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Morning all,
Got the phone a few days ago, excellent phone.
Quick, awesome looking, solid phone.
But I've noticed the camera is appalling. Outside daylight photos are okay but not great, inside photos are poor. Why is that? Surely for a 8mp camera the photos should be better. My camera settings seem to be correct.
I compared my Nokia Lumia camera with the SGS3 and they're miles apart.
Is this normal or is there a bug that Nokia know about and will be releasing an update for?
please let me know your thoughts. Ta
I have no idea why people expect a camera's resolution ("8mp" or otherwise) to have any significant impact on the image quality. More pixels does not make an image any better focused, better lit, less grainy, truer color, less chromatic aberration, or any other such effect. It does increase the maximum detail that the image can store, but does nothing at all for the minimum quality. Besides, people have ridiculously inflated expectations of pixel count, typically resulting in just wasting a bunch of starage space keeping huge files that are never viewed at full resolution anyhow. Your phone's screen is well under half a megapixel, for example.
That said, I can't say for sure why the Lumia 900 would have a worse-than-expected camera. To somebody used to a *real* camera, all phone cameras suck (yes, even the much-vaunted iPhone 4S) but it is entirely possible that there's a firmware issue affecting the image quality. The HTC HD7 had a long-running issue that made photos come out rather pink, for example.
Out of curiosity, are you using the flash, or do you have any special settings in the camera app selected (possibly by accident)? It would also help to know in what way the pictures are poor.
Must admit mine was abit shady out of the box but after fiddling with a few settings I got it to a reasonable quality, Maybe play with a few settings and make sure you save them, My Titans Camera was near on the same to start with.
This might help you out a bit
http://mywpstory.com/2012/04/camera...-with-your-new-nokia-lumia-900-windows-phone/
This one is a little more broad, but it is from Nokia.
http://conversations.nokia.com/2012/05/21/10-photography-tips-for-nokia-lumia-900/
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.
I know the pixel is better, but I want to understand the difference.
Up until a few weeks ago I had a Nexus 5x. I loved it, especially the camera!
However the Nexus 5x died, and I replaced it with a brand new OnePlus 5t. The screen is amazing, it's runs pretty much stock Android, and the battery life was astounding. But I returned it after 2 days because the camera wasn't even as good as my Nexus 5x.
In bright daylight the OnePlus 5t takes lovely pictures, but in every other scenario it's pretty rubbish (in my opinion).
I mainly use my camera by just whipping it out of my pocket, pointing, and shooting. The Nexus excelled at this. The OnePlus 5t gave me shots with lots of motion blur, lots of noise, and they weren't exposed properly. Most of the photos I took were unusable.
So, the OnePlus 5t went back and I got a Pixel 2. It's a smaller screen and a way worse battery life, but it's by far the best point-and-shoot camera phone I've had, even better than the Nexus 5x. To be honest it's not that much better than the Nexus 5x, but the fact it has OIS does make a big difference to some shots. I love it.
So, if you mainly take photos of things that don't move (landscapes and still life) and can stand really still when you take a photo, the OnePlus 5t will take lovely photos.
If you take photos of people/things that move, or anything indoors, then Pixel 2 (or a second-hand Nexus 5x!) will serve you way better.
Hope that helps!
richhhh said:
Up until a few weeks ago I had a Nexus 5x. I loved it, especially the camera!
However the Nexus 5x died, and I replaced it with a brand new OnePlus 5t. The screen is amazing, it's runs pretty much stock Android, and the battery life was astounding. But I returned it after 2 days because the camera wasn't even as good as my Nexus 5x.
In bright daylight the OnePlus 5t takes lovely pictures, but in every other scenario it's pretty rubbish (in my opinion).
I mainly use my camera by just whipping it out of my pocket, pointing, and shooting. The Nexus excelled at this. The OnePlus 5t gave me shots with lots of motion blur, lots of noise, and they weren't exposed properly. Most of the photos I took were unusable.
So, the OnePlus 5t went back and I got a Pixel 2. It's a smaller screen and a way worse battery life, but it's by far the best point-and-shoot camera phone I've had, even better than the Nexus 5x. To be honest it's not that much better than the Nexus 5x, but the fact it has OIS does make a big difference to some shots. I love it.
So, if you mainly take photos of things that don't move (landscapes and still life) and can stand really still when you take a photo, the OnePlus 5t will take lovely photos.
If you take photos of people/things that move, or anything indoors, then Pixel 2 (or a second-hand Nexus 5x!) will serve you way better.
Hope that helps!
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Wow, I never thought the camera was worse than the last generation smartphone. And you are saying if there is no real light the camera is not good, right?
JosephECorson said:
Wow, I never thought the camera was worse than the last generation smartphone. And you are saying if there is no real light the camera is not good, right?
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The 5T is using the same sensor as the 3T, so the technology is maybe 1 year newer than the 5X. Against which it's a significantly smaller sensor (less light) with more pixels (so more noise). So it's not totally shocking if the 5X camera does perform better.
Anyway, a big part of phone camera performance is the processing rather than the sensor (which Google have certainly been concentrating on in the last couple of years). And at the time of the 5T's release theirs was, well, not good. Look at this image from GSMArena's review, click on the zoom button, and when you've finished admiring the total lack of texture in the leaves and branches take a look at the grass between the fallen leaves and the house. It's many years since I've seen any camera do that type of watercolour smearing in a daylight photo, and I hope for their customers' sake that OnePlus have been doing something about this.
(It's not a one-off either: they published a set of preview photos before their review, and some of those were comically bad. You could have used them as a teaching aid to show students how not to do image processing).
JosephECorson said:
Wow, I never thought the camera was worse than the last generation smartphone. And you are saying if there is no real light the camera is not good, right?
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That was my experience, yes. It was bad in low light and bad with any movement (of either your hands holding the camera or of a subject in the frame)
I've found a lot of camera reviews for phone cameras don't take into account real-world usage. They're all set up in studios, or taking photos of a random building, or a flower, and then another flower, or a posed portrait where the subject is dead still. All very 'traditional' photography setups looking more at the colour reproduction and exposure.
Very few (non that I've actually found!) take into account how it performs as something people pull out of their pocket to capture an unposed, often badly lit, fleeting moment. If they did, most would likely find the OnePlus 5t churns out a blurry mess, and the Pixel 2 (while far from perfect and still no competition for an actual small point-and-shoot camera) does just fine.
---------- Post added at 01:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:53 PM ----------
Large Hadron said:
Anyway, a big part of phone camera performance is the processing rather than the sensor (which Google have certainly been concentrating on in the last couple of years).
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I 100% agree with that too.
And yes, you can get the Google Camera port for other phones these days which brings their incredible HDR+ processing to other phones, and I did actually try it on the OnePlus 5t (it improved visual quality and processing, but didn't help with any of the inherent problems).
But you have to manually keep that ported/hacked app updated, and it might not be very stable, or not save the actual file sometimes.
Whereas on the Pixel/Nexus it's built in by default and 'just works', and works very well in a lot of situations, which is all you can hope for
richhhh said:
So, if you mainly take photos of things that don't move (landscapes and still life) and can stand really still when you take a photo, the OnePlus 5t will take lovely photos.
If you take photos of people/things that move, or anything indoors, then Pixel 2 (or a second-hand Nexus 5x!) will serve you way better.
Hope that helps!
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Agree with this 100%. I had the OP5T for 10 days and tried every setting I could think of and a variety of apps/apks to improve the quality but in the end there was always some compromise.
Almost all of the photos I take are of my children and the quality was particularly poor (in my opinion) if the conditions weren't perfect (lighting, kids standing perfectly still, my hands perfectly stable etc.). If you need a phone camera to 'capture the moment' by just pointing and shooting then you may be very disappointed by the 5T
Large Hadron said:
It's many years since I've seen any camera do that type of watercolour smearing in a daylight photo, and I hope for their customers' sake that OnePlus have been doing something about this.
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And the 5T sometimes did this 'watercolour smearing' to the skin on my children's faces which was the last straw for me. In many cases my older Xiaomi mi5 was taking better pictures.
So I sent it back and bought the Pixel 2 and the difference is night & day. I'm really trying to take a bad picture with the Pixel 2 but keep failing
What do u guys think of the camera?
Compared it to the pixel 2 and seriously that damn hdr on the google side is just insane.
P20 Pro loses alot of details even in normal shots.
Even in night shots pixel 2 captures so many details.
For some reason the ai also stands in the way, greenery mode especially cranks up the shadows and so many details are lost
I am kinda disappointed in the camera department.
Hopefully huawei will work on a better hdr in their future updates.
Pixel 2 is still the king of smartphone photography, can only imagine what will happen if pixel 3 goes dual cameras.
Megaromania said:
What do u guys think of the camera?
Compared it to the pixel 2 and seriously that damn hdr on the google side is just insane.
P20 Pro loses alot of details even in normal shots.
Even in night shots pixel 2 captures so many details.
For some reason the ai also stands in the way, greenery mode especially cranks up the shadows and so many details are lost
I am kinda disappointed in the camera department.
Hopefully huawei will work on a better hdr in their future updates.
Pixel 2 is still the king of smartphone photography, can only imagine what will happen if pixel 3 goes dual cameras.
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Cant say that am agree with you,
And i own both phone.
You can go to this thread https://forum.xda-developers.com/hu...uawei-p20-pro-share-fantastic-t3774488/page15 to read more discussion about camera.
Conclusion is. P20 Pro is not your another point and shoot kind of camera. Its more like a photographer tool. It give you best result when you play around the setting and willing to go through the learning curve of using various camera mode. Not a fully auto like in our pixel 2 :laugh:
I'm very satisfied with the camera. Although I agree that the software can be on the heavy side when sharpening and smoothing areas. Havent tried RAW mode yet, but I'll experiment some more with that later.
Dark shots are amazing when using auto or night mode. I mean, considering doing them without a tripod.
any test gcam in p20 pro?
I am. Sold my p20 pro because of the camera and touch lag. I primarily take photos of people in indoor lighting at night, p20 pro just can't keep up with pixel 2 xl's crazy detail particularly in that situation. Using night mode gets it closer, but still can't beat the hdr+.
Also, the problem with night mode is that it is not a simple switch on the main interface. We have to scroll scroll, click, aaaand the moment's gone.
Megaromania said:
What do u guys think of the camera?
Compared it to the pixel 2 and seriously that damn hdr on the google side is just insane.
P20 Pro loses alot of details even in normal shots.
Even in night shots pixel 2 captures so many details.
For some reason the ai also stands in the way, greenery mode especially cranks up the shadows and so many details are lost
I am kinda disappointed in the camera department.
Hopefully huawei will work on a better hdr in their future updates.
Pixel 2 is still the king of smartphone photography, can only imagine what will happen if pixel 3 goes dual cameras.
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Try Night Mod in daylight it is better then Pixel HDR+. Thats what I see on meny photo comparisons.
Yes
You are definitely right! I looked at the original 40 MP photos taken with p20 pro with excitement. I zoomed in and saw that there is no good amount of detail! They looked like low quality 10-12 MP photos! In low light it might take better photos because it has a larger sensor but in low light nope..
I can definitely say that Huawei didn't focus on the "software" enough (shame on Huawei), that's very unfortunate considering this phone has a good camera hardware.
Allesa said:
I am. Sold my p20 pro because of the camera and touch lag. I primarily take photos of people in indoor lighting at night, p20 pro just can't keep up with pixel 2 xl's crazy detail particularly in that situation. Using night mode gets it closer, but still can't beat the hdr+.
Also, the problem with night mode is that it is not a simple switch on the main interface. We have to scroll scroll, click, aaaand the moment's gone.
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I have Pixel 2 and P20 Pro and disagree. The Pixel has far too omuch noise in indoor lighting, the P20 pro is just as quick at taking the shot and is clearer with less noise.
As for the Night mode... usually it's for buildings and such to get great low light phots... So we scroll... and click... aaaannnd the moment is still there unless the building fell over... haha.
HDR+ on the Pixel is good, but i'm afraid it just got toppled. Even the non HDR shots on the P20 Pro (with AI off) are better in all scenarios.
No issues with the camera, if you are wanting top notch photos then use a dedicated DLSR, the camera on the P20 Pro is the bridge between full on DSLR and Phone camera and does produce some outstanding results, just mess about with the settings, its not like other phone cameras and as a lot more settings/features to play with. I use my DLSR cameras for main photos while my P20 Pro will be for quick snaps when out and about and don't want to carry my main cameras.
Allesa said:
I am. Sold my p20 pro because of the camera and touch lag. I primarily take photos of people in indoor lighting at night, p20 pro just can't keep up with pixel 2 xl's crazy detail particularly in that situation. Using night mode gets it closer, but still can't beat the hdr+.
Also, the problem with night mode is that it is not a simple switch on the main interface. We have to scroll scroll, click, aaaand the moment's gone.
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its a pity that you still use old software at that time,
.107 bring on much improved auto HDR. much detail are preserved, and it produce more consistent results on various scene now
Jonathan-H said:
I have Pixel 2 and P20 Pro and disagree. The Pixel has far too omuch noise in indoor lighting, the P20 pro is just as quick at taking the shot and is clearer with less noise.
As for the Night mode... usually it's for buildings and such to get great low light phots... So we scroll... and click... aaaannnd the moment is still there unless the building fell over... haha.
HDR+ on the Pixel is good, but i'm afraid it just got toppled. Even the non HDR shots on the P20 Pro (with AI off) are better in all scenarios.
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https://photos.app.goo.gl/8Wc9KBJPHaCbV3l63
Not here to argue anything cuz these are the kind of photos I mainly take now with phones. To each their own. Check info to find out which taken with what. P20 pro came closest when using night mode
Allesa said:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/8Wc9KBJPHaCbV3l63
Not here to argue anything cuz these are the kind of photos I mainly take now with phones. To each their own. Check info to find out which taken with what. P20 pro came closest when using night mode
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wow, much prefer the pixel shots
Allesa said:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/8Wc9KBJPHaCbV3l63
Not here to argue anything cuz these are the kind of photos I mainly take now with phones. To each their own. Check info to find out which taken with what. P20 pro came closest when using night mode
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Ah, i see now. Then i would agree with you,
Pixel 2 XL would suit you much better for this kind of quick snapshot around the house,
using P20 Pro for this kind of shots would be a waste of money. Pixel algorithm do better job on that
Coming from a S8 Plus and Iphone 8 plus. The camera on the Huawei p20 Pro is weak as hell compared to those two.
Sorry, but it was just marketing.
Selling the phone and going another route.
neflictus said:
Coming from a S8 Plus and Iphone 8 plus. The camera on the Huawei p20 Pro is weak as hell compared to those two.
Sorry, but it was just marketing.
Selling the phone and going another route.
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Coming from every flagship the last two years I have to utterly disagree on your statement. Of course each to their own.
It's not perfect but the the versatility alone is huge. Night mode is certainly not a marketing ploy, it really does work and as advertised!
Can't wait to go on using 4 seconds breaks for a photo at night.
Auto is useless. Everything is over sharpened.
Oil for all of us.
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The camera is amazing im sorry but it's the best camera I've ever used in a phone period.
Certain situations call for certain features to be used, but I'm in no way disappointed, it's a complete beast, there isn't a phone on the planet that comes close, perhaps the pixel 2 but only maybe on video.
I am not really disapointed , but for a phone focusing on it's camera so much , i would like some added features.
I'ts nice to have AI available , but sometimes i would like to leave my own personal touch on my photo's. So why not include the AI "modes" into the filters menu ? That way i can pick the mode and strength i want to see , when i want to see it.
Manual HDR mode , effect is only marginal ? can't set any HDR bracketing options.
Sometimes, in high contrast scenes, HDR kick's in automatically , without warning or any way to cancel it. The effect is really pronounced then.
Pro mode : where is the bracketing ? Sharpening settings ? Noise removal settings ?
RAW : is not really raw , there is some weird effect where noise seems to be converted to dancing lines. Lens distortion is removed , but vignetting is still present ?
I also would like to have an option to save the "developed" photo in a lossless format (with some extra bit depth) in stead of JPG.
Allesa said:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/8Wc9KBJPHaCbV3l63
Not here to argue anything cuz these are the kind of photos I mainly take now with phones. To each their own. Check info to find out which taken with what. P20 pro came closest when using night mode
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Wow! that's stark! thanks for posting, it's exactly the type of images I plan to shoot and I was looking for a direct comparison between the Pixel 2 and the P20 Pro when shooting people in dimly lit indoors.
I suppose you had turned beauty mode down to 0, which however did not switch it off in earlier versions of the camera software.
Is the problem still present with the latest camera update (.128)?
Does shooting in Photo mode preserve more detail?
Thanks.
---------- Post added at 08:04 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:50 AM ----------
otonieru said:
Ah, i see now. Then i would agree with you,
Pixel 2 XL would suit you much better for this kind of quick snapshot around the house,
using P20 Pro for this kind of shots would be a waste of money. Pixel algorithm do better job on that
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Click to collapse
You said it, it's a software problem. The P20 Pro comes with superior camera hardware (a much larger main sensor to start with), so I really don't understand why it has to ruin skin in indoor shots to that extent.
From what users report it's all a matter of not being able to turn beautification off completely.
I've read that since update .128 the overprocessing issue was improved.
Does this also apply to skin?
How would such shots appear if shot in Photo mode, or RAW?
I ask about RAW because apparently Huawei's RAW images are also processed, at least geometrically, e.g. by applying lens distortion correction, so I can't be sure that pixel values are unaltered.
I purchased the P20 Pro specifically for the camera as I'm a professional photographer and want the best IQ out of my always with me smartphone camera. I have owned the P20 Pro for almost two months now and have seen a dramatic improvement in the camera software over that time. The initial, pre 107 firmware was terrible with regard to raw color vignetting and at first I was fairly disappointed. The 107 firmware corrected the raw color vignetting issue, though of course there is still the typical natural vignetting that occurs with a small lens and large sensor (and yes, often the sensor DOES affect vignetting due to how it receives non parallel light rays from the lens). So natural, non color shifting vignetting was not really a surprise and does not bother me at all. I'm very happy with the IQ from 40MP raw images now. It's not going to match my 36MP full frame camera in good light of course but for a smartphone, the P20 Pro is pretty amazing.
Probably my biggest positive surprise with the P20 Pro (beyond the software capabilities of Night Mode) is the quality of the black & white camera. Really nice tonality, no doubt somewhat due to the Leica involvement.
Anyway, I'm now on the 131 firmware and the additional improvements I would like to see are more user control over color saturation, noise reduction and sharpness (and I would also love to be able to tweak how the Master AI option deals with color and color saturation). For the B&W camera, I would really, really love a raw option as well as control of noise reduction and sharpness as I occasionally see where the very aggressive noise reduction completely smooths/ blurs very fine distant detail such as grass.
As far as all the noise about the P20 Pro camera not being as good vs phone X, etc. I would say that there is a higher learning curve to getting the most out of the cameras in the P20 Pro. I see this as the best option for a more experienced user who is looking for the absolute best IQ available today out of a smartphone. For someone looking for the best, "no hassle" snapshots from a smartphone, there may be better options though that does seem to be improving with every firmware update of the P20 Pro.
As it stands today, the Pixel Camera is considered by most to be the Gold Standard. Most of the magic happens after the picture is taken via software. Why can't One Plus figure this magic out to some degree? The sensors are more than capable. The stock camera doesn't take bad pictures, but certainly inconsistent. My Pixel 2 XL blows the stock camera on the One Plus 7 Pro out of the water. The Gcam mods help and I appreciate the work by those devs, but this should be handled by One Plus. Is the software magic that hard to replicate by One Plus?
Lesser Version said:
As it stands today, the Pixel Camera is considered by most to be the Gold Standard. Most of the magic happens after the picture is taken via software. Why can't One Plus figure this magic out to some degree? The sensors are more than capable. The stock camera doesn't take bad pictures, but certainly inconsistent. My Pixel 2 XL blows the stock camera on the One Plus 7 Pro out of the water. The Gcam mods help and I appreciate the work by those devs, but this should be handled by One Plus. Is the software magic that hard to replicate by One Plus?
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Yes it's a bit difficult. Here's why...
https://www.phonearena.com/news/Nig...-Ultra-wide-cameras-on-OnePlus-7-Pro_id117647
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I always thought it looked amazing, especially on the phone's display.
I guess if you're more into cameras you notice these things.
Also looks great to me...
slayerh4x said:
I always thought it looked amazing, especially on the phone's display.
I guess if you're more into cameras you notice these things.
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All depends on your expectations. I think the pics from the stock camera looks pretty great, especially in good light. The original poster is comparing the photo quality to the Pixel 2 XL, so I can't make that comparison personally. For me, on one hand, if I really want the best image quality, I'll use my "real camera". On the other hand, I'm usually pretty impressed when I do use my 7 Pro for snapshots.
To address the original poster's question, the big difference is that Google has nearly endless cash and resources to throw at what they think is important. And it's pretty clear they look at the camera on the Pixel line as a discriminator; and versus the likes of Samsung and Apple (if not in sales numbers, than by device price and "flagship" device status). Where OnePlus is a pretty small company, content with existing in a more "value" priced space (even if the price keep incrementally bumping up with each iteration). OnePlus phones doesn't quite max out the specs in every category (we all know that), but they give us a great device for a great price.
A big notch, chin, and bezel usually comes with the pixel camera
Google and other OEMs have extensive resources in their software department. Google has AI and resources to focus on photography. It's amazing me that Oneplus cameras can rival many flagships.
galaxys said:
A big notch, chin, and bezel usually comes with the pixel camera
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This made me laugh this morning......thanks!
Robert235 said:
Google and other OEMs have extensive resources in their software department. Google has AI and resources to focus on photography. It's amazing me that Oneplus cameras can rival many flagships.
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My thoughts exactly. Not only does Google have the cash to burn, but also massive amounts of data to draw upon for their AI machine learning. Plus, development of image AI probably has tons of applications for other Google projects, besides just the camera app or the Pixel phones. So it probably makes perfect sense in the bigger picture for Google to be spending resources on the camera app and related technologies.
None of this really applies to OnePlus. They are just a relatively small company making some nice phones.
This whole subject on phones and cameras makes me laugh all the time. I'm an enthusiast photog and do a lot of photography. I have some serious equipment just to give some background. These phones are point and shoot cameras. They do extremely well in all situations really. They generally take a photo at comparable quality as a DSLR from 10 years ago. if I need serious photos, I'll look out my gear. These phones are more than enough for 90% of anyone taking photos. I can use my OnePlus 7 pro in manual mode and get photos good enough to be used professionally. In auto I can get better than most DSLR cameras from 10 years ago.
Every phone camera has flaws, including pixel, Samsung, Huawei and apple. That's why in these photo camera comparisons the op7 is best in a certain situation, Samsung is better here and apple is better there. This is why people like myself still spend $3-4k on camera like a Nikon D850. I use my phone camera probably 85% of the time, they are still that good