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Captivate camera - Is ther a guide to using it and taking the best shots?

I haven't been impressed with the photos at all. Most of them are blurry. I know nothing about camera settings on this phone. Is there a guide out there somewhere?
Thanks!

Citznfish said:
I haven't been impressed with the photos at all. Most of them are blurry. I know nothing about camera settings on this phone. Is there a guide out there somewhere?
Thanks!
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The camera sucks. Sucks defined as: takes blurry pictures in daylight. A total fail. The video is pretty good 'tho.

I love the camera. Takes better photos than my 3gs.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

I've been using the camera a lot and it's been really nice for me, for a phone camera, and I'm used to dslr's...
Side arrow>Gear (Settings)
Camera:
Page 3/5, check Anti-Shake
Page 4/5, check Auto contrast (can't remember if that is a default)
Wrench:
Just a personal preference, I set Review to 2 seconds to see the picture after it's taken.
Other than that, you just have to make sure the camera's focused on what you select before taking the picture, and it should be fine.

Make sure u tap on the screen to focus on the area u want to take the picture of.

Citznfish said:
I haven't been impressed with the photos at all. Most of them are blurry. I know nothing about camera settings on this phone. Is there a guide out there somewhere?
Thanks!
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Click to collapse
I have to agree with the OP, here. The images aren't so much blurry as they are highly compressed for some reason. I wonder if there's a way to lower the JPEG compression. It's like the images look good on the display, but when you look at them on your computer or (in the rare occasion) an iPhone 4's RetinaDisplay, you really see the compression artifacts. The video is not much better.
There must be a way to solve this.

I know it sounds obvious, but seriously make sure the camera lense isn't smudged before you start taking pictures. It's flush with the back of the phone and so really really easy to smudge with your fingers while handling the phone.
I was noticing how some pictures were insanely crisp and others were blurry in the same lighting conditions and everything, and I am pretty sure it's because of the lens being smudged. Just throwing that out there.

Inspire 4G Camera Quality, Can it be improved?

Overall, I really like the Inspire. However, one thing I noticed, was the lack of "super fine" mode for camera. It also appears to have some exposure issues, despite tweaking. Does anyone have tweaks for improving picture quality (via lowering any compression that may be present, displaying hidden modes, etc..)?

Colors seem all wonky on my camera, like over saturated or something.

Anyone else notice any blurred edges? For example, my pictures seem to be blurred near the top right of every photo. Before taking the picture it looks fine, but goes out of focus when the picture is captured. I've also heard of other people having this issue near the top left corner.
Sent from my HTC Inspire 4G using XDA App.

RacerX10 said:
Colors seem all wonky on my camera, like over saturated or something.
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I turned the "saturation" setting down to -1, seemed to resolve that issue.

blackviper71 said:
Anyone else notice any blurred edges? For example, my pictures seem to be blurred near the top right of every photo. Before taking the picture it looks fine, but goes out of focus when the picture is captured. I've also heard of other people having this issue near the top left corner.
Sent from my HTC Inspire 4G using XDA App.
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I have not noticed that issue on mine. However, the images do seem a bit grainy, which is hard to believe, considering it is 8MP. That leads me to believe there is jpeg compression taking place.

///M Class said:
I have not noticed that issue on mine. However, the images do seem a bit grainy, which is hard to believe, considering it is 8MP. That leads me to believe there is jpeg compression taking place.
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Mine only seem grainy in unnatural light. Outside in sunlight this thing takes the best pictures of any device I've ever owned. Note: I'm no photographer, so "any device I've ever owned" is very limited, as is my photography expertise. I'm happy with the camera on the Inspire though

My camera works perfect.

homeslice976 said:
Mine only seem grainy in unnatural light. Outside in sunlight this thing takes the best pictures of any device I've ever owned. Note: I'm no photographer, so "any device I've ever owned" is very limited, as is my photography expertise. I'm happy with the camera on the Inspire though
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I noticed when I was indoors setting ISO manually seems to work better than letting it set automatically. Sometimes it would be way too bright, sometimes too dark.

So what is the general impression about the camera? I've read and skimmed through a half-dozen reviews. Most say the camera is good, better than others, but all I really see is a blurry mess in the example shots. They also say the video is good, but I am not seeing that either. The brightness constantly changes and quivers and the video isn't very smooth or sharp. The audio recording is also very low quality and is my biggest complaint. This is in comparison to both a Samsung Galaxy S and Samsung Wave, which have pretty much the same cameras. And no I am not bashing the phone, because I might want to get it and like the other stuff like UI, alum body, natural-looking screen, etc. but am not to thrilled with the camera from the review pics/vids.

///M Class said:
I turned the "saturation" setting down to -1, seemed to resolve that issue.
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Much better, thanks !

///M Class said:
I turned the "saturation" setting down to -1, seemed to resolve that issue.
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Awesome! This really helps. Thanks for sharing.
Sent from my HTC Inspire 4G using XDA App.

The flash on my inspire has ugly green/teal hue. Anyone else noticed this?
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App

knarfl1 said:
The flash on my inspire has ugly green/teal hue. Anyone else noticed this?
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App
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This issue seemed to resolve itself after adjusting the saturation to -1. The other option is manually adjust the white balance to florescent.

///M Class said:
This issue seemed to resolve itself after adjusting the saturation to -1. The other option is manually adjust the white balance to florescent.
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Or, get a replacement. much better now. Even the sales Rep agreed flash was green.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App

Changing the iso when using the flash helps too. Took a bunch of pictures last week and most came out really good.

inspire 4g
///M Class said:
Overall, I really like the Inspire. However, one thing I noticed, was the lack of "super fine" mode for camera. It also appears to have some exposure issues, despite tweaking. Does anyone have tweaks for improving picture quality (via lowering any compression that may be present, displaying hidden modes, etc..)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, i guess the quality of the picture will be great if you can sent the camera settings as follow: while you are on the camera mode, select menu= image adjustments= increase the sharpness to the limit, drag saturation half way down, contrast half way up, exposure half way down. by doing this, you will love your shorts.

I think my lense is kind of broken, as I see a red halo in the center of every photo I take. It's really annoying, although the saturation -1 trick improved it a little.

[Q] Don't you find it odd that our camera can't zoom?

The camera on the Nexus S cannot zoom, even when rooted. Has anyone figured out why? Is this a *bug* or is it intended? I really thought Google was going to fix it with the 2.3.3 update; hopefully it gets added in for 2.3.4.
Are there technical limitations preventing our phones camera from zooming or is it a software limitation?

Good clear zooming is a hardware limitation.
Crappy zooming can be implemented via software. Called digital zoom or something like that.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm sure that I'm right. Got all this info from when vibrant people were arguing about the camera.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

The nexus s is android in it's simplest form. Being a dev phone you don't really need zoom. Go find a different camera app like vignette

DKY is right; the zoom in other SGS phones operates the same way as taking a full-frame picture, then later cropping it: the resolution of the relevant part of the picture is no better than it would have been in the larger frame; it's just bigger on any restricted-size display.

I find it odd as well ... but as suggested I will try the other camera app.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

kirdroid said:
I find it odd as well ... but as suggested I will try the other camera app.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
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Yes I find it odd as well. The previous phone that I have is HTC Magic which is a Pure Google phone as well, and it have Zoom (I don't care if its digital, its much easier to use than cropping), and the zoom icon is now replaced with the button to switch between front and back camera on NS.

Digital zoom is RUBBISH and I don't want it on my phone.

And I just realized, the "crop" function makes the photo to have a maximum x/y resolution of 1024!

Digital zoom is horrid...especially if you are zooming in on a low quality image like the NS produces. I don't even use it on my SGSII because I never want to degrade my image.
You can always zoom and crop after taking the image, which is all digital zoom does anyway.

Bigger 3d pictures

Can we have full screen pictures after shooting a 3d photo?
Sent from my LG-P920 using xda premium

No.........

Possible if you crop the photo

wiebenik said:
Can we have full screen pictures after shooting a 3d photo?
Sent from my LG-P920 using xda premium
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the photos would be smaller, not bigger as it would require some of the top and bottom cropping off. I'd prefer them to be the size they are now!

You can make the pictures larger by using the phones photo editor if you want to. Hold your finger over a pic while browsing the gallery and when menu choices are offered choose the edit option and from there you can adjust size etcetera. I have only used this resize ability for my 2D to 3D conversions to fit them better on screen as optimus photos are a good size anyway.
Alternatively you can take two higher resolution pictures using an app like 3dsteroid and have the app turn them into one large 3D image.
Dave

Yes they would be slightly smaller - if cropped on the phone (takes work too) - but to fill the whole phone screen would make them light more pixels (on the phone).
It is really a pitty the cam does not opt for filling the screen - btw. In filming it does - and it looks good in WIDESCRREN.
I hope to have it corrected in the photo mode @ a later time.
Cheers
Sent from my LG-P920 using XDA App

heiwid said:
Yes they would be slightly smaller - if cropped on the phone (takes work too) - but to fill the whole phone screen would make them light more pixels (on the phone).
It is really a pitty the cam does not opt for filling the screen - btw. In filming it does - and it looks good in WIDESCRREN.
I hope to have it corrected in the photo mode @ a later time.
Cheers
Sent from my LG-P920 using XDA App
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the photo mode is correct (4:3)
filming uses more of the screen because it's 16:9 but the resolution is much lower

Yes, i know the filming res is much lower and not better. But still i would love to get rid of maybe 20% res, but be able to see the pics full screen.
One more cropped image size in the cam settings (in 2d and 3d) would satisfy my needs @ all.
Sent from my LG-P920 using XDA App

Small addition (begging to lg):
The same problem with pictures not beeing displayed full screen applies on my brand new 16:9 led tv - a shame - even more if seen in 3d. It makes the view into the screen like a keyhole effect.
I would really appreciate the possibility of shooting cropped img in the 16:9 format which is also the screen aspect of the phone itself and i think almost every modern display device.
Sent from my LG-P920 using XDA App

[Q] Possible camera improvements?

I mean picture quality, not video recording. I have been somewhat disappointed with the camera so far. Even at 8 MP, my pictures often turn out strangely blurry, or the colors end up being washed out. Are there any tweaks/mods/apps you guys are aware of that may improve the camera? I'm running cyanogenmod 7, if that makes any difference.

niko_droid said:
I mean picture quality, not video recording. I have been somewhat disappointed with the camera so far. Even at 8 MP, my pictures often turn out strangely blurry, or the colors end up being washed out. Are there any tweaks/mods/apps you guys are aware of that may improve the camera? I'm running cyanogenmod 7, if that makes any difference.
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See here. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1402622

Try an app called "HDR Camera" it trends to make pictures better using HDR (High Dynamic Range).
Sent from my LG-P999 using xda premium

stormageddon said:
Try an app called "HDR Camera" it trends to make pictures better using HDR (High Dynamic Range).
Sent from my LG-P999 using xda premium
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Aren't most camera apps disposed to make low res images though? How many will actually take pictures at full 8mp resolution?

psychoace said:
Aren't most camera apps disposed to make low res images though? How many will actually take pictures at full 8mp resolution?
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I tried HDR camera before, as well as Camera Zoom. They both support 8MP from what I remember. But Zoom didn't really help my camera's quality, while HDR takes pretty darn long to take a photo. The colors are better, but the photos still aren't as sharp as they should be.
And thanks prettyboy, I'll try the engine when I get home, and we'll see how that goes. From the pictures, the improvement looks pretty significant.
P.S. Happy New Year everyone!

I removed the little glass piece, makes the pictures look better. Especially outside shots.