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i just got htc one xl (international versionfor at&t) and everything is just superb. but wait here is a problem with my phone's camera the image quality is not awesome in low lights its average with some noise at the ends of picture now where is the BSI sensor result??and the major issue is that my phone looses its focus while recording video and when i press centre of phone's screen then it appears ok what the hell is this? is it a software problem or my phone is buggy
There's an international One X forum, go there. Some others may be having the same problem. Honestly, it just sounds like you're expecting too much from the camera in terms of low light. Try messing with exposure? The phone comes over exposed though already.
vioalas said:
There's an international One X forum, go there. Some others may be having the same problem. Honestly, it just sounds like you're expecting too much from the camera in terms of low light. Try messing with exposure? The phone comes over exposed though already.
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yes i am expecting too much because htc and gsmarena makes me to expect that too much impressive result by talking about f/2.0 and BSI sensor performance. i also used n8 and that was mind blowing result and camera phone. anyhow what about problem in focus while recording? any one have any idea?
It must be a faulty handset. I've taken shots in almost absolute darkness and still been blown away by the camera's low level light performance. Like someone mentioned it's already oversaturated out the box.
Sent from my HTC One X using XDA
shawn1224 said:
It must be a faulty handset. I've taken shots in almost absolute darkness and still been blown away by the camera's low level light performance. Like someone mentioned it's already oversaturated out the box.
Sent from my HTC One X using XDA
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And oversaturation is good for low light pictures right? Sorry, my camera knowledge is slim to none at best.
Sent from my HTC One X
The only thing can really help the low light photography is a large sensor. You need a sensor the size of APS-C or full frame 35mm to achive that. The pee sized sensor in all phones can never get what you want no matter what technological wonders they have.
Unfortunately, those larger sensor (and the larger lens) is impossible to embed into a phone.
I also have a problem with the camera where the pics are mostly too yellow. Is this a common issue and is there a fix? I can't fine RGB adjustment in the stock camera app. Is there a good 3rd party camera app that has this feature?
plau13 said:
I also have a problem with the camera where the pics are mostly too yellow. Is this a common issue and is there a fix?
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It happens when you shoot indoors with incandescent lamps as lighting. You need to manually change the white blance to Incadescent mode in camera settings.
It's a common issue for majority of the cameras out there.
n70shan said:
yes i am expecting too much because htc and gsmarena makes me to expect that too much impressive result by talking about f/2.0 and BSI sensor performance. i also used n8 and that was mind blowing result and camera phone. anyhow what about problem in focus while recording? any one have any idea?
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The continuous autofocusing does seem to be quite aggressive, resulting in the phone always searching for something to focus on. This may be what you're experiencing. Try turning off the Face Detection option in the cameras settings. Hopefully that helps!
The low-light performance of this camera is not mind-blowing. The overall image quality and abilities of the camera is, to me, quite spectacular. But take my word, and the word of reviews around the internet, with a grain of salt, as we are all speaking relatively. That is, understand that this is a pretty awesome camera for a camera phone. It's not an 808, n8, n9, nor is it your average point and shoot camera, which will have a large sensor and better image processing. But the HOX is capable of taking photos that compare to those types of devices.
fitchpuckman said:
The continuous autofocusing does seem to be quite aggressive, resulting in the phone always searching for something to focus on. This may be what you're experiencing. Try turning off the Face Detection option in the cameras settings. Hopefully that helps!
The low-light performance of this camera is not mind-blowing. The overall image quality and abilities of the camera is, to me, quite spectacular. But take my word, and the word of reviews around the internet, with a grain of salt, as we are all speaking relatively. That is, understand that this is a pretty awesome camera for a camera phone. It's not an 808, n8, n9, nor is it your average point and shoot camera, which will have a large sensor and better image processing. But the HOX is capable of taking photos that compare to those types of devices.
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ok fine but plz tell that whether galaxy s3 has better camera compared to one xl or one x?
The verge has a hands on review go read it
Make sure you're using Low light mode in the settings too and not just Auto.
gunnyman said:
The verge has a hands on review go read it
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where?plz give me link to that site?
http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/25/3042640/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-review
n70shan said:
ok fine but plz tell that whether galaxy s3 has better camera compared to one xl or one x?
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I can't tell you one way or the other. I have not used the S3 or really looked deeply into it's camera. I'm sure this would be something you'd want to look around the web for, to see if any sites have gotten a hold of an S3 to test it out.
Just read that the SGIII has the same camera as the 4S. Take it as you will, but I like that camera. However its the post processing in the software that will produce the end result.
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium
So I got an Idol 3 5.5 that fell from 15cm off the ground and of course broke it's screen, so a friend gave me his old iPhone 4S as a replacement until I decide what I will do with the Alcatel. I'm a semi-professional photographer and have been using SLRs and DSLRs for some 15 years. I am astounded how good the camera on the 4 and (almost) a half years old iPhone 4s is, especially compared to the half year old Alcatel. But it's not that the iPhone is excellent (although it is), the Alcatel is, well, not so good.
So, here's a test I did. I photographed the same subject in the same lighting conditions (artifical constant indoor light so no variations in lighting between shots) from the same position, maybe a few milimeteres to the side (not farther or closer to skew the perspective/depth of field).
Photos in next post so I can add attachments to it
Are you kidding me, I can't post photos?
You should not have expected superb photo quality. The cost of the phone speaks for itself.
Can't tell if you are trolling or not.
How are you a semi-professional photographer and comparing an iPhone to the Idol 3. There is more to cameras than just megapixels you know and Apple is known for having top-of-the-line cameras in their phones. Also, if you are an avid photographer, why did it take you getting an iPhone in order to confirm that you don't like the Idol 3 photos?
lying about what though? I don't think they claimed to take better pics than an iphone 4s?
OK guys, it would all make much more sense if I could post photos, but I was actually not comparing the photo quality from iPhone and Alcatel, but rather the exposure values, where the EXIF suggests that the lens on the Alcatel is not f/2.0, but actually something smaller. In the same lighting conditions the iPhone photo had these values:
f/2.4, 1/20s, ISO 200
and the Idol 3:
f/2.0, 1/50s, ISO 1800
and this suggests that there is significantly less light coming to the chip of the Alcatel (almost three stops less). I have tested the exposure value of this situation with my Nikon and it is in sync with the iPhone EXIF values. Also, depth-of-field of the image on the Alcatel when compared to the iPhone is also confirming this. I'm not here to bash Alcatel and would actually be glad if anyone could prove me wrong! Maybe my unit is defective?Please, try to shoot the same frame with the Alcatel and some other camera and compare the exposure values.
I wouldn't say they're lying.
The sensor on the Idol 3 is a Sony IMX214 which has an aperture of f/2.0.
It's a very good sensor, but the camera lens is not as good as the sensor used.
The Nexus 6 & OnePlus One have the same sensor, but the lens used are far superior than one ones on the Idol 3. (Same f/2.0)
I'll say again, the price of the phone speaks for itself.
Sent from my 6045O using Tapatalk
Yeah I know that this sensor is used in a variety of cameras and have seen images from the 1+ and they were great! But again, I'm not talking about the quality of the image, I'm talking about it's objective performance in terms of the amount of light that comes to the sensor which seems to be less than they state it should be.
I just remembered that the camera app has that "Pro" mode which makes it possible to manually input the ISO and shutter speed so I will try to do it again comparing it to the iPhone, DSLR and my wife's Sony T3 later today.
I'm sure they used a lens of lower quality but it shouldn't block almost three stops of light compared to other lenses.
Hemidrosis said:
I wouldn't say they're lying.
The sensor on the Idol 3 is a Sony IMX214 which has an aperture of f/2.0.
It's a very good sensor, but the camera lens is not as good as the sensor used.
The Nexus 6 & OnePlus One have the same sensor, but the lens used are far superior than one ones on the Idol 3. (Same f/2.0)
I'll say again, the price of the phone speaks for itself.
Sent from my 6045O using Tapatalk
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1 -
mrkva123 said:
I'm not here to bash Alcatel and would actually be glad if anyone could prove me wrong!
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and in topic you said that Alcatel is lying.
2-how you managed to shoot photos with your idol3 when it has a broken screen? Cant it be,that your idol3 camera chip or camera lenses are affected after the fall of the device?As a photographer you should know that there is heavy postprocesing and when you use poorly written software it is also bad as hell.
3- you can show usThe pictures using a link to a cloud where you can upload it.
4-The picture quality is not only made by chip. There are also lenses and a software. You can see it everywhere on chineese low budget phones. They use IMX214 bud bad optics and poor software and the pictures look bad. Also you can see it on Alcatel idol3 app that the app has a problem with propper exposure recognition (i have always to tap to a screen on a place i want to have propper exposure metering from).
So in end effect i dont defence ALcatels picture quality it can be far better with software optimalisation. But as many users said before, you cant compare iphone camera to idol3 camera. They are on different levels and as a photographer you should known that time of release is not a comparable fact (you mentioned 4 years old iphone 4....).
Anyway ...who cares?
I'm not saying that they are lying definitely but I'm just asking cause this sounds strange.
Yeah, I can use the phone although its screen is broken since only one part (lower) of the screen is not functioning and the phone is flippable, so I need to constantly flip it to use different parts of the screen.
I sincerely doubt that the fall damaged the camera or any parts of it cause everything works, no artifacts or anything else.
Once again, this has nothing to do with the quality of the lens, chip, software or anything else. Image shot at f/2.0, 1/50s and ISO 200 will have the same exposure value (it would look to be equally light or dark) whether it was shot on an Alcatel Idol 3 or a professional Hasselblad medium-format 50 000 € camera or a film camera, or a camera obscura. Exposure is objectively measurable and is expressed with these values, nothing to do with the quality of the parts used and nothing to do with the quality of the photo, it's just the amount of light, not the quality of it or the image!
I have uploaded the photos to a image hosting service but I can't link to them, I tried numerous times.
DallasCZ said:
1 - and in topic you said that Alcatel is lying.
2-how you managed to shoot photos with your idol3 when it has a broken screen? Cant it be,that your idol3 camera chip or camera lenses are affected after the fall of the device?As a photographer you should know that there is heavy postprocesing and when you use poorly written software it is also bad as hell.
3- you can show usThe pictures using a link to a cloud where you can upload it.
4-The picture quality is not only made by chip. There are also lenses and a software. You can see it everywhere on chineese low budget phones. They use IMX214 bud bad optics and poor software and the pictures look bad. Also you can see it on Alcatel idol3 app that the app has a problem with propper exposure recognition (i have always to tap to a screen on a place i want to have propper exposure metering from).
So in end effect i dont defence ALcatels picture quality it can be far better with software optimalisation. But as many users said before, you cant compare iphone camera to idol3 camera. They are on different levels and as a photographer you should known that time of release is not a comparable fact (you mentioned 4 years old iphone 4....).
Anyway ...who cares?
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Click to collapse
I use the app A better camera for making photos and especially indoor photos are much better than using the standard app.
It's made by Almalence which is also making the software for some phone and camera manufacturers.
so, here are the images
first I shot with the iPhone since it can only shoot full auto:
http://imgur.com/CE9xNOc
EXIF says that it's:
1/20 sec, ISO 160 and f/2.4
So I set the Alcatel in the manual mode as follows to be as close to the iPhone shot:
1/30 sec, ISO 200 and the aperture is according to Alcatel, f/2.0 (although when I shot it in manual mode the aperture value is mysteriously omitted from the EXIF). the photo from the Alcatel should be brighter on these settings!
and here's what we get:
http://imgur.com/7d7c407
Once again, this has nothing to do with quality of the camera or any other parts involved, it's not that the Alcatel is worse, it is wrong.
And I finally managed to post photos
can someone please take a photo with the Idol 3 and some other cellphone in the same lighting conditions and scene just to confirm this?
you can check the EXIF values here: http://regex.info/exif.cgi
and write down the exposure values that you get from both phones.
mrkva123 said:
And I finally managed to post photos
can someone please take a photo with the Idol 3 and some other cellphone in the same lighting conditions and scene just to confirm this?
you can check the EXIF values here: http://regex.info/exif.cgi
and write down the exposure values that you get from both phones.
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i see what are you trying to tell, but i as i said, its a mobile phone i dont care.
But as i remember, there was same issue on my previous ZTE V5..the first firmwares said,that the aperture is 2.2 ...people complain about it and they have corrected it in next firmware.
So here can it be also. Ask on redit or in main XDa QA section, maybe someone who better understands optics and photograpy will tell you.
easyriider said:
I use the app A better camera for making photos and especially indoor photos are much better than using the standard app.
It's made by Almalence which is also making the software for some phone and camera manufacturers.
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Awesome! Just installed it and it is definitely the best camera app I have used on this phone. :good:
TallTommy said:
Awesome! Just installed it and it is definitely the best camera app I have used on this phone. :good:
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Agree! Because of you I gave it a try, amazing app + Now it's on sale. Wow
I don't know whether they are lying about the specs of the camera but mine is constantly collecting dust on the inside of the rear lens (already had it cleaned once and it is starting again). Never happened with any other phone I ever had and basically renders the rear camera useless within few weeks.
petertakov said:
I don't know whether they are lying about the specs of the camera but mine is constantly collecting dust on the inside of the rear lens (already had it cleaned once and it is starting again). Never happened with any other phone I ever had and basically renders the rear camera useless within few weeks.
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I have no single piece of dust on my camera..i have it for about 9 months allready.
My camera is also perfectly clean after more than half a year. I don't think they are lying about the specs. I suspect that the problem here is in the t-stop, which no lens manufacturer ever tells you about. The lens on the idol 3 is probably f/2 as they claim, but the amount of light that reaches the sensor has almost nothing to do with the f-stop, it's the t-stop that determines that. You can't actually rely on the f/stop for exposure (though it's a good approximation, usually), the f/stop is really only accurate for the depth of field that you get. I suspect that the t-stop on the idol 3 is lower than the one of the iPhone, while the t-stop of the iPhone happens to be more similar to the one of your DSLR lens. Though I have to say, the exposure difference in the photos you posted is very dramatic, maybe about 2 stops? I don't know if the t-stop can cause such a big difference.
That said, you could also easily test if the idol 3 camera is actually f/2. The idol 3 has a 6.1mm x 4.64mm sensor, and an 3.8mm focal length. Considering the sensor size, the crop factor is 7,2. As you probably know, the crop factor not only affects the focal length, but also the f/stop (and in fact also the ISO, but that doesn't matter now). So the idol 3 has a 35mm equivalent f/stop of f/2 x 7,2= f/14.4 (as far as DoF is concerned, not the exposure, obviously. This is the reason that it's so hard to get nice background blur on photos from smartphones unless you are very close up, it's because they have crazy small apertures like our idol 3 here at f/14.4. Again this is ONLY for DoF, not exposure. Basically because the sensor is very small, the aperture being small doesn't matter for exposure, the amount of light per pixel is about the same as if it was f/2 with a 35mm sensor.)
So, you could grab your Full Frame DSLR, set it to 27,4mm and f/14.4, (or if you have a 1.5x crop sensor DSLR, at 18.2mm and f/9.6), and then take a test picture with that DSLR and one with the idol 3. It's a DoF test shot, so take that into account when taking the photos (maybe set up a couple of items in a row, get them in frame in the same way on the idol 3 and DSLR, and focus on the frontmost item). The pictures from the DSLR and idol 3 should look about the same, DoF wise. The idol 3 will likely be noisier and not as sharp, and the exposure may be different too, but if the DoF is very different, then the idol 3 is not f/2. Setting up the DoF test shots might be tricky, because the minimum focusing distance is probably very different on the idol 3 and DSLR, but if you take these test shots we will at least know for certain if it is f/2 or not.
petertakov said:
I don't know whether they are lying about the specs of the camera but mine is constantly collecting dust on the inside of the rear lens (already had it cleaned once and it is starting again). Never happened with any other phone I ever had and basically renders the rear camera useless within few weeks.
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"Dust in the lens, all we are is dust in the lens..." lol No problems here, and everyone is free to do what they want with their phones, but I assume you are not using a full coverage case? I really can't believe some of the things I see people complain about when they don't use a quality case, and nowadays, a 9H glass screen protector. Not picking on you, and it's possible, even likely you got a bad unit. But "I dropped my phone, and I can't believe the pos shattered! I read it had blah blah next generation glass!" That one really makes me laugh.
And as far as the camera, There are lots of options for downloading/porting other cameras, with better settings and software. It's a $200 cell phone, and taking good pics is something that is important to me, so I always do a little searching on the forums of the new phones I get. I only paid $109 from Cricket, but even at $249 retail, what you get for the money is an amazing piece of technology, not a dedicated top of the line camera. And picture quality is somewhat subjective when you are talking about contrast, exposure, and saturation. Just one man's opinion....
Hi guys!
I own both a Honor 8 and a P9 lite and I expected the H8 cam to be way better then the P9l, but the truth is that I don't see any real differences and in some cases the P9l produces significant better photos.
To be honest, even without comparing with P9l, I was disappointed with H8 cam quality (it seems that suffer from some kind of grainy syndrome :/). I came from a Nexus 5 that was known for having a not so great camera, but a I think my photos with H8 are way worse...
That being said, what's weird to me is that everyone is really happy with overall camera performance, even reviews highlight it. So, is there any chance I'm facing a hardware problem with my device? Or is it software related? Already did a factory reset and nothing changed.
(and yes, I know it's a cell phone, not a professional camara, bla bla bla...)
FRD-L09C432B131
Thank you!
not a software related problem for sure, but it seems like a faulty 2ndary camera unit.. so what you need to is look for another h8(may be a friend's) and compare the cameras,
or you can compare the samples of any other h8 user here.. that clarifies it for you..
If you've had you device for less than 2 weeks, I'd send it back for a replacement unit. As you could have been sold a faulty unit.
At least give a direct photo comparison... the difference won't be great but the Honor 8 should always be a bit better.
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.
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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.
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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.
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Sony IMX258
360 camera is IMX378
Kay1000RR said:
Sony IMX258
360 camera is IMX378
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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).
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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...
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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.
Ok, guys, since it's a very important topic, one of the pros of this device and what it is advertised for, I feel the need and obligation to speak about the front camera ridiculous noiseness, blurriness and inability to focus.
Alright, I won't even bother with the mighty rear cameras because there's enough fuss about them. What I noticed clearly is about the front. Dude, this camera configuration by the date is horrid. I say configuration because, thank god, it seems to be a software error.
In low light, the front camera is simply a wreck full of noise. And what is most is that I noticed that because I've came from the g7 plus, which had a great front camera, recording 4k. And even without using 4k on that one, I noticed the bad quality of the g8 plus HD one. I don't want to mention that bad adjusting to light conditions, too.
Now, after downloading Gcam and testing it, it seemed to get rid of substancial noise, but not too good.
I hope you guys noticed this too and we get reedeemed by a future update on this crap. It seems software problem
We need custom roms.