos than the Nexus 5x - Google Pixel 3a Guides, News, & Discussion

Pixel 3a takes worse photos than the Nexus 5x - Google Pixel 3a Guides, News, & Discussion

Hello, I have bought a Pixel 3a. Here's my experience when compared with the camera of the Nexus 5x (Google camera 4.3.016). Nexus 5x was used in HDR+ On mode (technically this mode was comparable to HDR+ enhanced, the Nexus didn't have a zero shutter lag HDR+ mode).
White balance and colors of the Nexus 5x are much, much better. No matter whether the 3a uses Night Sight, HDR+ Enhanced or HDR+, the white balance is nearly always much worse than the Nexus. Indoors as well as outdoors (sunsets as well as normal daylight photos). It's really a noticeable step back and ruins the camera of the 3a. The white balance of the Nexus isn't perfect, but compared with the Pixel 3a it's nearly perfect.
Dynamic range is nearly identical, overall the Nexus is a little bit better. Sometimes the 3a overexposes more than the Nexus when you touch to focus, even in HDR+ enhanced mode. Interestingly the Nexus with camera version 4.1 retains highlights sometimes even better than 4.3 , I have both versions because Google changed the processing a bit with version 4.3).
Furthermore the Pixel seems to have a worse display, the display crushes the shadows more.
In extreme darkness the 3a's zero shutter lag HDR+ mode performs slightly worse than the Nexus 5x HDR+ On mode, but the Pixel's HDR+ enhanced mode is noticeably sharper and less noisy than the Nexus in extreme darkness. HDR+ enhanced is nearly as good as Night Sight, often HDR+ enhanced is even better because Night Sight can lead to blurry photos and Night Sight takes up to 7 seconds (there is a ≈ 1s shutter lag and then Night Sight exposes for up to 6 seconds, for example 12x 0.5s exposures). When you want a brighter photo in HDR+ enhanced mode, you can simply use the exposure compensation slider.
In low-light conditions or average light conditions the Pixel's software zoom can give you noticeably more details and less noise than the Nexus zoom (though not always). The 3a zoom in HDR+ mode works nearly always better than the zoom in HDR+ enhanced or portrait mode, HDR+ enhanced and portrait mode seem to use the old zoom algorithm. The improvement of the tele capabilities are not just due to software. It's also because the Nexus has a slightly wider field of view and slightly smaller effective aperture diameter. The Nexus has a ≈25.9mm field of view, the 3a has ≈27.2mm, therefore the 3a's details are comparable to a 25.9mm field of view with ≈13.5 megapixels instead of 12.2). The effective aperture diameter of the 3a is 2.467mm, the effective aperture diameter of the Nexus is 2.335mm, therefore the 3a captures ≈11.6% more light per time from distant objects than the Nexus.
Nonetheless I wouldn't use more than 1.4x zoom, in some cases maybe 2.0x. At 2.7x zoom there's too much machine learning zoom, which looks artificial. In most cases there's no advantage of using a higher zoom factor than 1.4x (the first big dot is equal to 1.63x zoom, the second big dot is equal to 1.63²x zoom).
In perfect light conditions without shadow areas the 3a zoom is nearly useless. Crops of 1.0x photos look nearly identical to crops of 2.0x photos.
I also noticed that the 3a zoom occasionally produces ugly artifacts. White or blue dead pixels can be visible when you zoom (sometimes also in Night Sight mode without zoom). Sometimes Google's software zoom transforms these dead pixels into white curvy lines. I compared three Pixel 3a, they all had this issue, but with different severity. When I shot in raw with Lightroom mobile, I noticed that the sensor of the Pixel 3a is full of dead pixels. Raw files of a second Pixel 3a had the same issue, even dpreview's studio comparison of the Pixel 3 shows a lot of dead pixels in Night Sight mode: https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/im...=1&x=0.12010144736623733&y=0.5747433399018789
When you zoom, these white pixels will be magnified or transformed into white lines.
The autofocus of the 3a is worse than the Nexus. The Nexus always focused on the center. At first I thought that the 3a did the same thing, but that's not the case. You never know where it focuses on. So I always have to touch to focus (otherwise photos might not be super sharp), but the 3a occasionally overexposes more than the Nexus when you touch to focus (no matter whether the 3a uses HDR+ or HDR+ enhanced).
In extreme low-light conditions the 3a's autofocus struggles more due to the lack of the laser autofocus. Night Sight offers manual focus presets, but I have a Pixel 3a where the focus hasn't been calibrated correctly, so the "far" setting doesn't work with far objects. Another Pixel 3a didn't have this calibration issue.
When you focus on close objects that are very small, the 3a's autofocus is much better than the Nexus.
Flashlight: The flashlight of the Nexus is much stronger than the Pixel's flash. The Pixel's flashlight also doesn't look as neutral as the Nexus. The 3a's light looks slightly blueish or greenish.
Macro performance: When you use the flash and 2.7x zoom, then the Pixel 3a can produce slightly better macro photos than the Nexus.
Selfie camera: The selfie camera of the 3a isn't very sharp in average light conditions, I am not sure whether it's better than the Nexus selfie camera. Also, the selfie zoom has the same issue and can make dead pixels visible.
Overall the Nexus takes better photos unless in not perfect light conditions you prefer details over correct colors or take photos in extreme darkness with HDR+ enhanced or Night Sight. Therefore now I have to carry two phones.

pics or its not true

I'm also coming from a Nexus 5x and the Pixel makes much better and sharper photos. Zero shutter lag is also awesome.
Also, the HDR+ is pretty much useless on the Nexus since you have to wait for processing when you snap a few photos at once. And it will also kill every other running app in the process, which is VERY annoying (music, sportstracker etc.).

quark-lepton said:
Hello, I have bought a Pixel 3a. Here's my experience when compared with the camera of the Nexus 5x (Google camera 4.3.016). Nexus 5x was used in HDR+ On mode (technically this mode was comparable to HDR+ enhanced, the Nexus didn't have a zero shutter lag HDR+ mode).
White balance and colors of the Nexus 5x are much, much better. No matter whether the 3a uses Night Sight, HDR+ Enhanced or HDR+, the white balance is nearly always much worse than the Nexus. Indoors as well as outdoors (sunsets as well as normal daylight photos). It's really a noticeable step back and ruins the camera of the 3a. The white balance of the Nexus isn't perfect, but compared with the Pixel 3a it's nearly perfect.
Dynamic range is nearly identical, overall the Nexus is a little bit better. Sometimes the 3a overexposes more than the Nexus when you touch to focus, even in HDR+ enhanced mode. Interestingly the Nexus with camera version 4.1 retains highlights sometimes even better than 4.3 , I have both versions because Google changed the processing a bit with version 4.3).
Furthermore the Pixel seems to have a worse display, the display crushes the shadows more.
In extreme darkness the 3a's zero shutter lag HDR+ mode performs slightly worse than the Nexus 5x HDR+ On mode, but the Pixel's HDR+ enhanced mode is noticeably sharper and less noisy than the Nexus in extreme darkness. HDR+ enhanced is nearly as good as Night Sight, often HDR+ enhanced is even better because Night Sight can lead to blurry photos and Night Sight takes up to 7 seconds (there is a ≈ 1s shutter lag and then Night Sight exposes for up to 6 seconds, for example 12x 0.5s exposures). When you want a brighter photo in HDR+ enhanced mode, you can simply use the exposure compensation slider.
In low-light conditions or average light conditions the Pixel's software zoom can give you noticeably more details and less noise than the Nexus zoom (though not always). The 3a zoom in HDR+ mode works nearly always better than the zoom in HDR+ enhanced or portrait mode, HDR+ enhanced and portrait mode seem to use the old zoom algorithm. The improvement of the tele capabilities are not just due to software. It's also because the Nexus has a slightly wider field of view and slightly smaller effective aperture diameter. The Nexus has a ≈25.9mm field of view, the 3a has ≈27.2mm, therefore the 3a's details are comparable to a 25.9mm field of view with ≈13.5 megapixels instead of 12.2). The effective aperture diameter of the 3a is 2.467mm, the effective aperture diameter of the Nexus is 2.335mm, therefore the 3a captures ≈11.6% more light per time from distant objects than the Nexus.
Nonetheless I wouldn't use more than 1.4x zoom, in some cases maybe 2.0x. At 2.7x zoom there's too much machine learning zoom, which looks artificial. In most cases there's no advantage of using a higher zoom factor than 1.4x (the first big dot is equal to 1.63x zoom, the second big dot is equal to 1.63²x zoom).
In perfect light conditions without shadow areas the 3a zoom is nearly useless. Crops of 1.0x photos look nearly identical to crops of 2.0x photos.
I also noticed that the 3a zoom occasionally produces ugly artifacts. White or blue dead pixels can be visible when you zoom (sometimes also in Night Sight mode without zoom). Sometimes Google's software zoom transforms these dead pixels into white curvy lines. I compared three Pixel 3a, they all had this issue, but with different severity. When I shot in raw with Lightroom mobile, I noticed that the sensor of the Pixel 3a is full of dead pixels. Raw files of a second Pixel 3a had the same issue, even dpreview's studio comparison of the Pixel 3 shows a lot of dead pixels in Night Sight mode: https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/im...=1&x=0.12010144736623733&y=0.5747433399018789
When you zoom, these white pixels will be magnified or transformed into white lines.
The autofocus of the 3a is worse than the Nexus. The Nexus always focused on the center. At first I thought that the 3a did the same thing, but that's not the case. You never know where it focuses on. So I always have to touch to focus (otherwise photos might not be super sharp), but the 3a occasionally overexposes more than the Nexus when you touch to focus (no matter whether the 3a uses HDR+ or HDR+ enhanced).
In extreme low-light conditions the 3a's autofocus struggles more due to the lack of the laser autofocus. Night Sight offers manual focus presets, but I have a Pixel 3a where the focus hasn't been calibrated correctly, so the "far" setting doesn't work with far objects. Another Pixel 3a didn't have this calibration issue.
When you focus on close objects that are very small, the 3a's autofocus is much better than the Nexus.
Flashlight: The flashlight of the Nexus is much stronger than the Pixel's flash. The Pixel's flashlight also doesn't look as neutral as the Nexus. The 3a's light looks slightly blueish or greenish.
Macro performance: When you use the flash and 2.7x zoom, then the Pixel 3a can produce slightly better macro photos than the Nexus.
Selfie camera: The selfie camera of the 3a isn't very sharp in average light conditions, I am not sure whether it's better than the Nexus selfie camera. Also, the selfie zoom has the same issue and can make dead pixels visible.
Overall the Nexus takes better photos unless in not perfect light conditions you prefer details over correct colors or take photos in extreme darkness with HDR+ enhanced or Night Sight. Therefore now I have to carry two phones.
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Click to collapse
Lol. Then why do you still have the 3a?? Get rid of it like any normal person would. But really if a camera on a phone bothers you this much as to type out a huge post like this you've got serious personal issues or not all your dogs are barking. Geez go cry some more in your safe space

Enjoy your Nexus then......
To each his own!

Android 10 or Android 9 or both?

I find it hard to believe the Nexus 5x is taking better pics than a Pixel 3a. The Pixel is using a newer and more advanced camera sensor. For reference the camera sensor in the Pixel 3a is the same sensor in the Pixel 4. So based of what you're saying the Nexus 5x may also be taking better pics than the Pixel 4.
Sent from my LGUS997 using XDA-Developers Legacy app

My Nexus 5 takes much better macro shots than my Pixel 3a XL.
The pixel means "keep distance for more sharpness"
In all other categories, I find the pixel far better.

There's got to be something wrong with your camera module, my 3a takes significantly better phones than my 5X ever did and is noticeably better than my OG Pixel too. Easily the best phone camera I've ever owned personally.

Related

Auto(un)focus

The camera of the mini seems to have trouble to focus. I am getting sharp pictures at close distances (up to 2 meters or so), but the higher the distance to the object, the less focused the pictures are. Tried refocussing and focussing using the touch-focus function - still no good results. Pretty disappointing.
Anybody having the same experience?

Same issue, but i believe it is affected by spot metering. The spot metering governs the shutter speed and aperture settings. So if the spot is pointed on a dark patch on the picture the camera will either decrease the shutter speed to allow the picture to be brighter. I suggest if we are able to change the spot metering to centre or average as per the old phone, we might benefit from a sharper picture.
that is just my 2 cents. I am in London this weekend just trying to test use the HD mini camera, I do use a Leica so i have a few cents on picture taking.

I noticed: the lower the resolution, the better the focus...

Using Manual Mode (Camera) for much (much!) better photography.

I think we can all agree that the camera's auto mode can be a little weak on low light, fast moving objects, and focus.
However, I have gotten ridiculously amazing results using manual settings. To the point where I wish (if anyone from oneplus is seeing this, please please implement it) I could set up various quick-access custom manual mode presets. It would be a very good feature (does anyone know an app that has that btw?).
With a little tweaking, you can find a super sweet spot for a picture on certain conditions.
The following are examples on a very low light scenario with no image movement and minimal hand movement (exact same environment conditions on all):
- Normal mode
- Normal mode with HDR
- Normal mode with HQ
- Manual mode with ISO at 400, and shutter speed at 4s. Then touch and raise finger on screen to place exposure point, and then touch same spot and drag to place focus point.
I was shocked to see that this camera could actually capture something like that last shot in my home's corridor at 2am, when the normal modes barely gave me anything visible.
That setting is working very well for me on multiple very low light situations. Really wish we had some quick-access presets.
There are also settings which can capture images with fast moving targets (with low shutter speeds and a little higher ISOs), and usually I don't get blurry shots with focus on infinite or when selecting focus point.
Things to avoid are super high ISO's like 6400 which for some reason the normal mode is very fond of using even though on manual we can only get up to 3200.

Not sure why you would prefer blurry 4s shot over noisy high ISO shot? Yes auto mode isn't as good as the one compared to LG or Samsung flagships but even manual mode has its limitations. 1/8s is pretty much the limit of what you can shoot with OIS and that is only if you have super steady hands. Most phones with OIS can give quite good results at 1/16s and ISO 100 onwards depending on the lighting. Anything else like 1s or longer exposure and you'll need a tripod . By the way max ISO is only 3200 so you can't go higher.
Oneplus 3T noise reduction algorithm is quite bad and even at 100 ISO which should be super clean in daylight is probably one of the worst in the class.

gedas5 said:
Not sure why you would prefer blurry 4s shot over noisy high ISO shot? Yes auto mode isn't as good as the one compared to LG or Samsung flagships but even manual mode has its limitations. 1/8s is pretty much the limit of what you can shoot with OIS and that is only if you have super steady hands. Most phones with OIS can give quite good results at 1/16s and ISO 100 onwards depending on the lighting. Anything else like 1s or longer exposure and you'll need a tripod . By the way max ISO is only 3200 so you can't go higher.
Oneplus 3T noise reduction algorithm is quite bad and even at 100 ISO which should be super clean in daylight is probably one of the worst in the class.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
maybe RAW is a solution here?

I have been trying Open Camera for the last couple of days. Seems to take much better low light photos. Not as good as my 6p but at least the photos dont look over processed and washed out.

Low light

At the club, at the bar, or just in your mom's basement, nighttime is when you come out to play. Rate this thread to express how the Moto X4's camera performs when no or low light is present. A higher rating indicates that the camera sensor "sees" lots of light in dim conditions, and that the resulting photos have minimal noise. A higher rating also indicates that when the flash fires, the resulting photo is evenly-lit without any bright spots.
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add!

With flash it's 5 stars. Works pretty good without. Works as good as my S8.

I took some test shots on my phone today, using 3 different camera apps:
- The Stock Moto Camera
- The Stock Google Camera from the Play Store
- Modified Google Camera found Here. MGCB_7.0H_C2API_Full_PXL2_v.1.4_60FPS_noburst_v3
I tested in a large room with the lights off, and sunlight coming in. There are lots of shadows and dark areas, as well as very bright spots. I tested with HDR Off, HDR On, and HDR Auto (if applicable). I also threw in a wide angle, for comparison. (spoiler: Ew).
Some things that surprised me, in no particular order:
- The Stock Moto HDR actually did a decent job at brightening up the dark areas, and giving the shadows a bit of color. Not a ton of extra noise, either. However, the window was still washed out.
- Stock Google Cam didn't offer anything the others didn't, and HDR On/Off didn't seem to do a thing.
- Modified Google Cam definitely helped with the bright spots, as those are the only 2 pictures that you could see out the window, but it also introduced a LOT of noise in the shadows and dark areas. This is a known side effect of HDR in low-light, as I saw the same effect on my 5x when using HDR+ in low light.
I may try a different Modified Gcam, and try to input the settings manually. Hopefully that will result in better pics, as otherwise the Stock Moto camera seems to be our best bet for now.

The stock camera app in normal picture mode is not using good ISO/shutter speed combinations in low light at all. Take some and check the info on your images. It always goes for high ISO and faster shutter speed. It stops on 1/15 A LOT, and seems to adjust ISO from there. Switch to Professional Mode and force a slower shutter speed, lower ISO and now they look much better. HDR on this app is garbage with those auto focus settings too. It works much better with higher quality images with less noise, which the auto focus is incapable of providing in any low light situations.

I did some more tests with the v4.0 AIO modified Gcam, and there wasn't a difference.
I went back to the v1.4, and took some pics at home. These were very low-light, with candles the only light source in the room. I noticed similar trends:
Stock Cam is VERY blochy when you zoom in.
Stock HDR seems to brighten the whole image, but isn't very, you know, dynamic.
Stock Cam is way less noisy/blochy when you zoom in. It preserves much more detail.
Modified Gcam using HDR+ does a MUCH better job handling the candle light in the pic, as the light source isn't overexposed.
I may do some 100% crops and share them tomorrow, but Stranger Things 2 with the wife is more important atm. #sorrynotsorry.

crazyates said:
I did some more tests with the v4.0 AIO modified Gcam, and there wasn't a difference.
I went back to the v1.4, and took some pics at home. These were very low-light, with candles the only light source in the room. I noticed similar trends:
Stock Cam is VERY blochy when you zoom in.
Stock HDR seems to brighten the whole image, but isn't very, you know, dynamic.
Stock Cam is way less noisy/blochy when you zoom in. It preserves much more detail.
Modified Gcam using HDR+ does a MUCH better job handling the candle light in the pic, as the light source isn't overexposed.
I may do some 100% crops and share them tomorrow, but Stranger Things 2 with the wife is more important atm. #sorrynotsorry.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm using the manual Google APK here with HDR+ and it's also using very high ISOs, even in pretty good light. I have a lamp behind me, lights on in the room and both apps are using an ISO2400. If I manually set the ISO to 1200 or lower, I can still take a good photo by manually adjusting the shutter speed to 1/15, 1/10, or even 1/8 (anything lower and it's blurred). This HW should be capable of blazing fast auto focus so there is zero reason it's setting the ISOs so high. High ISO = more noise, less detail. Fast auto focus should mean that lowering the ISO in low light will focus better, faster, with less blur from the slower shutter speed. Something ain't right here.
HDR+ will clean up the noise from the high ISO setting some.

FrozenOx said:
I'm using the manual Google APK here with HDR+ and it's also using very high ISOs, even in pretty good light. I have a lamp behind me, lights on in the room and both apps are using an ISO2400. If I manually set the ISO to 1200 or lower, I can still take a good photo by manually adjusting the shutter speed to 1/15, 1/10, or even 1/8 (anything lower and it's blurred). This HW should be capable of blazing fast auto focus so there is zero reason it's setting the ISOs so high. High ISO = more noise, less detail. Fast auto focus should mean that lowering the ISO in low light will focus better, faster, with less blur from the slower shutter speed. Something ain't right here.
HDR+ will clean up the noise from the high ISO setting some.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's odd. Is this an issue you've been experiencing on the optimum configs (manual version) or with both modded apps?

FrozenOx said:
HDR+ will clean up the noise from the high ISO setting some.
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Click to collapse
Yeah, you're right on this. I did some more test last night, and the most consistent seems to be the modified Gcam HDR+. It preserves more detail while keeping the noise down.
Basically, I feel like these are all just playing around with settings and apks that are meant for other phones. I know the Gcam software can work wonders, and I know the sensor/ISP/DSP/CPU can support more than what the stock Moto Cam is doing, but getting a modded Gcam apk that's meant for out phones would be fantastic. Unfortunately, it'll take someone smarter than me to piece it all together.

Coming from a much older S3, the moto x4 camera is WAY ahead.
I have a small laser projector that only outputs 63 lumens.
The S3 camera could never get a photo on the highest setting.
The x4 camera does it easily.
Apples and Oranges possibly, but the camera is not nearly as "bad" as some
reviews stated.

That's Nobody said:
With flash it's 5 stars. Works pretty good without. Works as good as my S8.
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Click to collapse
Is it really? I'm choosing between the S7 and the X4, the camera being the only thing making me lean towards the Galaxy.

gaurink said:
Is it really? I'm choosing between the S7 and the X4, the camera being the only thing making me lean towards the Galaxy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had an S7 for work until recently. Hated it. Battery life is worse than X4, too much bloatware, and the fingerprint sensor on it suuuuucked. Rear camera was about the same as X4 but front was inferior. No contest. Get the X4.

Please think twice believing reviewers.
Most of them hated Moto X4's camera coz it has a sluggish and mediocre quality when it comes to depth (portrait mode).
BUT I can assure you that my Moto X4 performs on par with HTC 10 when it comes to ALL lighting conditions.
I took photos side by side and the quality is the same. I even found that the Moto X4 does NOT need to auto trigger HDR in the lowlight pic I took (HTC did auto trigger HDR).
Both HTC 10 and Moto X4 have minimal noise and really looks almost the same given that they are using a different ISP (SD 820 vs SD 630).
I'll try to upload both pics so you can check them as well.

Quick one from today.

The Galaxy S7 will definitely has a better camera quality BUT the X4 also has a pretty good camera so you won't get disappointed.
BUT I'd rather choose Moto X4 since it is a new device while S7 is already almost 2 generations older (S9 is coming).

forbidden8 said:
Quick one from today.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is this using the stock camera app?

varunbala said:
Is this using the stock camera app?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes.

Four low light examples. They were taken in hostile lightning codtions by Gcam HDR+. No tripod. The quality and the dynamic range is at the same level as Nexus 5x, Pixel 1.

Can you share a gCam version that you use. And setting ...I try few, but for me quality of stock camera photos is better. Thx.

forbidden8 said:
Can you share a gCam version that you use. And setting ...I try few, but for me quality of stock camera photos is better. Thx.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
GCam5.1.018-Arnova8G2-V1.3-Front-HDR+
Nexus6p, nexus 6p, hdd+ on

tavcsor said:
Four low light examples. They were taken in hostile lightning codtions by Gcam HDR+. No tripod. The quality and the dynamic range is at the same level as Nexus 5x, Pixel 1.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does the portrait mode of gcam work?

Pixel 3a takes worse photos than the Google Nexus 5x

<Moderator Edit>
Duplicate of:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/pixel-3a/how-to/pixel-3a-takes-worse-photos-nexus-5x-t4037817
Thread closed.

The link is broken...
I also had a Nexus 5x before switching to the Pixel 3a and don't quite agree with you. The Nexus had a good camera, but the Pixel is way better.
Disclaimer: used the stock camera app on both phones without any modifications.

What the hell? Somebody has deleted my Nexus 5x vs Pixel 3a comparison. It was a very, very long post. I talked about low light performance, dynamic range, macro performance, zoom performance, artifacts, white balance, autofocus, flashlight, selfie camera, hardware specifications, etc. Unbelievable that somebody deleted my post. It took me more than an hour to write it!! It was posted in the Nexus 5x forum. I got a private message that it was deleted because it was in the wrong forum...
So here's the very short conclusion:
The Nexus 5x (with Google camera 4.3 or 4.1 in HDR+ On mode) takes better photos than the Pixel 3a due to much better white balance (indoors as well as outdoors, sunsets as well as normal daylight photos). The dynamic range is nearly identical, the Nexus has slightly better dynamic range as the 3a overexposes more often. The Pixel 3a has more details in low-light conditions, if you choose HDR+ enhanced or Night Sight. Though if you use Pixel's zero shutter lag HDR+ mode in extreme darkness, then it performs slightly worse than the Nexus. Then you need to choose HDR+ enhanced and the results will be better than the Nexus.
I compared both phones in multiple light conditions side by side for nearly two months every day.
Many people don't know how great the Nexus camera was because the default mode of the Nexus often didn't choose HDR+, you need to choose HDR+ On, then it always chooses HDR+ like the Pixel. The default mode of the Nexus often produces terrible results because it often doesn't choose HDR+ because the Nexus didn't have a zero shutter lag HDR+ mode, its HDR+ On mode is rather comparable to HDR+ enhanced. So Google didn't want to annoy people and decided to rather not use HDR+ in many light conditions, if you used the default mode.
So in most cases the Nexus has a much better (HDR+ on) camera than the 3a due to much better colors and white balance, unless you prefer more details in not perfect light conditions. Therefore now I have to carry two phones.

Camera Portrait mode issues

Hi
Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but after reading everywhere how great the 8 Pro is and how good the camera is, I expected something more. Don't get me wrong the camera can take great pictures, but not in Portrait mode indoors.
I've tried a lot of indoor shots and was shocked that a lot of them are just not really sharp. Hair is not sharp or even blurred out for the background. I've also noticed that the camera tends to use a much slower shutter speed than my Pixel 2 XL. Sharp photos taken with the Pixel 2 XL had a shutter speed of 1/289, where the OnePlus took the photo with 1/50. Which is then understandable if the subject is moving.
Sure, I could go into Pro mode and set the shutter speed myself, but this would require more time and also I'm loosing the blurry background. And in Pro mode I cannot switch to wide angle or telephoto lens.
And last but not least, the camera tends to be not as snappy. It takes a split second until it takes the photo. And indoors the portrait mode on the display seems to be stuttering. I guess because it tries to analyse the picture and show a "faked" live blurred background.
All in all, I'm very disappointed as I didn't think that my almost three year old Pixel can take better pictures and I hope that's my fault and some setting that I'm missing. E.g. is there a way to override the shutter speed in portrait mode?
And yes, I've also tried the GCam (7.3.018_Urnyx05-v2.1) with the config https://www.celsoazevedo.com/files/android/p/f/2020/07/nrG-📸-Urnyx05-7.3.018_v2.0.xml. Although this is a lot snappier, it still produces subpar results compared to the Pixel in Portrait mode. Same shutter speed issues and colors are better on the Pixel.
Any ideas? Do you have the same issues?
Thanks

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