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Camera - Shooting RAW possible?

I searched for camera mods to allow for capturing of RAW data from the sensor on the Charge.
As far as I can tell, nobody has been successful in getting any Android phone to capture the RAW data.
Does anybody know if this is possible? I know others who would love to have the ability. I didn't really want to start a discussion of RAW vs JPEG compression, etc. I know the drawbacks and advantages of RAW.
I think that this would require camera firmware modifications as well as Camera APK modifications. My development knowledge is very limited, hence my name.
Does anybody know if this would require a reasonable about of effort or if its far beyond being worth the trouble?

It looks possible, and the code is in the API to do this, but it has yet to be done as far as I know. It looks to be an issue with the "RAW callback function" always returning NULL. If I have some time I will to look into it.

Do Not ask Questions in the Development thread if it is not Development it does not belong in here
Moving to General

My apologies and thanks.

Bumping this, seems like an interesting feature, considering it has API support.

bcpk said:
Bumping this, seems like an interesting feature, considering it has API support.
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I would plus one this
Sent from my Xoom using XDA Premium App

I don't know if its prohibitively difficult to mod, but I couldn't find any other phone which has been developed to shoot RAW. Perhaps people just haven't shown much interest.
I would love this feature, but I figure most people shooting in RAW already have a "real" camera. I would expect a decent increase in photo quality though. I have 32 GB on my phone waiting to store some RAW data!

I just wish someone would mod the camera APK to use +2 sharpness, which would result in better quality photos. The camera app applies a bad blur/denoise filter on the lower sharpness settings which reduces the quality of the picture. Worse, the camera does not save that setting, so it needs to be set each time I use it.

BeefJerky9 said:
I just wish someone would mod the camera APK to use +2 sharpness, which would result in better quality photos. The camera app applies a bad blur/denoise filter on the lower sharpness settings which reduces the quality of the picture. Worse, the camera does not save that setting, so it needs to be set each time I use it.
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You know u can modify the frame work for the camera, I've done it before, search xda. I doubt remember the form
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xdadevnube said:
I don't know if its prohibitively difficult to mod, but I couldn't find any other phone which has been developed to shoot RAW. Perhaps people just haven't shown much interest.
I would love this feature, but I figure most people shooting in RAW already have a "real" camera. I would expect a decent increase in photo quality though. I have 32 GB on my phone waiting to store some RAW data!
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Shooting raw will make the color correction possible which will significantly boost the image quality to...a 70 dollars' compact camera you can find on ebay, BUT, the best camera is always the one that is with you, so I always support anyone who like to improve android phone's shooting ability.
---------- Post added at 02:38 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:26 AM ----------
The real issue isn't allowing the camera to shoot raw because they can be done but the raw format will not be recognized by any raw processing software on the market. The possible way is to use DNG format which will significantly increase the difficulty of modification because it means the programmer will put in hours to create a brand new application to understand and compress the raw file to the DNG file...unlike Canon, android does not have an official raw format...so everything will need to start from zero. This process could easily take 20 very experienced engineers up to a year to complete, and the result might not be very ideal and will need another year to modify and improve...so we are looking at a potentially five million dollars project here - and it will better be turning in to profitable application - and if so it will have to be the best selling android app ever.

xdadevnube said:
I don't know if its prohibitively difficult to mod, but I couldn't find any other phone which has been developed to shoot RAW. Perhaps people just haven't shown much interest.
I would love this feature, but I figure most people shooting in RAW already have a "real" camera. I would expect a decent increase in photo quality though. I have 32 GB on my phone waiting to store some RAW data!
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Yes, most (like myself) probably do but since I'm carrying around a high quality 8 megapixel camera in my pocket I'd like to be able to shoot in raw for those times that I don't have my DSLR with me. There is so much more that com be done to a RAW photograph, not to mention not having any data loss form it being converted to a jpeg. Looking forward to seeing if anyone can make this possible.

desmalta said:
Yes, most (like myself) probably do but since I'm carrying around a high quality 8 megapixel camera in my pocket I'd like to be able to shoot in raw for those times that I don't have my DSLR with me. There is so much more that com be done to a RAW photograph, not to mention not having any data loss form it being converted to a jpeg. Looking forward to seeing if anyone can make this possible.
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Just a reminder....this is a cell phone, not a camera!

buhohitr said:
Just a reminder....this is a cell phone, not a camera!
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Just a reminder, anything is possible in the world of android!
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA App

desmalta said:
Yes, most (like myself) probably do but since I'm carrying around a high quality 8 megapixel camera in my pocket I'd like to be able to shoot in raw for those times that I don't have my DSLR with me. There is so much more that com be done to a RAW photograph, not to mention not having any data loss form it being converted to a jpeg. Looking forward to seeing if anyone can make this possible.
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RAW does not equal improved quality if the camera is not capturing more image information prior to compressing to JPG. You're still working with a tiny fixed lens and dense, compact sensor with tiny photo sites. This is limiting the amount and quality of light. Shooting RAW will not change this. JPG compression is not a limiting factor for image quality. You won't be able to resolve significantly finer detail or shoot in lower light settings just because you're shooting RAW. Open a JPG as RAW with Photoshop, it'll provide a similar experience.
You'll end up with similar photo quality, a bit more flexibility in PP, and huge lag while the camera tries to handle transfering and saving the huge photo file 10x larger than what it was designed to handle.
These are the only mobile phone sensors I've seen that would support or justify shooting in RAW.
Another story on them: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/14/omnivisions-new-12mp-cmos-sensor-shoots-raw-pics-and-1080-60p-v/
In other words, RAW will be here eventually. When it is, it'll be an improvement. To try and force it (if it were even possible) with the sensor and hardware limitations in the DC is pointless.

charlie_c said:
RAW does not equal improved quality if the camera is not capturing more image information prior to compressing to JPG.
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true, but shooting raw does preserve more of the image, because its the raw/real image that sensors seems is not a jpg processed image the way camera applications decided the scene should look like.
basically would would be taking your camera off the auto mode.
with raw you would have greated control over white balance, shadows, highlights etc...

There is a question about how many bits of image data you got on mobile sensor. On DSLR there is 12 or 14 bits information that is compressed to 8bit JPG information - that's why there is plenty more information about the image in RAW format. If CMOS in your mobile phone deliver just strait 8bit - your RAW will not have much more data.
As I don't have slightest idea how many bits of data is served by mobile camera sensor I can't say if there is a reason for RAW.

i found this
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14777953/how-to-capture-raw-image-from-android-camera
i am really looking forward for a raw file from android camera this will be a huge move forward to the mobile world and the abilities of android
and since its supported in the api means google wants it to happen
Edit:
Create this dir /data/misc/camera/RaW_PiCtUrEs case sensitive btw
Assuming the capture mode used is high-quality and not high-quality-zsl it should produce a raw image everytime you capture a jpeg image
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try this maybe it will work i found it here : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1977654&nocache=1

The image quality of the camera is a LOT worse than advertised

Hello there, other S10e owners,
Recently, I took advantage of an early Black Friday sale to get an S10e, the phone I was craving for a while. They said the image quality is on par with the Pixel 3 after the May update, but in reality, it's just as noisy and "oil-paintingish" as my Xperia Z1 Compact from four (!!!) years ago.
The samples are in the attachment of this forum post; the first and the third image was taken with the Google Camera app, and the second and forth one with the Samsung Camera app. The first two images were taken with HDR, but the latter ones without HDR.
As you can see in the non-HDR pictures, the Samsung Camera picture has less noise, but cold, washed-out colours and less detail thanks to the aggressive noise cancellation.
On the other hand, the Google Camera image has the correct colour representation and more detail, but with the sacrifice of noise cancellation.
With HDR+, though... Things get even worse. The Samsung Camera app now blurs out even more detail and the Google Camera app just cranks up the ISO to levels that make the image too bright.
In conclusion, the image quality is not on the promised levels, but I hope there's something I can do with it (like a good setup.xml file that can fix GCam to shoot exceptionally good images in both sun- and low light or fixing the Samsung Camera app). So, in order to fix this, I need your help. Please give me advice to pimp back up the image quality to the levels I saw in camera reviews.
Edit: Oops, I forgot to mention that I have the Exynos version.

ThePS4Gamer said:
Hello there, other S10e owners,
Recently, I took advantage of an early Black Friday sale to get an S10e, the phone I was craving for a while. They said the image quality is on par with the Pixel 3 after the May update, but in reality, it's just as noisy and "oil-paintingish" as my Xperia Z1 Compact from four (!!!) years ago.
The samples are in the attachment of this forum post; the first and the third image was taken with the Google Camera app, and the second and forth one with the Samsung Camera app. The first two images were taken with HDR, but the latter ones without HDR.
As you can see in the non-HDR pictures, the Samsung Camera picture has less noise, but cold, washed-out colours and less detail thanks to the aggressive noise cancellation.
On the other hand, the Google Camera image has the correct colour representation and more detail, but with the sacrifice of noise cancellation.
With HDR+, though... Things get even worse. The Samsung Camera app now blurs out even more detail and the Google Camera app just cranks up the ISO to levels that make the image too bright.
In conclusion, the image quality is not on the promised levels, but I hope there's something I can do with it (like a good setup.xml file that can fix GCam to shoot exceptionally good images in both sun- and low light or fixing the Samsung Camera app). So, in order to fix this, I need your help. Please give me advice to pimp back up the image quality to the levels I saw in camera reviews.
Edit: Oops, I forgot to mention that I have the Exynos version.
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Click to collapse
Please give me the Gcam download link. I couldn't find any Gcam version that worked well on my S10e Exynos. Thanks

Julyh0rse.ManU said:
Please give me the Gcam download link. I couldn't find any Gcam version that worked well on my S10e Exynos. Thanks
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If you can do something with it, here's the link: GCam Exynos APK
In sunlight, it should theoretically work with the stock settings, but they say it's recommended to change the auto-exposure correction to 1/2 sec, the Night Sight correction to 1/4 sec and the exposure compensation to -3,0 to get the best out of daytime GCam photos.
For Night Sight images, it's recommended to use the mackytravel-nightsight.xml file without any changes for outdoor night photos and for indoors, turn off auto-exposure correction and exposure compensation, change the Night Sight correction to 1
or 2 sec (depending on the level of darkness) and in the Advanced drop-down menu, turn off the ISO limit. This way, you can get more detail out from the S10e's powerful camera sensors.
Lastly, if you'd like to shoot something with the wide-angle lens, just change the auxiliary camera switching method to the long-press method.
You can find my GCam config folder with all of the said configuration files at the link here.
Just install the GCam apk, copy-paste the config folder to the root of your internal storage (/storage/emulated/0/) and double tap on the black area around the shutter button to choose between the three configuration files.

I've noticed a similar thing with my camera on my SD 855 model where images taken using the camera just don't look very natural or realistic. They look very much like a painting!
Currently I get better results with HDR on and scene optimiser turned off.
My iPhone 7 photos still look a bit more natural at times but obviously less detailed.
Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk

Open Camera now allows P20 PRO to record video using all lenses

Hi all, you might know this already but I just found out and it seems like absolutely great news for this phone. The latest Open Camera update allows you to record video using every camera on the phone. Even the monochrome one works. No need to have perfect lighting conditions in order for the camera to switch between main and telephoto. You now have a dedicated camera button which lets you select what lens to use. Did you get the chance to try it out? I didn't have any issues yet.

Link please

Here it is:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.sourceforge.opencamera

Is the recording quality improved?

I'm not sure. You do have to option to record with maximum 80Mbps but I I find it hard to tell if that is any different from the 30Mbps standard rate. Video looks crisp and clear, colors are very good, especially if you lock the white balance.

Quality seems not as good.. Also can not use Camera API 2, for high res to get extra control in manual mode.

I'm not sure why you can't use camera2 api. For me it works and I can select iso and exposure during filming. I have a CLT L29.

boradu said:
I'm not sure why you can't use camera2 api. For me it works and I can select iso and exposure during filming. I have a CLT L29.
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whats your max resolution for recording video using Camera2 API?

For the 40mp lens and the telephoto lens, I have 3840x2160. The monochrome camera however has a resolution of 3264x1840 for video.

Sorry for necropost, but anyone tried open camera for B&W photos? Does it allow exposure bracketing? Raw or at least png for file saving? I would like to try p20 pro just for that monochrome lens...

You can save RAW with the B&W camera but for some reason the pictures appear purple.

Question Does this camera do raw dng photo at all? And what sensor?

Anyone know if raw dng photo capture is capable on this phone? And anyone know what sensor is used? The stock app does not seem to offer raw. It would be unfortunate if raw is not supported. Presumably the sensor is decent but Samsung stock software is usual not very good. 3rd party camera software rules, if raw is capable.

I tried using the pro shot app in the play store. No luck. There is a Samsung system app that crashes when trying to take a raw picture. Kind of annoying, I really would like to be able to take raw pictures because I use Lightroom to clean things up. Cleaning up a jpeg in the edit app on the camera/gallery pretty much destroys the quality by double compressing.
This is really frustrating because I'm sure the camera sensor is capable of taking raw images it's almost like Samsung is trying to prevent it at the OS level just to prevent people from having a good camera feature in a mid-range phone.

No RAW. You can download the Camera 2 API Prober to see all the feature it supports. It supports Camera 2 Limited (Full or Level 3 are better).
Yes, Samsung limited it at the system level, the processing is done by the kernel and the software only receives the result in JPG or HEIF. That's why you can't really use other camera apps to improve the results either.

poog said:
And anyone know what sensor is used?
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The main camera (f/1.8, 0.8µm and around 1/1.7X" sensor size with PDAF and OIS) can either use a Samsung s5kgw1p sensor, commonly known as the GW1 or a Sony IMX682.

No camera2api LVL3/FULL support. Disappointing. Is there any way to port it?

DRSdroid said:
I tried using the pro shot app in the play store. No luck. There is a Samsung system app that crashes when trying to take a raw picture. Kind of annoying, I really would like to be able to take raw pictures because I use Lightroom to clean things up. Cleaning up a jpeg in the edit app on the camera/gallery pretty much destroys the quality by double compressing.
This is really frustrating because I'm sure the camera sensor is capable of taking raw images it's almost like Samsung is trying to prevent it at the OS level just to prevent people from having a good camera feature in a mid-range phone.
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Click to collapse
Do you able to capture raw/dng using Lightroom camera app?

Question Astrophotography time lapse question

Just wondering if there's any way I can get an astrophotography time lapse greater than 1 second? I would love to have 60 seconds, but I know it would probably take 4 hours or something.
Just wondering if this is possible or there's any third party apps that might be able to do this (take a longer exposure than the 4 minutes that astrophotography takes)?

I don't think it is possible, the astro time-lapse is made up from the images used to and then stacked for the astro image itself so you would end up with shed loads of images as well.
Have you tried just using the normal time-lapse option in the video settings?

Exactly, take a normal night video and then slow it down with editing software.

schmeggy929 said:
Exactly, take a normal night video and then slow it down with editing software.
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The dude is talking about astrophotography and long exposure shots for a reason. What will a "night video" do good? And timelapse is not slowing down the video. lmao

That is my mistake, I totally read his post wrong.

Thing is the astro time laps is made up of the individual shots taken when Astrophotography mode is active so those individual image have been taken at f1.85, if you just did a normal time lapse using the main lens the video will still be at f1.85 and with a bit of post processing it should work.
The other way around it is to just take a night mode photo every 30 seconds for 2 hours using a timer and a Bluetooth remote.

MrBelter said:
Thing is the astro time laps is made up of the individual shots taken when Astrophotography mode is active so those individual image have been taken at f1.85, if you just did a normal time lapse using the main lens the video will still be at f1.85 and with a bit of post processing it should work.
The other way around it is to just take a night mode photo every 30 seconds for 2 hours using a timer and a Bluetooth remote.
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You're talking about Aperture that is FIXED and completely irrelevant in this case. It's not like you have a variable aperture on the lens so you can adjust it.
What matters in his case is the shutter speed and the exposure time.
And no, normal timelapse WON'T work because the shutter speed will be low (fast) and the phone will try to compensate by pushing the ISO high. You'll end up with very dark scenes and TONS of noise.
And what makes Astro mode very important is the FRAME STACKING. Frame stacking reduces the overall noise and increases the "quality" of the image.

Deadmau-five said:
Just wondering if there's any way I can get an astrophotography time lapse greater than 1 second? I would love to have 60 seconds, but I know it would probably take 4 hours or something.
Just wondering if this is possible or there's any third party apps that might be able to do this (take a longer exposure than the 4 minutes that astrophotography takes)?
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Not with stock camera.
You can try MotionCam Pro for that. It has a timelapse option where you can set your exposure time even to 15 seconds.
MotionCam is mainly for RAW video recording, but you can do photos and time-lapses. The output is absolutely GREAT. You're working with a RAW VIDEO basically and the quality is not comparable to ANY other app.
I had one Astro timelapse from it but I can't seem to find it now. It's sh**y weather outside now so can't do even a short one. I could do just a daylight one so you can see what quality I'm talking about here.
Uploaded a screenshot of the viewfinder. As you can see on the SS, you can adjust the ISO and shutter speed (among many other things) and do a timelapse.
This is basically taking RAW shots that you can later post process with various editing software like, Davinci Resolve, Adobe Premiere, Vegas, etc...
What you get is a video quality on the level of a DSLR and BETTER because there is no post-processing involved on the phone, it's basically RAW DNG images taken (sequence) that you can export (render) into a video at your QUALITY choice with YOUR post-processing involved.
Here is one sample I shot at and rendered to 4k60 (no color grading, just stock output).
Keep in mind that this is YOUTUBE, the quality of the original video is FAR better.

JohnTheFarm3r said:
You're talking about Aperture that is FIXED and completely irrelevant in this case. It's not like you have a variable aperture on the lens so you can adjust it.
What matters in his case is the shutter speed and the exposure time.
And no, normal timelapse WON'T work because the shutter speed will be low (fast) and the phone will try to compensate by pushing the ISO high. You'll end up with very dark scenes and TONS of noise.
And what makes Astro mode very important is the FRAME STACKING. Frame stacking reduces the overall noise and increases the "quality" of the image.
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I know the aperture is fixed that's why i said it should work given the astrophotography mode time lapse is made up from the 16 images taken when the mode is active and not once the images have been stacked in to a single image. Given the way you talk you of all people should appreciate just how fast f1.85 is, not a single one of my Canon L lenses is that fast or even comes anywhere close to it.
The OP has nothing to lose by giving it a go before recommending extra software and shooting raw (it is raw BTW if we are getting picky, it isn't an acronym for anything).

MrBelter said:
I know the aperture is fixed that's why i said it should work given the astrophotography mode time lapse is made up from the 16 images taken when the mode is active and not once the images have been stacked in to a single image. Given the way you talk you of all people should appreciate just how fast f1.85 is, not a single one of my Canon L lenses is that fast or even comes anywhere close to it.
The OP has nothing to lose by giving it a go before recommending extra software and shooting raw (it is raw BTW if we are getting picky, it isn't an acronym for anything).
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Where did I say ANYTHING against the fixed aperture of F1.85? I just said that since it's fixed, it's not relevant to the "settings" he uses since he CAN'T change the aperture value anyway.
It's not about "losing" anything, it's about the technical part of understanding that your recommendation won't work because it doesn't use long exposure shutter speeds or frame stacking.
By NOT using frame stacking, the noise will be horrible and there is little much you can do with post-processing without killing completely the "details" on the photo by suppressing both luma and chroma noise.
Another thing is that regular timelapse doesn't push long exposures...It's just not meant to be used for "astro", that's all.

Erm ok fella but how do you think this was all done before Google and its wonderful computational photography came along?
My point about the aperture is it is very fast so it being fixed is not irrelevant at all given it is the only chance of this even working, the OP may have tried it at 0.5x or 5x where the apertures are much slower, the OP has absolutely nothing to lose by giving it a go, it might be crap, you might end up with only the brightest objects in the sky, you might end up with a noisy mush and yet it might be good fun who knows.
Sadly there is always one person that comes along and stomps on the parade because they know best though isn't there?

MrBelter said:
Erm ok fella but how do you think this was all done before Google and its wonderful computational photography came along?
My point about the aperture is it is very fast so it being fixed is not irrelevant at all given it is the only chance of this even working, the OP may have tried it at 0.5x or 5x where the apertures are much slower, the OP has absolutely nothing to lose by giving it a go, it might be crap, you might end up with only the brightest objects in the sky, you might end up with a noisy mush and yet it might be good fun who knows.
Sadly there is always one person that comes along and stomps on the parade because they know best though isn't there?
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It was done in a way that results were not even close to what we have today. Why use "outdated" methods when we have these VERY capable devices?
The app I suggested is great and has exactly what is he looking for.
Your logic of "How did we do this before XY time" is equal to "Let's just ride horses instead of cars because that's how we did it before". lmao