Will the telephoto lens sensor ever match the main cam in smartphones? - Samsung Galaxy S8+ Questions & Answers

This question is especially for the S8+ and upcoming S9 or new iphone. The sensor on the telephoto lens is always much smaller and quality much worse than the main lens so far.
Also, any luck on whether S9 will support 4k60p at h265?
Any comments?

Well, when you zoom in, you lose some quality by "cropping" the incoming light. Resolution is dependant on sensor, but if you zoom in you are taking a smaller portion of the scene that you see, if you get my point. It's not that tey don't want to, it's just physically much harder to make a zoom camera the same quality as a wide angle camera on such a small form as a smartphone camera.

Enthusiast cameras can have variable focal length lenses, they have complex lens combination that are physically adjustable (so called tele photo), when you 'zoom' there's no loss of resolution.
All cameras on mobile phones are to my knowledge fixed focal length lenses, the only zoom is digital which as Ertogrul implies reduces resolution.
Digital zoom is very much the poor relation in terms of image quality, but then we get what we pay for and a good tele photo camera lens will typically cost considerably more than any high end phone will cost.
Sent from my [device_name] using XDA-Developers Legacy app

Related

Best photo resolution

Hi everyone!
Which resolution do you use, 12 mpx or 20 mpx? 12mpx gives you hybrid zoom x2 but phone only uses rgb lens, while 20mpx supposedly uses both lenses to create a hybrid colour/b&w pic. So which do you use? I have it on 12mpx in order to use zoom but don't really know which is best.
Cheers!
It actually depends on your preference and the situation you want to create in the photo. I use the 20mp when shooting wide angle landscapes, while im using the 12mp when shooting portraits or closeups
earl_110 said:
It actually depends on your preference and the situation you want to create in the photo. I use the 20mp when shooting wide angle landscapes, while im using the 12mp when shooting portraits or closeups
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Thanks for replying! I've actually found that shooting a normal close up pic on 12mpx shoots in kind of a wide-angle effect. Last friday celebrating carnival at school, I was able to fit in a whole class of 28 kids from a few feet away. If u look at the pic, it looks like it has been shot on a wide-angle lens!
Any more opinions on camera config are more than welcome!
I don't believe that the 20MPx option uses both cameras. When you partially cover the B&W sensor, there is no noticable effect on the photo. Looks like it is only software based up-scaling and may get you jagged edges sometimes. After some testing with 20MPx and then 20MPx resized to 12MPx just for comparison, I prefer the 12MPx default setting.
_Marian_ said:
I don't believe that the 20MPx option uses both cameras. When you partially cover the B&W sensor, there is no noticable effect on the photo. Looks like it is only software based up-scaling and may get you jagged edges sometimes. After some testing with 20MPx and then 20MPx resized to 12MPx just for comparison, I prefer the 12MPx default setting.
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Hi Marian, thanks for your reply!
So on a phone with a dual camera, what would be the purpose of the dual lens?? If one is rgb and the other monocrome, don't they both work together to provide depth information and zoom? Or do all colour pics use just the one rgb lens and the other is exclusively for b&w pics?? Seems a little pointless to me...
You are totally right about the sw upscale to 20mp as any other camera app only detects a maximum resolution of 12 mp, but it seems strange to me that even on 12mp colour pictutes, the phone wouldn't use both lens (depth and zoom) because the inferior P20 Lite precisely doess that on all the reviews I read about it (I've always thought that was the point of all dual-lens cameras).
Cheers!
The B&W sensor should provide depth information. You can try different camera modes and cover the B&W sensor. The phone says "Please do not cover the lenses." in some camera modes. But if you don't put finger too close, nothing happens. I can't tell it does anything at all to the image quality which seems strange. Did they made some mistake in latest build? It only does have some effect on aperture mode when you can see heat haze effect on display. It sucks we don't have more options like jpg quality or sliders for post-process filters.

Camera vs S10?

Any one able to compare the camera with the Samsung S10? Is it better or worse?
Having both phones, I can say it's worse.
The main issue really is the exposure and whatever HDR+ algorithm they're implementing in the stock camera app. Even though they said it's the same HRD algorithm that was applied by google for pixel phones, I still think it's over exposing everything especially the low tones and shadows - this produce a very unnatural looking picture. (If I wear a black shirt, my pic came out as if I'm wearing a gray shirt due to overexposure on the shadows).
On the other hand, I'm really loving the flip camera and the ability to use wide angle for selfie/group selfie and video. That is definitely the highlight of this hardware. But I will be lying if I say I'm not struggling to love the quality of the pictures produced by this phone.
Have you tried the GCAM port? for me it produces better pics...
The Asus stock camera is hit or miss. Too inconsistent for me, especially the HDR++ mode.
But with arnova's GCam port it is simply amazing and blows away even the pixel 3 cameras.
The wide angle camera in our Asus does not focus as good as the main camera ..try it..also the slow motion videos are not that sharp and crisp.
baymon said:
Having both phones, I can say it's worse.
The main issue really is the exposure and whatever HDR+ algorithm they're implementing in the stock camera app. Even though they said it's the same HRD algorithm that was applied by google for pixel phones, I still think it's over exposing everything especially the low tones and shadows - this produce a very unnatural looking picture. (If I wear a black shirt, my pic came out as if I'm wearing a gray shirt due to overexposure on the shadows).
On the other hand, I'm really loving the flip camera and the ability to use wide angle for selfie/group selfie and video. That is definitely the highlight of this hardware. But I will be lying if I say I'm not struggling to love the quality of the pictures produced by this phone.
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Agreed, that there is sometimes overexposure, but I like more Asus camera's bright photos instead of GCAM darker photos. GCAM is better in very dark, but I prefer Asus camera often, specially for low light photos. Well, I have exposure compensation + 0,4 in GCAM, but still ...
I can easy say that this is the best cellphone camera on the market now, I installed Gcam and activaed raw.
I have never seen a phonecamera produce such a good raw files, even in low light.
Skintones, natural colors is great on this camera, Samsung, Sony, Huawei. and lot of other manufactors are terrible when it comes to natural skintones, overuse of noisce reduction....
Also the 4K 60fps is very natural and doesn't have the unatural look that almost every other brand have.

Photo quality

Say "cheese", then rate this thread to express how photos taken with the OPPO Reno 10x Zoom come out. A higher rating indicates that photos offer rich color (without over-saturating), sharp detail (with all subjects in-focus), and appropriate exposure (with even lighting).
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add!
Images are good but a little soft ..
Image/Photo quality
Oppo reno10x zoom
Camera
Image quality not good.....
Dynamic range is not good
No sharpness in images
Oppo Reno 10x zoom dont have metering mode in camera settings...
Artificial Intelligence is of no use...
Dear #oppo team stop cheating your customers....
Bad camera.......
I feel it performs well,with higher pixels,and clearer.
Great Camera Hardware, still needs improvements in image processing
Reno 10x got a very good hardware in its camera department. The photos are also good and feels nice. However the images needs better processing, especially the HDR shots. Thank you.
Huge focus hunting issue in lowlight,worst camera app...
My last phone was the Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Pro with a very good camera. Now i´ve bought The Reno 10x and in comparison the photos with the 10x are in the most situations muchg better than Xiaomis photos. Especially the zoom function is more effective. I´m very satisfied with this device. Photos are sharp, many details, with Color OS 7.1 i can use the zoom function also in video mode - with Xiaomi this is a big problem. And the device offers 5G and a much faster processor than Xiaomis model.
Photo quality is it's quite good considering it's price tag. If you compare this smartphone to the typical samsung, iphone, huawei flagships of course you may conclude that the camera is not good at all.
Color tones are inclined to "natural", not like Samsung cameras that tends to make over saturated photos.
Main camera:
Lacks a bit of detail and color deph. At 48mp mode detail improves but zoom, hdr, color dazzle options are nulled.
Night mode gives vivid colors but are blurry. To countermeasure this issue I use Gcam or "Manual mode" in the default cam (long exposure at 100 ISO).
Telephoto lens:
Photos zoomed up until 4.9x are digitally zoomed. Then optical 5x zoom kicks in. Zooming higher than 5x makes blurry grainy photos. For this reason I only use 1~2x or 5x. Colors lack a saturation but can be improved with "hdr" and "dazzle color". Or by using Gcam.
Wide lens:
Makes photos with noticeable color aberrations lacking even more detail than main lens, but still makes much better photos than using these cheap attachable wide lens.
Macro:
Strangely the wide lens is suggested for macro but I think the main lens is more suitable due to higher image detail. Closest focus distance of main lens is approximately 8cm so you cannot take very close-up photos. But by buying these cheap small attachable lens you can make good macro photos.
Coming from a single lens smartphone, I'm very happy with the Oppo Reno 10x zoom as it can cover almost all camera modes. Zoom, ultra-wide, macro (by using attachable lens), manual mode, RAW(Gcam), astrophotography(Gcam), 4k 60fps, etc. I'm only disappointed at how sometimes the images lacks deepness.

How is the image quality between 2x-4.9x zoom?

Has anyone come across any detailed review / analysis of the main len's image quality when zoomed in? I'm a bit concerned it might not perform as well as other cameras that have a tele lens that starts at 2x or 3x optical zoom. The tele lens on the N20U doesn't kick in until 5x optical zoom (or I think there was a bug where it doesn't kick in until 10x zoom?)
It's a digital zoom. What do you think?
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2x - so, so. 4x - clearly digital and pixelated (especially, when recording videos), 5x - great (both video and photo), 10x - very good, almost like optical, 20x - pixelated, not good for serious things, 50x - just for fun, pixelated artwork.
I m highly disappointed as I thought everything up to 5x should be optical. 5x is great but sometimes we just need 2x.
I am also disappointed in 108mpx camera as no optical zoom/ultrawide is available in this option plus image quality is worse than standard 12mpx camera. So not sure why Samsung did like this.
The same thing with video: we get ultrawide/optical zoom only in 30fps mode. No ultrawide/optical zoom in 60fps mode, only digital zoom, which is very disappointing.
However, putting these issues aside, both photo and video cameras are just great, pictures are crisp, quality is very good even during night time.
I wonder if it would be possible to unlock optical zoom/ultrawide with 60fps mode...

Question Are the back cameras a sham?

Hey,
I was really wondering if the back cameras are actually helping the picture quality at all.
I have tried using different camera apps and covering some of the lenses and the picture/video quality seems always to be the same even if it's only 1 lense uncovered.
Can someone confirm/deny?
IMHO pretty useless, but you should see difference in portrait mode, where background is blurry when additional modules work and sharp when are covered.
Uhm.... you have 3 Back Cameras.
1 is Normal Mode 48mp or rather 12mp with Quad Bayer raster.
2 is wide Angle which has bigger FoV
3 is Macro Lens.
And only one camera is used at a time.
Only exception is the ToF Sensor that looks like a camera but only brings Depth infos for focus.
IMHO best Camera Quality comes with Google Camera mod and a custom XML.
Downloaded from here: https://www.celsoazevedo.com/files/android/google-camera/dev-bsg/f/dl61/
or Telegram group.

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