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I made the switch just this past weekend to the Inspire and gave my iPhone 4 to my wife. I don't miss the iPhone except for its camera. Compared to the Inspires camera, the iPhone 4 camera is like a 20982340823 megapixel camera.
Please don't take this as a troll post or an Apple fanboy post, its not. I just wonder if its my phone, the inspire, or android in general that causes the absolutely awful pictures. The grain is horrific, and no matter how still I hold the camera, the shot blurs.
I'm not new to photography either, its a part-time hobby for me. Just really disappointed with the camera so far
blackwrx02 said:
I made the switch just this past weekend to the Inspire and gave my iPhone 4 to my wife. I don't miss the iPhone except for its camera. Compared to the Inspires camera, the iPhone 4 camera is like a 20982340823 megapixel camera.
Please don't take this as a troll post or an Apple fanboy post, its not. I just wonder if its my phone, the inspire, or android in general that causes the absolutely awful pictures. The grain is horrific, and no matter how still I hold the camera, the shot blurs.
I'm not new to photography either, its a part-time hobby for me. Just really disappointed with the camera so far
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is this on the stock rom? is it any different on custom roms?
Apple has had 4 years to adjust one camera app. Simple as that. Android has 197941218894 camera apps. by that I mean that come stock
Sent from my Inspire 4G using XDA App
I have read a few post claiming what you are, I personally have owned iphone 4 and compared with mine I definately can say its not a big difference if any, I dont have any grainy problems that some talk about. The pictures are real clear. Maybe go check out a demo model at att and take pic and see if it is any different.
I agree the Camera on this phone leaves something to be desired. I am hoping they will update this with an OTA. If I remember right HTC did something like that with the Incredibles Camera. My wife has an iPhone 4 and that is pretty much the benchmark by which all cellphone camera's are measured (N8 excluded of course). This camera seams to work OK if nothing is moving, but trying to get any picture of my 4 year old is impossible with the Inspire.
bmolloy said:
I agree the Camera on this phone leaves something to be desired.
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I c wut u did thar
My inspire is completely stock.
I haven't used any if the market apps for the inspire yet, so maybe there is some hope in a different app.
Are any of the other roms different/better?
I use android revolution and notice a significant improvement in the camera. Not sure why but it is much better. Hard to beat iphone 4 camera...
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App
I've got the opposite problem. My DSLR makes lousy phone calls.
Cannibul said:
I've got the opposite problem. My DSLR makes lousy phone calls.
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Are you holding it right?
sent from my HTC Inspired Desire HD 4G
If you change the iso to 400 or so things tend to improve. Htc has never been known for their camera. It is passable.
Its because the iPhone 4 has a larger sensor in its camera. While the iPhone is only 5 megapixels, the larger sensor makes a very noticeable difference in quality so it is less grainy and takes better low light shots. An update to the Inspire can't fix the quality, it needs a bigger sensor.
I think the camera in the inspire 4g is great. However, i am comparing to my dell streak which sux. I feel more like im shooting with my hd2 now, which had an amazing camera
it may be an inaccurate observation on my part but it seems like after the camera focuses and i take a shot, the picture ends up being blurred just slightly. it's never as sharp as immediately after the auto focus.
substance12 said:
it may be an inaccurate observation on my part but it seems like after the camera focuses and i take a shot, the picture ends up being blurred just slightly. it's never as sharp as immediately after the auto focus.
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Yes that's accurate. It definitely has a tendency to do that from what I've seen. One way to minimize that is to press and hold the camera/shutter button until the picture takes instead of waiting for it to focus and then tapping the button. Don't know if you already do that or not, but if you don't it might be worth a try. Hope it helps.
As someone else mentioned, it is the sensor that matters, not MP (as you know). Unfortunately, other than Nokia (and Apple, to a lesser extent) phone manufacturers seem to randomly pick an available sensor in the price/MP range they want for the camera, stick it in, and forget about it. Unfortunately this is an industry-trend, so I don't see anyone changing soon. Can't wait to see what Nokia does with some WP7 goodness in their hardware. *notatroll*
getabetterpic said:
As someone else mentioned, it is the sensor that matters, not MP (as you know). Unfortunately, other than Nokia (and Apple, to a lesser extent) phone manufacturers seem to randomly pick an available sensor in the price/MP range they want for the camera, stick it in, and forget about it. Unfortunately this is an industry-trend, so I don't see anyone changing soon. Can't wait to see what Nokia does with some WP7 goodness in their hardware. *notatroll*
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sony ericsson takes great photos too
mcca555 said:
sony ericsson takes great photos too
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True, although they haven't had a good camera-centric phone since the K850.
I actually have had good experiences with my camera.. hmm...
I think the camera does a pretty good job. Does this have the same camera as the EVO? If so I saw some pics that the EVO took compared to iPhone 4 and they look pretty damn close.
So, after much internal debate, I went back to Gingerbread for the old camera and stability.
My goodness I forgot how good we had it! With all the "auto" stuff and "widescreen" ticked off, this camera takes a ridiculously good picture. I tested it out at this particularly dark room on the house, and the picture turned out perfect. I forgot how great our camera was.
To anyone on ICS, do you ever miss the old camera?
Its nice to have a good camera app BUT being on ICS or JB is way better than a camera
Sent from my myTouch_4G_Slide using Tapatalk 2
strapped365 said:
Its nice to have a good camera app BUT being on ICS or JB is way better than a camera
Sent from my myTouch_4G_Slide using Tapatalk 2
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Isn't that what makes nandroids and having S-Off SO wonderful?
I hear this a lot but I have to say something. It's the same physical camera so this is a software issue. Try this on ICS: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id= com.moblynx.cameraicsplus or this: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=slide.cameraZoom Both have way more options than CM9 and take just as nice pics as the GB Sense camera app if tweaked properly. Good luck!
sino8r said:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=slide.cameraZoom Both have way more options than CM9 and take just as nice pics as the GB Sense camera app if tweaked properly. Good luck!
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Camera Zoom FX is awesome! I think its worth the price for what it can do. I just got it and have been messing with it here and there at work lol. Thanks for the recommendation of it.
Sent from my myTouch_4G_Slide
manimmal said:
Camera Zoom FX is awesome! I think its worth the price for what it can do. I just got it and have been messing with it here and there at work lol. Thanks for the recommendation of it.
Sent from my myTouch_4G_Slide
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Hey, no problem! It's an oldie but goodie I'd recommend using Macro for the focus setting. Seems to work more like stock auto focus that way for some strange reason. Otherwise, everything else is pretty self explanatory. Lots of filters and editors to play with! Enjoy!
So didn't want to start a new thread, and this was the first camera one I found going backwards through general.
The camera on the doubleshot spanks the pants off the camera on the S3. No contest, and if it was, the S3 forgot to show up.
That is all.
Blue6IX said:
So didn't want to start a new thread, and this was the first camera one I found going backwards through general.
The camera on the doubleshot spanks the pants off the camera on the S3. No contest, and if it was, the S3 forgot to show up.
That is all.
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I have to agree. I've taken comparison pics (done at the same time of the same subject) with my MT4GS on stock-based ROM (Miktouch) and CM9.1r5 (thank you nandroid backup!), an iPhone 4S, and a Droid RAZR. Loading the photos on a computer and viewing on a high-res monitor it is obvious that the MT4GS on the stock ROM is superior in every way. Why T-Mobile/HTC didn't market this phone better, I don't know.
+1, I recently took some outdoor night shots of a light show, and my camera bested the S3, which couldn't get a shot. But the flash is much brighter on the S3
I did compare the doubleshot's camera on stock ROM and my Xperia Pro device which was at the same generation with doubleshot and photo's on Xperia Pro are way too good compare to doubleshot. I'll try to upload a comparison between the 2 on this thread maybe tomorrow or after halloween vacation.
Riyal said:
I did compare the doubleshot's camera on stock ROM and my Xperia Pro device which was at the same generation with doubleshot and photo's on Xperia Pro are way too good compare to doubleshot. I'll try to upload a comparison between the 2 on this thread maybe tomorrow or after halloween vacation.
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MAN! I'll be anxious to see those. It's hard to believe there is a phone camera that will take a shot that our DS can't even compare too!! In MOST circumstances the DS will blow away my point & shoot although I will admit it's not a fancy point & shoot.
WeekendsR2Short said:
MAN! I'll be anxious to see those. It's hard to believe there is a phone camera that will take a shot that our DS can't even compare too!! In MOST circumstances the DS will blow away my point & shoot although I will admit it's not a fancy point & shoot.
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My "point & shoot" is a Panasonic Lumix, which takes excellent photos. The only advantage it has over my MT4GS is the lens. Having a better optical zoom and aperture makes a difference. Otherwise, they are both 8MP sensors, however the MT4GS has a newer and much more advanced back side illuminated sensor, which is why it is so crisp and takes better low-light images.
Fuzi0719 said:
My "point & shoot" is a Panasonic Lumix, which takes excellent photos. The only advantage it has over my MT4GS is the lens. Having a better optical zoom and aperture makes a difference. Otherwise, they are both 8MP sensors, however the MT4GS has a newer and much more advanced back side illuminated sensor, which is why it is so crisp and takes better low-light images.
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If you are talking about a full size standalone point and shoot camera, (about the same size as the doubleshot physically) then 8MP is not the same 8MP the doubleshot claims.
The ccd in the standalone camera is way larger and more capable, though tit-for-tat the tech on an 8MP camera is dated compared to what was current a year ago when the doubleshot came out. Think they were at 12-14 megapixel as the standard offering back then. No clue what it even is now.
The low light picture ability of the doubleshot is in my opinion the most 'wow'
aspect of it's entire camera ability. Forget it all else, i've never seen low light pictures taken as well with any hardware i've had the chance to play with.
I'm sure I could get a DSLR that would blow away the doubleshot - and i'm equally sure it won't fit in my pocket and in turn rarely be with me.
I am a man of many pockets, a typical comment to me would be 'jeez, you have enough pockets?' ... and my answer is always no, because there is always something I had to leave behind.
I would never give pocket space for a standalone point and shoot when I could take the DS instead and also be able to turn the pictures into a photo montage, edit them in other ways, zip them all up, throw them in my dropbox and have them backed up to a multitude of physical machines scattered around the USA, then email them to someone...et all, the point and shoot dies on the drawing board when put against that.
Camera is now a primary use of the device for me, and i'm just blown away by how well HTC got it right.
I'd also be interested in seeing some of those pics from the xperia pro, is that a camera or a phone? Doubtless there are devices out there that will outdo the doubleshot, especially at a year old, but i'd be curious to know which.
One thing that gives a leg up on a lot out there, optical zoom. S3 has none, so that in itself is a huge asset in favor of the doubleshot.
gtmaster303 said:
+1, I recently took some outdoor night shots of a light show, and my camera bested the S3, which couldn't get a shot. But the flash is much brighter on the S3
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Again on the low level shots, definite agreement here.
Our flash is limited in power and when you can use it in the kernel at least, not sure of any other limiters (within the camera app itself, et al ) but they may yet be there. Anyone else got any info on it they want to drop here? I'll see if I can dredge up everywhere I found camera stuff in kernel code.
This seems a good place to drop misc. camera tidbits as I come to them, good title and start.
Blue6IX said:
If you are talking about a full size standalone point and shoot camera, (about the same size as the doubleshot physically) then 8MP is not the same 8MP the doubleshot claims.
The ccd in the standalone camera is way larger and more capable, though tit-for-tat the tech on an 8MP camera is dated compared to what was current a year ago when the doubleshot came out. Think they were at 12-14 megapixel as the standard offering back then. No clue what it even is now.
The low light picture ability of the doubleshot is in my opinion the most 'wow'
aspect of it's entire camera ability. Forget it all else, i've never seen low light pictures taken as well with any hardware i've had the chance to play with.
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Click to collapse
The size of the sensor is indeed a big part of the picture (pun intended). However, the sensor in our phone is a 8MP 1/3.2" with 1.4µm backside illumination. That bests nearly every other phone on the market and some cheap point & shoot cameras. Of course, the sensor in a DSLR is far larger, so you get much more detail.
The low-light capability for our phone is due to the backside-illumination sensor (for background info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back-illuminated_sensor). Ours was the first phone in the US to incorporate such a sensor, later to be followed by the iPhone 4S. The iPhone, of course, got huge media attention for the camera, but our phone which had the exact same sensor and came out much earlier and had far better software to run it, got little attention.
I've been lurking around here since the phone launched, and on XDA since my G2 days. This is the first time I've felt the need to chime in on a subject, and I suppose also because there haven't been any questions that I couldn't find the answer to myself. Anyway, mine's a launch DS, rev s-off and the whole nine. I remember reading some time ago that there were different camera hardware components on some of our phones (e.g. that one topic where any ICS rom would fail to connect to a particular user's DS camera, yet it would be fine with any GB rom.) so maybe that is of some significance to this whole topic.
Back to the point though, I was blown away when I first used the camera on the stock rom. I use this phone heavily for it's sick camera and the keyboard, which kept me on stock for a short bit and then bulletproof until May. That's when ICS was far enough along for me that I gave Virtuous Inquisition a shot since it retained the sense camera but removed most other sense components. I recall being slightly disappointed in a few minor changes/things at first by the sensation camera software, but having used the camera on CM9 and its derivatives I find that there really is no comparison in the quality that HTC brought to the table with theirs. You could get a comparable picture I'm sure, but the usability is night and day for me. As far as alternative apps, I've messed around with Camera Zoom FX pro a bit and I'd say it is almost as good as the stock ds and sensation offerings but not quite there. It does well for me when I decide to run CM or paranoid android on bootmanager.
Lastly, the HQ camera tweak that is floating around here somewhere is awesome. Average file size of a picture in the full 8mp went from around 2mb before and 5mb afterwards, with a definitely noticeable jump in quality. The max ISO also jumps to 1025 from 800, so more low light goodness. I've gotten some really nice shots with all the different versions I've been running over the past 15 months, but I was once again really impressed after first applying the tweak around June or so.
CDaccord said:
Lastly, the HQ camera tweak that is floating around here somewhere is awesome. Average file size of a picture in the full 8mp went from around 2mb before and 5mb afterwards, with a definitely noticeable jump in quality. The max ISO also jumps to 1025 from 800, so more low light goodness. I've gotten some really nice shots with all the different versions I've been running over the past 15 months, but I was once again really impressed after first applying the tweak around June or so.
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I think I came accross this HQ camera tweak before but must have gotten side tracked and never tried it. Will it work with a stock based rom like MikTouch? Do you think you can point me to it if it does?
CDaccord said:
I've been lurking around here since the phone launched, and on XDA since my G2 days. This is the first time I've felt the need to chime in on a subject, and I suppose also because there haven't been any questions that I couldn't find the answer to myself. Anyway, mine's a launch DS, rev s-off and the whole nine. I remember reading some time ago that there were different camera hardware components on some of our phones (e.g. that one topic where any ICS rom would fail to connect to a particular user's DS camera, yet it would be fine with any GB rom.) so maybe that is of some significance to this whole topic.
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Click to collapse
Early units of the Doubleshot have the Sony IMX105PQ, a 1/3.2” 8.13MP CMOS camera sensor. But the majority of our phones use the Samsung S5K3H2YX, a 1/3.2” 8MP CMOS camera sensor. That could be the discrepancy you describe.
I'd like to know more about this HQ patch you mention. Where is it, does it work with GB roms?
siani_8 said:
I think I came accross this HQ camera tweak before but must have gotten side tracked and never tried it. Will it work with a stock based rom like MikTouch? Do you think you can point me to it if it does?
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Fuzi0719 said:
Early units of the Doubleshot have the Sony IMX105PQ, a 1/3.2” 8.13MP CMOS camera sensor. But the majority of our phones use the Samsung S5K3H2YX, a 1/3.2” 8MP CMOS camera sensor. That could be the discrepancy you describe.
I'd like to know more about this HQ patch you mention. Where is it, does it work with GB roms?
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@fuzi I knew I had seen a topic about those details before. I have a launch model that most likely has the Sony sensor, and I've been thoroughly impressed by it during all this time. Can anyone with the Samsung sensor that was probably released on the later batches (in I think November and February maybe?) give any feedback on their images?
@siani & fuzi The original thread is here, just copy the latter half of the broken up link: /showthread.php?t=1533238
I couldn't find the thread where I originally got this link in, either on the themes & apps board or the dev board, but I might have missed the topic. I flashed the zip labeled for vinq in cwm, so i can't comment on how well other sense ICS roms work with it. I do not think it will work for GB roms. In that thread, there is a standard and an ultra flashable. I am about 90% positive I flashed the standard zip, I think the ultra package only improves upon the 1080p video performance over the standard package, which our ICS is sorely lacking the capability for anyhow.
If anyone is interested in pictures I can dig through my archives and put some examples up.
CDaccord said:
@fuzi I knew I had seen a topic about those details before. I have a launch model that most likely has the Sony sensor, and I've been thoroughly impressed by it during all this time. Can anyone with the Samsung sensor that was probably released on the later batches (in I think November and February maybe?) give any feedback on their images?
@siani & fuzi The original thread is here, just copy the latter half of the broken up link: /showthread.php?t=1533238
I couldn't find the thread where I originally got this link in, either on the themes & apps board or the dev board, but I might have missed the topic. I flashed the zip labeled for vinq in cwm, so i can't comment on how well other sense ICS roms work with it. I do not think it will work for GB roms. In that thread, there is a standard and an ultra flashable. I am about 90% positive I flashed the standard zip, I think the ultra package only improves upon the 1080p video performance over the standard package, which our ICS is sorely lacking the capability for anyhow.
If anyone is interested in pictures I can dig through my archives and put some examples up.
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Thank you. I believe I have one with the Sony sensor, as well. I will look for the HQ package. The camera issue is one of the main things that keeps me coming back to Miktouch. Man, I wish HTC would just do the right thing and produce an ICS or JB for this phone.
EDIT: Ah, I see the HQ packages are only for Sense 3.6 or Sense4 ROMs. I've given up on those for now, just too many annoying quirks for my use.
Ok just came back from vacation will do a shootout later and Xperia Pro is a phone made by sony.
With regards to low light pictures it boasts it's own exmor R sensor which was made by sony specifically for low light capturing.
Here's a quick info of what it is.
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/technology/technology/theme/exmor_r_01.html
And here's Xperia Pro
http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_ericsson_xperia_pro-3779.php
Sorry for bringing up something that might already have been covered, but there's one thing that I haven't understood completely.
There's quite a lot of talk about the camera not really performing that well, but looking into the matter I also read that this might be more software related than a hardware problem. (Another app might do the trick?)
The reason for asking is that I am thinking about maybe replacing my Samsung Galaxy S3 with the 16GB version of the Moto G, but I'm a bit hesitant because of the camera - especially since the one in the S3 is quite good.
I don't really care that much for MP's - they never really tell the full story - but if the quality between my current S3 and the Moto G differs to much...
Any input?
Thanks in advance,
/gosa
It'll be more the sensor that software...
Anothe camera app wouldnt make a massive difference to quality of the photo tbh.
Its just one of the tradeoffs for a cheaper phone unfortunately.
King p1n said:
Anothe camera app wouldnt make a massive difference to quality of the photo tbh.
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The sensor is not that bad.
I compared MotoG to S3 here (left MotoG, middle RARZi, right S3):
http://www.android-hilfe.de/motorol...n-zur-kamera-bildqualitaet-2.html#post6758301
and here is a comparison from stock camera to Snap Camera from Playstore, watch the details!
http://www.android-hilfe.de/motorol...n-zur-kamera-bildqualitaet-6.html#post6853774
shaftenberg said:
The sensor is not that bad.
I compared MotoG to S3 here (left MotoG, middle RARZi, right S3):
http://www.android-hilfe.de/motorol...n-zur-kamera-bildqualitaet-2.html#post6758301
and here is a comparison from stock camera to Snap Camera from Playstore, watch the details!
http://www.android-hilfe.de/motorol...n-zur-kamera-bildqualitaet-6.html#post6853774
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Click to collapse
Like I said a different app wouldnt make a huge difference.
And to me it doesnt have much of an effect from your photos imo.
shaftenberg said:
The sensor is not that bad.
I compared MotoG to S3 here (left MotoG, middle RARZi, right S3):
http://www.android-hilfe.de/motorol...n-zur-kamera-bildqualitaet-2.html#post6758301
and here is a comparison from stock camera to Snap Camera from Playstore, watch the details!
http://www.android-hilfe.de/motorol...n-zur-kamera-bildqualitaet-6.html#post6853774
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I had an LG P920 and have used the Snap Camera with a significant improvement in the quality of the photos. In Moto G use the default camera app just for movies slow. For photos I use Snap Camera and I am pleased with the results.
King p1n said:
Like I said a different app wouldnt make a huge difference.
And to me it doesnt have much of an effect from your photos imo.
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The photos he displayed to show the difference when using stock and snapchat show a vast improvement in my opinion.
Look at the post-it note text for the biggest difference.
Obviously software can only go so far, but the stock camera app I feel is clearly doing something wrong with how it sharpens/smooths the image. I'm guessing their sharpening algorithm is assuming a much bigger resolution and using too large of a kernel size for us. So it ends up looking blurry because the blurring becomes exaggerated. Regardless, using a different camera app will help out with these things. That is, assuming they aren't doing these corrections somewhere in the kernel before it even reaches user-land.
dannyfritz said:
[..] That is, assuming they aren't doing these corrections somewhere in the kernel before it even reaches user-land.
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100% not.
I decompiled the stock camera app and switched off the Noise Reduction just to see how the sensor sees the image, look here:
http://www.android-hilfe.de/motorol...n-zur-kamera-bildqualitaet-5.html#post6803183
The stock app softens the image massively and then set a bad compression level. Look at the pattern at the Gauloise package from my other post and see how the stock app filters out all small lines.
shaftenberg said:
100% not.
I decompiled the stock camera app and switched off the Noise Reduction just to see how the sensor sees the image, look here:
http://www.android-hilfe.de/motorol...n-zur-kamera-bildqualitaet-5.html#post6803183
The stock app softens the image massively and then set a bad compression level. Look at the pattern at the Gauloise package from my other post and see how the stock app filters out all small lines.
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So its the app compressing them?
Im not too knowledgable on this stuff.
Could you not 'decompile' the stock and change the compression softening settings or something? If its the app
I've seen this about compression removal for Droid Maxx worth a lookl?
http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/24758/motorola-razr-maxx-compression-removal
Also some ROMs have the following line in build.prop:
ro.media.dec.jpeg.memcap=2000000
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Might be worth adding and changing the value to see if there is any benefit.
Guys,
Thank you all for your inputs, it's made for some interesting reading. Especially those example pics that shaftenberg posted gave quite a bit of info.
Yesterday I ordered the 8GB version for my wife to replace my old water damaged Desire that - after over a year of running "post-swim" without any kind of problems - is dying on her... I'm confident that the change Desire - Moto G will make a huge difference in image quality for her.
I think now the plan is to compare her Moto G with my S3 for some time and then - if I feel ok with the image quality - go for the 16 GB version.
Some people might think it's a bit strange to swap out the S3 for a Moto G, but the benefits of getting something more updated with regards to OS (and more open if you compare with Samsung and Exynos) and such... the only thing that worries me is image quality.
/gosa
I find that VSCO Cam is also better than stock camera, and probably also even better than Camera Zoom FX.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vsco.cam
The one thing I've found a huge benefit of the Moto g over the n4 and s3 is that its made for one hand. I often find with phones now days I end up when sitting down using them I use my thumb and for finger to support the phone and only half wrap my hand round it to get full use of the screen. There are no such issues with this phone.
Sent from my XT1032 using Tapatalk
This phone's camera is clearly not tuned well. The noise reduction is wayyyyy too high and the white balance is off.
The Moto X had similar issues and it was mostly fixed with an update. The same will probably happen with this phone, likely bundled with the Kitkat update.
Hi all,
Just picked up a v10 from tmo yesterday and been playing around with it. I've seen two different V10's and both have had very unimpressive front facing image quality. I know that it's 5 MP vs the G4's 8 MP. However, whenever I open it up, it looks very grainy and soft in low light. During the day in bright light outside, it looks very oversharpened and the dynamic range is poor. The sky is typically completely blown out, and my face looks a bit unrealistic with the oversharpening. I've played around with the beauty feature and tried it at different levels. Indoors, even with beauty set to 0, the image was still very soft. I also did HDR off and on and it didn't make a difference. When recording video, it looks a lot better. These do seem like software issues. I'm just really surprised since LG is really pushing photography/video with this phone, but the front camera images just don't look good at all to me. I'm going to be using the V10 for a bit to see if I want to keep it, or if I want to go back to the 6P. I don't expect the same quality of front facing camera on the V10, as the 6P. I just didn't expect it to be this much worse. I also compared it to a G4, and the G4 looked great. I don't think the 3 MP difference should make that much of a difference.
Anyway, let me know if you guys have experienced this too.
You need to remember the V10 ups the screen gamma (everything looks pastel/washed out) and adds software sharpening when you're in sunlight, so what you're seeing on the screen in sunlight is not really what the camera is capturing.
siraltus said:
You need to remember the V10 ups the screen gamma (everything looks pastel/washed out) and adds software sharpening when you're in sunlight, so what you're seeing on the screen in sunlight is not really what the camera is capturing.
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Click to collapse
It does look a bit better after I take it. I also uploaded it to drive and looked at it on my computer. It's still somewhat oversharpened. Can you explain the screen gamma? So, everything that's on the screen will look pastel like? So, if I send someone a picture or upload it to instagram/FB it will look better to other people?
Edit: In decent light, the front facing camera looks better in snapchat, however it tends to be fairly dark. I guess it uses a lower ISO? not sure. But it also looks less processed. The back camera is also pretty dark in snapchat.
I will say I LOVE the wide angle selfie... I mean I have NEVER been a selfie kinda guy but it really does capture alot. I can get me and my family of 4 easily in one pic.
The image quality could be better but it's nice to be able to get more into the picture.
Sent from my LG-H901 using XDA Free mobile app
PsychDrummer said:
Hi all,
Just picked up a v10 from tmo yesterday and been playing around with it. I've seen two different V10's and both have had very unimpressive front facing image quality. I know that it's 5 MP vs the G4's 8 MP. However, whenever I open it up, it looks very grainy and soft in low light. During the day in bright light outside, it looks very oversharpened and the dynamic range is poor. The sky is typically completely blown out, and my face looks a bit unrealistic with the oversharpening. I've played around with the beauty feature and tried it at different levels. Indoors, even with beauty set to 0, the image was still very soft. I also did HDR off and on and it didn't make a difference. When recording video, it looks a lot better. These do seem like software issues. I'm just really surprised since LG is really pushing photography/video with this phone, but the front camera images just don't look good at all to me. I'm going to be using the V10 for a bit to see if I want to keep it, or if I want to go back to the 6P. I don't expect the same quality of front facing camera on the V10, as the 6P. I just didn't expect it to be this much worse. I also compared it to a G4, and the G4 looked great. I don't think the 3 MP difference should make that much of a difference.
Anyway, let me know if you guys have experienced this too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Coming from Note 4, I do agree with you that the FCC is a little bit lacking on the sharpness department. It seems like there's an overly-aggressive noise-reduction being applied even with the "Beauty" mode turned to 0. I just that the selfies looks smushy compared to the ones taken by my note 4.
PsychDrummer said:
Hi all,
Anyway, let me know if you guys have experienced this too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does it make a difference which ffc you're using? The wide angle lens tends to be slightly grainier compared to the solo lens. It defaults to wide..
I wonder what's the actual megapixel capability of the front sensor as well as it's pixel size..
Note. I need beauty mode setting of 10. I'm still hella oogly set at highest... :silly:
baymon said:
Coming from Note 4, I do agree with you that the FCC is a little bit lacking on the sharpness department. It seems like there's an overly-aggressive noise-reduction being applied even with the "Beauty" mode turned to 0. I just that the selfies looks smushy compared to the ones taken by my note 4.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So, what I've noticed is that when using the stock camera it tends to oversharpen making it look artificial. But, if I use snapchat, or google camera, it makes it seem like it can't focus or something. The image looks very, very soft and even a bit blurred. In low light, it just looks dark and noisy.
clockcycle said:
Does it make a difference which ffc you're using? The wide angle lens tends to be slightly grainier compared to the solo lens. It defaults to wide..
I wonder what's the actual megapixel capability of the front sensor as well as it's pixel size..
Note. I need beauty mode setting of 10. I'm still hella oogly set at highest... :silly:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope, both look the same to me. Honestly, I compared a front facing image with a Nexus 5, and while the nexus 5 is obviously low resolution it actually didn't look THAT much worse. I really wish they kept the single camera from the G4. It looked great when I checked it out. I'm still debating about keeping this or going back to the 6P. If the V10 had the same FFC as the 6P/G4, had the same slow motion capabilities as the 6P, and maybe have a slightly more saturated screen I would have to say the V10 is definitely a much better phone. I still might end up keeping it though. I do like the manual control, better video capture and of course the sd card/removable battery. Also, I prefer the design/build of the V10.
horrible camera
just got the LG V10 around mid November. Mostly bought it for the camera...was supposed to be the top of the line and have great reviews. I HATE this camera. The pics all looked washed out and dull. I have told Verizon about this twice and the last time the kid was kinda smart assy about it and said I'm not gonna get saturated pretty pics. I'm going to get detail pics of what I'm actually seeing. I want my beautiful, colorful pics back. I mean who doesn't want colorful vibrant pics! He told me if I want that then I'm going to have to edit my pics. Very disappointed in this phone...if I could get rid of it I would...
You think a software (firmware) update can fix the camera issues.
mv522 said:
You think a software (firmware) update can fix the camera issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know...I'm trying Verizon one more time here in a few minutes. I will ask them about that. I sure hope so. I'm already looking into selling the phone and coming up with the difference to pay it off to get a new one. I show people all the time and they all say the same thing. I like bright, beautiful pics. With this camera there's no vibrant colors and some of the pics look like there's like a "hazy" over them. After I use and editor...they look really nice (I will admit) but I'm not going to edit every pic I take when my Samsung Galaxy s5 they all looked good and I would pic just a few to tweak up to make look even better. Not edit every pic to have it look as it should!
PsychDrummer said:
Hi all,
Just picked up a v10 from tmo yesterday and been playing around with it. I've seen two different V10's and both have had very unimpressive front facing image quality. I know that it's 5 MP vs the G4's 8 MP. However, whenever I open it up, it looks very grainy and soft in low light. During the day in bright light outside, it looks very oversharpened and the dynamic range is poor. The sky is typically completely blown out, and my face looks a bit unrealistic with the oversharpening. I've played around with the beauty feature and tried it at different levels. Indoors, even with beauty set to 0, the image was still very soft. I also did HDR off and on and it didn't make a difference. When recording video, it looks a lot better. These do seem like software issues. I'm just really surprised since LG is really pushing photography/video with this phone, but the front camera images just don't look good at all to me. I'm going to be using the V10 for a bit to see if I want to keep it, or if I want to go back to the 6P. I don't expect the same quality of front facing camera on the V10, as the 6P. I just didn't expect it to be this much worse. I also compared it to a G4, and the G4 looked great. I don't think the 3 MP difference should make that much of a difference.
Anyway, let me know if you guys have experienced this too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
really, you went through all that? but i do wear bifocals
With phones starting to ship now I figured I'd get the ball rolling with a camera discussion / Image sample thread. I'll be sure to update this post once I have the device and get some sample shots. With the not so great reviews of the camera, I think this is a great thread to discuss the camera of the Essential phone. I'm sure it's going to bring a lot of debate
I'm wondering what is the actual sensor being used for the camera. Is it one of the Sony Exmor sensors that most phones use these days? If so, which one? It seems odd to me that this had not been reported on the way it usually is with flagship phones claiming to have great cameras, like the Pixel and U11.
I feel like the 360 camera was a bad choice as a first accessory.
A super high quality normal snap-on sensor would have changed the way this phone was received.
Goronok said:
I feel like the 360 camera was a bad choice as a first accessory.
A super high quality normal snap-on sensor would have changed the way this phone was received.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The camera issues are software related.
The processing may need tweaking with real world shooting. The app has issues. I think they will sort the camera out. For me it's not a big deal since I almost always have a camera with an APS-C sensor around. I only do phone cameras in an emergency.
tech_head said:
The camera issues are software related.
The processing may need tweaking with real world shooting. The app has issues. I think they will sort the camera out. For me it's not a big deal since I almost always have a camera with an APS-C sensor around. I only do phone cameras in an emergency.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Essential is saying it's software related in PR statements. But the camera issues have been around for months and they haven't been able to fix it. Droid Life reported on it back in June: http://www.droid-life.com/2017/06/05/essential-phone-camera-sample/
I think it's likely that they are using small 1/3 sensors (in order to have no camera hump in a thin phone); they seem to been avoiding publishing any information about what the actual sensors are in the phone and their size. That would definitely explain the low light issues. No software update is going to fix that.
And there have been so many cell phones that have come out with camera issues and promises of software fixes that never materialize. At best minor improvements happen. So I would not hold my breath for Essential being able to make huge imporvements. If they could have, they would have before they started handing it out to reviewers. It's not like they couldn't go out and snap photos like the reviewers are doing and see the problems (and if they didn't do that, then that level of incompetence makes me believe even less that there will be a miracle fix).
So I think people should be prepared for this being what the camera is more or less going to be like, with maybe some minor improvements.
cb474 said:
I'm wondering what is the actual sensor being used for the camera. Is it one of the Sony Exmor sensors that most phones use these days? If so, which one? It seems odd to me that this had not been reported on the way it usually is with flagship phones claiming to have great cameras, like the Pixel and U11.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sony IMX258
360 camera is IMX378
Kay1000RR said:
Sony IMX258
360 camera is IMX378
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. Yeah, I saw that yesterday. As I predicted, the sensor, IMX258, is a 1/3 sensor (and two years old at that). Super disappointing. This definitely explains the bad low light performance (along with EIS instead of OIS). As I said, I really doubt software updates are going to do much to improve it. Samsung has been putting larger sensors (1/2.5) in their phones for four years now. I big part of why the Pixel and U11 have good cameras are because of the 1/2.3 sensors in them. There is just no excuse for a so called "flagship" phone these days have a 1/3 sensor in it.
It seems like Essential was just overly obssessed with their perfectly flat back idea (which I don't even think looks so great, it's almost too plain) and thought they could do "magic" by combining two 1/3 sensors, one in BW mode, and somehow produce better pictures from two lower grade sensors. 2X bad information does not equal good information. Yeah, maybe they'll get a little extra detail out of the extra monochrome sensor. But it's not going to compete with a larger sensor. And it really doesn't look like they have even used the extra monochrome sensor well (while suffering the expense of severe shutter lag while the camera tries to interpolate the information from two sensors).
I'm really disappointed that they cheaped out on the camera and were overly obssessed with not having even the tiniest camera hump (which I think Samsung and Apple have proven people are totally fine with and still think their designs are great). What attracts me to the Essential phone is the large screen in a small phone size (and the titanium and ceramic are nice pluses); but I really don't give a damn about a perfectly flat back. To get the nice design with the screen I was willing to accept the lack of a 3.5 mm jack and other corners they cut on features. But they hyped the camera as being great, when they knew they had inferior sensors in it. If they can't get the things they do have in the phone right, it's hard for me to still want to get this phone (or trust this company).
cb474 said:
Thanks. Yeah, I saw that yesterday. As I predicted, the sensor, IMX258, is a 1/3 sensor (and two years old at that). Super disappointing. This definitely explains the bad low light performance (along with EIS instead of OIS). As I said, I really doubt software updates are going to do much to improve it. Samsung has been putting larger sensors (1/2.5) in their phones for four years now. I big part of why the Pixel and U11 have good cameras are because of the 1/2.3 sensors in them. There is just no excuse for a so called "flagship" phone these days have a 1/3 sensor in it.
It seems like Essential was just overly obssessed with their perfectly flat back idea (which I don't even think looks so great, it's almost too plain) and thought they could do "magic" by combining two 1/3 sensors, one in BW mode, and somehow produce better pictures from two lower grade sensors. 2X bad information does not equal good information. Yeah, maybe they'll get a little extra detail out of the extra monochrome sensor. But it's not going to compete with a larger sensor. And it really doesn't look like they have even used the extra monochrome sensor well (while suffering the expense of severe shutter lag while the camera tries to interpolate the information from two sensors).
I'm really disappointed that they cheaped out on the camera and were overly obssessed with not having even the tiniest camera hump (which I think Samsung and Apple have proven people are totally fine with and still think their designs are great). What attracts me to the Essential phone is the large screen in a small phone size (and the titanium and ceramic are nice pluses); but I really don't give a damn about a perfectly flat back. To get the nice design with the screen I was willing to accept the lack of a 3.5 mm jack and other corners they cut on features. But they hyped the camera as being great, when they knew they had inferior sensors in it. If they can't get the things they do have in the phone right, it's hard for me to still want to get this phone (or trust this company).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are are neglecting to factor in the increase in pixel density of the larger sensors.
The 258 has an area of 4.84mm^2 the 318 has an area of 5.24 mm^2 this is a 8% increase in area but a 60% increase in pixel.
With the pixels smaller the light collection ability and noise performance is not necessarily better.
The 318 is the newest mobile sensor that Sony has and it has 1um pixels.
They claim no drop in low light performance and noise from their 1.12um pixel sensors.
Mind you , they do not claim an increase in low light performance or noise,
So I'm not ready to dismiss the camera yet.
I'm not quite ready to dismiss it either. While the LG G6 may not win any awards for its main camera, it is definitely serviceable. Technically, the essential phone should take better snaps with the monochrome sensor combo too.
The Google camera port should help sweeten things too. I dunno, we'll see.
Goronok said:
I'm not quite ready to dismiss it either. While the LG G6 may not win any awards for its main camera, it is definitely serviceable. Technically, the essential phone should take better snaps with the monochrome sensor combo too.
The Google camera port should help sweeten things too. I dunno, we'll see.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Google camera is a port? Not just an app? Will it take advantage of both sensors?
km8j said:
Google camera is a port? Not just an app? Will it take advantage of both sensors?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A developer ported the Pixel version of the app with its special SW processing. So it's not really the Google camera but the Pixel camera app. I asked Michael Fisher if he tried the Pixel cam port and if it made a difference and he heard it does improve the camera but he hasn't tried it himself.
Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk
It also might help even more once we get Root as there is adb command to do that allows the Google HDR+ camera to use the hardware imaging processor in the qualcomn chips to work with it. Will be trying this as soon as I can.
IM0001 said:
It also might help even more once we get Root as there is adb command to do that allows the Google HDR+ camera to use the hardware imaging processor in the qualcomn chips to work with it. Will be trying this as soon as I can.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interested in seeing this.
tech_head said:
You are are neglecting to factor in the increase in pixel density of the larger sensors.
The 258 has an area of 4.84mm^2 the 318 has an area of 5.24 mm^2 this is a 8% increase in area but a 60% increase in pixel.
With the pixels smaller the light collection ability and noise performance is not necessarily better.
The 318 is the newest mobile sensor that Sony has and it has 1um pixels.
They claim no drop in low light performance and noise from their 1.12um pixel sensors.
Mind you , they do not claim an increase in low light performance or noise,
So I'm not ready to dismiss the camera yet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Huh?
The 1/2.3 sensor in the phones I was mentioning is something like the IMX378 (in the Pixel). The IMX318 is not in any of the phones I was talking about. The IMX378 in the Pixel and and the sensor in the U11 (IMX362) are physically larger and have larger pixels, 1.55 um and 1.4 um respectively. Or also something like the IMX333 in the S8. That's why they do exactly what I said which is capture more light, rather than mindlessly chase higher megapixel counts.
The IMX318 is just a megapixel chasing sensor (22.5 MP), which is probably why it's only in more gimmicky phones, like the Zenfone and the Mi Note 2. Anyway, it has absolutely zero to do with any of the phones or types of sensors I was talking about. I have no idea why you brought it up.
km8j said:
Google camera is a port? Not just an app? Will it take advantage of both sensors?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's both. Someone ported over the pixel HDR+ processing to work on most snapdragon 820/821/835 devices.
Really works quite well, although no, I don't think it will utilize the B&W sensor.
cb474 said:
Huh?
The 1/2.3 sensor in the phones I was mentioning is something like the IMX378 (in the Pixel). The IMX318 is not in any of the phones I was talking about. The IMX378 in the Pixel and and the sensor in the U11 (IMX362) are physically larger and have larger pixels, 1.55 um and 1.4 um respectively. Or also something like the IMX333 in the S8. That's why they do exactly what I said which is capture more light, rather than mindlessly chase higher megapixel counts.
The IMX318 is just a megapixel chasing sensor (22.5 MP), which is probably why it's only in more gimmicky phones, like the Zenfone and the Mi Note 2. Anyway, it has absolutely zero to do with any of the phones or types of sensors I was talking about. I have no idea why you brought it up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay, you are right about the 318.
The other sensors, Sony promotes a for cameras and they do not promote mobile. At least officially.
Essential made a design decision not to have a camera bump and also what would fit in the package.
Design is all about trade-offs. I've seen the pics of how full the thing is. Maybe one of the others just wouldn't fit? I don't know. I do know that if the bezels were larger I wouldn't be interested. If it were thicker, same thing.
I love the design of this phone but ya it does have tradeoffs for sure. Camera is one of them. They could have easily made the bottom bezel match the top like the S8 and put in a larger sensor for sure but decision was made to go for the super wow factor which is not necessarily a bad one in my eyes. That being said idk if i personally can "Downgrade" from the pixels camera...
tech_head said:
Okay, you are right about the 318.
The other sensors, Sony promotes a for cameras and they do not promote mobile. At least officially.
Essential made a design decision not to have a camera bump and also what would fit in the package.
Design is all about trade-offs. I've seen the pics of how full the thing is. Maybe one of the others just wouldn't fit? I don't know. I do know that if the bezels were larger I wouldn't be interested. If it were thicker, same thing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Whatever those sensors were originally intended for, they have been used in the best phone cameras for some time now. Samsung started using sensors like that in 2013 and Nokia, really the inventor of the modern high quality phone camera, started doing it in 2007. So Essential knew what they were doing (or not doing as the case may be).
I agree that there are trade offs with design. But Essential didn't say: in order to have a perfectly flat back we decided not to use the state of the art sensors found in other top phone cameras and do something that we think is good enough for standard users. Instead they went out of their way to promote the camera as what would be one of the stand out features of the phone. The even specifically hyped how great it's low light peformance would be. But anyone who knew the sensors they were using (without OIS) could have predicted it would not be as good as they claimed. In fact, the Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus tried the exact same configuration a year before, two IMX258 sensors, one RGB the other Monochrome, with no OIS, and that camera had the exact same performance problems. So no one can say with a straight face that they didn't know what would happen.
Not only am I disappointed in the substandard performance of the camera in the Essential Phone (for a contemporary flagship), but I think Essential was totally dishonest in how they promoted this phone and apparently thought their stupid customers and reviewers wouldn't notice. Which also contradicts their claim they would be a different kind of consumer friendly company. To me, the whole clearly dishonest camera hyping episode reveals that Essential is a very different, not so nice, kind of company than they claimed and it makes me very skeptical of their claims about everything else in the phone and that they plan to do.
So I think the way things unfolded is a little different than simply Essential decided to make a design trade off.
Also, Essential has made an awful lot of design trade offs. No 3.5 mm jack. No stereo speakers. No water proofing. No sd card. And now a subpar camera. At some point it's not worth it. I was willing to live with those other things, even though I was not excited about them (especially the 3.5 mm jack). But at least the features that are there should live up to the quality the phone claims to have and the camera just does not come close.
Lastly, I really don't get it, the obsession with the perfectly flat back. The great thing about the Esssential design is the front; it's the bezeless screen and fitting a relatively large screen in a phone much smaller than usual. Secondarly the titanium and ceramic are nice touches. But who gives sh.. about the perfectly flat back? Seriously. I don't think this would have affected anyone's perception of the phone. It would have taken a very minor hump to get an IMX378 in there and without the two sensors taking up more space, they could have had OIS. It also would have fit the Essential branding. They could have said: "We are not jumping on the dual camera gimmick band wagon (since dual cameras pretty much are a gimmick, all the different ways it's done). Large sensors and OIS are what makes cameras good. So that's what we're doing. Just the 'essential' things."
In the end, the flat back just seems like a misguided obsession of Rubin himself in his desire to make his fantasy personal perfect phone.
Sounds like the phone isn't for you lol. Quite the post.
jerflash said:
I love the design of this phone but ya it does have tradeoffs for sure. Camera is one of them. They could have easily made the bottom bezel match the top like the S8 and put in a larger sensor for sure but decision was made to go for the super wow factor which is not necessarily a bad one in my eyes. That being said idk if i personally can "Downgrade" from the pixels camera...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I doubt the design was by essential alone and instead their design choice limited by the display provided by Sharp who just released a similar phone.