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Improving camera quality

Hello everyone, I will be getting my Mi A1 in a week or two and I'm really looking forward to it. Well.. l maybe not the camera as I've seen it get some harsh reviews, especially in low light. That's why I want a thread here on how to improve the image quality. Looking into the matter it seems like google camera with hdr+ is the best bet so far? However can we share settings and tweaks here to improve it further. Also posting pictures for comparison versus stock would be great. :highfive::good::good:

I have an Mi A1 as my moto broke and needed one staright away. Being in Asia for work I had easy access to it.
I have used dark cameras for. Long time and can see that the algorithm to bump up the iso could do with a bit of modifying.. I have not had much chance to take shots.. took about 10 in total..
I will take a few shots in differing light and then import them into PC Lightroom and push a few shadows and raise iso and see what is the best result.
That info might be useful to those involved.. of what I have seen, the focus is okay, but high iso is a killer.. will report here again in a week or so.

It helps if you Untick "Enhance low light images automatically" under Settings and then shoot pictures under low light conditions with HDR on. The HHT or Hand Held Twilight mode doesn't help much also..

The_Runner said:
It helps if you Untick "Enhance low light images automatically" under Settings and then shoot pictures under low light conditions with HDR on. The HHT or Hand Held Twilight mode doesn't help much also..
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What are your favorite settings when you shot in low light conditions ?
- Hdr ?
- HHT ?
- Untick or Tick "Enhance low light images automatically"

FerrarisIV said:
What are your favorite settings when you shot in low light conditions ?
- Hdr ?
- HHT ?
- Untick or Tick "Enhance low light images automatically"
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I don't use HHT .. isn't of much help..
Hdr is on
HHT off
Untick enhance low light images..
I tried every combination, thats the best one, if u keep the camera still.. at least the ISO problem is partially reduced.
But if you use manual mode . You can really get some good shots

Here are is a sample on manual mode. I used a light source, an led torch.

Thanks a lot: I will try, also in manual mode.
Anyway did you try Google Camera, and what is your opinion about it compared with stock camera ?
The_Runner said:
Here are some samples on manual mode. I used a light source, an led torch.
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FerrarisIV said:
Thanks a lot: I will try, also in manual mode.
Anyway did you try Google Camera, and what is your opinion about it compared with stock camera ?
ps: cannot see images
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No i didn't try that still.. I'm waiting for the Oreo build to see if they improve the camera a bit. And then I'll opt for Gcam, though i know HDR+ mode is great. bt still wanna give the stock a run
Ps: you can now see those images. One of them got inverted. My bad

The_Runner said:
No i didn't try that still.. I'm waiting for the Oreo build to see if they improve the camera a bit. And then I'll opt for Gcam, though i know HDR+ mode is great. bt still wanna give the stock a run
Ps: you can now see those images. One of them got inverted. My bad
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Thanks again. I am waiting for Oreo, too. But I don't know if i can wait to try Google Camera with Eis and Hdr+

FerrarisIV said:
Thanks again. I am waiting for Oreo, too. But I don't know if i can wait to try Google Camera with Eis and Hdr+
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Same with me.. I also cant wait after seeing those HDR+ shots, but then, Oreo is just a few days away.. so

The_Runner said:
Same with me.. I also cant wait after seeing those HDR+ shots, but then, Oreo is just a few days away.. so
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Not few days.. some weeks :highfive
anyway i am studying for Unlock and Rooting the device

Still waiting for my a1 to arrive, stupid slow swedish customs.. I think mine will be unlocked asap to push the limits! :victory:

enricogrim said:
I've rooted my phone and installed modded gcam with hdr+ and eis enabled. Honestly I don't see so much improvement in photos...
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Really? Did you try to shot in low light conditions with Hdr + ? here should have difference... also if i still never tried everybody confirm this

enricogrim said:
I've rooted my phone and installed modded gcam with hdr+ and eis enabled. Honestly I don't see so much improvement in photos...
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Which version of Gcam and what settings do you use? I can clearly see vast improvement of low light photos taken with Gcam.

enricogrim said:
Yes, I did some shots in low light conditions with gcam and stock camera and they are very similar. I will try more shots.
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Try try, i wait for you :good::laugh:

enricogrim said:
I'm using GCam5.1.016-Arnova8G2-V1.3 and settings of Nexus 6 as suggested.
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Try this one: MGC_5.1.014_7.0H_C2API_v.1.5g_AllinOne.apk (model Nexus 6P, Config HDR+ Pixel 2016 Zsl Hdr, HDR+ High)

I've taken a couple with both apps, here's a few samples (HDR on both): (Left:Stock cam; Right: Google cam)

JaadiBooti said:
I've taken a couple with both apps, here's a few samples (HDR on both): (Left:Stock cam; Right: Google cam)
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Incredible difference

MI A1 DETAILED REVIEW AFTER COUPLE OF DAYS OF USAGE.
Pros :
1) Potrait shots are exceptionally well in good light conditions.
2) HDR works pretty well in Daylight.
3) The Dirac Sound built in is fabulous both in terms of speakers & on headphones.
4) Build quality is amazing.
5) Voice quality is very very clear.
Cons:
1) Night mode is really really bad.(Too much noise & Shaky pictures are captured ,loses focus most of the time)
2) Lack of image stabilization while clicking pictures in HDR mode as well as normal mode.
(Slight shaking of phone loses focus in HDR mode and makes pictures blurry)(MUST NEEDED IN NEXT UPDATE)
3) HDR mode in artificial light feels too much exposed over bright light and image feels too artificial.
4) No Electronic image stabilization (EIS) while shooting video its too shaky & not upto the mark.(MUST NEEDED IN NEXT UPDATE)
5) 2X shots are not that great when zoomed even 50% and also are much noisy at times.
6) The UI is smooth but feels at times having less transiston.(Forced swipe has to be done from up to down & from down to up)
7) Selfies are bit artificial at times want it more natural and too much beautification is being applied.
8) In phone app while clearing the call history the app crashes and doesn't clear the call history. It force stops.

Shots by stock cam, with optical zoom 10x and our 2x optical zoom. In last pictures I used digital zoom, too.
image host

Why Nex doesn't shoot in RAW format. Current images are too much compressed in jpeg.

Hi Everyone,
I noticed that Nex cannot shoot in RAW format. Only JPEG it captures and that also highly compressed. Making details in image very blur. I tried other apps which can shoot and save in RAW for NEX but result comes are washed colors and absolutely not usable image. Can anyone tell how to get good raw images from NEX.

yes lack of sharpness is the general problem in dim conditions especially with nex camera however exposure levels are usually very good I feel it is better then my mate 20 x

Redmi note 7 pro low-light settings

How to capture perfect low-light or night shots such as these in the below images.
The images and colors are so rich and colorful.
I want to know the settings and camera mode to capture such images wonderful images.

nri_tech1183 said:
How to capture perfect low-light or night shots such as these in the below images.
The images and colors are so rich and colorful.
I want to know the settings and camera mode to capture such images wonderful images.
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Before I comment anything here, the photos you've shared are very low quality. If you can share the direct link of the source, it would be really helpful.

AbhiAbhiBisht said:
Before I comment anything here, the photos you've shared are very low quality. If you can share the direct link of the source, it would be really helpful.
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Those are taken from google and are posted here as is.
Still one can have an idea about the vibrant colours or low noise the photos show when taken in both good light, low light and night captures.

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

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

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

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

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

Google Camera Mod for Zenfone 7/7 Pro

Google Camera Port for Zenfone 7/7 Pro​
Features
- All cameras working with ZSL HDR+ and HDR+ Enhanced
- Night Sight/Astro photography
- Super Res Zoom (Main camera)
- AWB
- Top Shot
- Portrait on front & back camera
- Video recording upto 4K 60FPS With EIS
- Focus tracking
- Motion photos
- Photosphere/Panaroma
- Playground/Stickers (how to install)
Download & Changelog
GCam 7.3
- 15 December 2020: GCam_7.3.018_Urnyx05-v2.1_Wichaya_V3.1.1 by me
Bugs
- Face retouching
- Slow motion on main (id 0), ultrawide, telephoto but working on 64mp mode
GCam 8.1
- 15 August 2022: GCam_8.1.101_Wichaya_V1.6 by Wichaya
Bugs
- Face retouching
- Slow motion
Credit
@S4turno (Celso) , @Arnova8G2 [donate] , @defcomg (Savitar) [donate] @Urnyx05
Many thanks to other modder who help me make this possible
Many thanks to the testers.
Donation
You can support my work by send me a donation
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/wichayapoka

Thanks for this - great work. Definitely seems to capture better images than stock!
I've had GCam on my Oneplus 5 for years now and even that produces better images overall than the ZenFone 7 stock cam IMO!

crumble6 said:
Thanks for this - great work. Definitely seems to capture better images than stock!
I've had GCam on my Oneplus 5 for years now and even that produces better images overall than the ZenFone 7 stock cam IMO!
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I would love to see some sample pictures showing the difference.
Does this install just like the GCam for the ZF6 (i.e., you just have to run the APK)?

Perse26 said:
I would love to see some sample pictures showing the difference.
Does this install just like the GCam for the ZF6 (i.e., you just have to run the APK)?
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I'll try do a few comparison shots when I get chance. Someone already posted a couple in the regular ZenFone 7 forums (non Pro). And yes just install the apk.

Big thanks to everyone involved.
I'm receiving the 7 Pro sometime this week, and I will definitely give GCam a try. Are there any config XML files for this phone yet?

Could someone post comparisions? Especially in situations with high dynamic range and at night on a street. Thanks!

I will post some in about 9-10 hours for the ZF7Pro.

Perse26 said:
I will post some in about 9-10 hours for the ZF7Pro.
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I'll try to post some outdoor pictures in the next day or two. These were basically the only pictures I could take with my kids in my face.
The national geographic bag was a low light situation.
In my opinion the Gcam pictures look better (in most ways) except the 3x zoom of the National Geographic bag. Please note there are two different Gcam versions of the "Onward picture." It almost seems like the Gcam
Here are some fairly close range 3x examples of the Zenfone 6 Gcam, Zenfone 7 Gcam and Zenfone 7 Stock. The Zenfone 6 did its best but digital zoom wasn't enough. The Zenfone 7 Gcam added strange dots that show up when pixel peeping. The stock Zenfone 7 software did a decent job.
I processed the 3x shots with some software that I have to see if I couldn't make it look a bit better.

Perse26 said:
I'll try to post some outdoor pictures in the next day or two. These were basically the only pictures I could take with my kids in my face.
The national geographic bag was a low light situation.
In my opinion the Gcam pictures look better (in most ways) except the 3x zoom of the National Geographic bag. Please note there are two different Gcam versions of the "Onward picture." It almost seems like the Gcam
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So now I'm actually having a problem with Gcam.... This morning I downloaded the Gcam from this thread, everything worked great (that's when I took those pictures) it gave me options for the wide angle, 1x, 3x and 64mp cameras. I did a restore from my Zenfone 6 and now I have the gcam from the Zenfone 6. I deleted the Gcam and tried to reinstall the one from this thread and now I keep getting the Zenfone 6 version with just the 1x camera instead of the other options.
Any ideas?
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You need to clear app data to reinitialize default config

mickey36736 said:
You need to clear app data to reinitialize default config
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Brilliant, thank you. I deleted the cache data and all of the "app data," and it worked.

The 3x on the GCam definitely adds lots of little dots, which are visible without pixel peeping. It seems to be some type of error. If this can be resolved in future updates, it will really improve the functionality of the Zenfone 7 Pro's 3x capability.

Perse26 said:
The 3x on the GCam definitely adds lots of little dots, which are visible without pixel peeping.
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What could be causing those dots?

jericho246 said:
What could be causing those dots?
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I took about 6 more pictures with different settings, it seems to only happen when HDR or HDR enhanced is on.

Perse26 said:
I took about 6 more pictures with different settings, it seems to only happen when HDR or HDR enhanced is on.
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I think it's because the telephoto sensor has "limited" Camera2 API level. Same with the ultrawide one. Only the main sensor is Level_3, apparently. Although this should be easily fixed, since the bootloader can be unlocked.
What do you think, @mickey36736 ?

jericho246 said:
I think it's because the telephoto sensor has "limited" Camera2 API level. Same with the ultrawide one. Only the main sensor is Level_3, apparently. Although this should be easily fixed, since the bootloader can be unlocked.
What do you think, @mickey36736 ?
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Telephoto use OmniVision sensor which is a well known for dots issue and hard to fix. There is a work around by adjust some lib patcher for tele to reduce dots. Not depends on Camera2 API level.

Thanks for the work and the samples. Does flipping the camera for front facing images also work?

ThoroSOE said:
Thanks for the work and the samples. Does flipping the camera for front facing images also work?
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Yes it does

I just got the 7 Pro and tested it extensively with stock camera and this GCAM version. As a comparison I used my Pixel 3 also with an enhanced CGAM version. First I ran into some issues:
- HDR plus (not enhanced) is not working when the camera is in selfie mode. Full HDR plus does work. This means outside HDR plus enhanced images in HDR scenes have VERY badly overexposed parts and simply are unusable. Turn the camera back and everything is great. Sadly I do not like the look of HDR plus enhanced (night mode is also a workaround)
- In selfie mode the app does not recognize, that it has a full fledged flash. It only offers sefie light (lit up screen around the viewfinder).
- Colors in low light scenes are too muted. This goes especially for skin tones.
Apart from that the cameras perform very nice. Using night mode on the zoom lens even in better lighting conditions gives very good results. But overall it falls short of what even a Pixel 3 can deliver on its main camera. Sure, in perfect conditions the cameras are very capable - with GCAM and without. But Pixel is sooo much more consistant! Being able to consistantly getting better pictures of faces in low light (selfie or not) even when awkwardly taking selfies with the Pixel's main camera than with the Zenfones flip camera is a no go. I am honestly very saddened; I had high hopes.
(Just a disclaimer to not come across as someone too fixated on selfies: As this is the "killer feature" of this camera and its main gimmic, this was a focus of my testing.)

ThoroSOE said:
I just got the 7 Pro and tested it extensively with stock camera and this GCAM version. As a comparison I used my Pixel 3 also with an enhanced CGAM version. First I ran into some issues:
- HDR plus (not enhanced) is not working when the camera is in selfie mode. Full HDR plus does work. This means outside HDR plus enhanced images in HDR scenes have VERY badly overexposed parts and simply are unusable. Turn the camera back and everything is great. Sadly I do not like the look of HDR plus enhanced (night mode is also a workaround)
- In selfie mode the app does not recognize, that it has a full fledged flash. It only offers sefie light (lit up screen around the viewfinder).
- Colors in low light scenes are too muted. This goes especially for skin tones.
Apart from that the cameras perform very nice. Using night mode on the zoom lens even in better lighting conditions gives very good results. But overall it falls short of what even a Pixel 3 can deliver on its main camera. Sure, in perfect conditions the cameras are very capable - with GCAM and without. But Pixel is sooo much more consistant! Being able to consistantly getting better pictures of faces in low light (selfie or not) even when awkwardly taking selfies with the Pixel's main camera than with the Zenfones flip camera is a no go. I am honestly very saddened; I had high hopes.
(Just a disclaimer to not come across as someone too fixated on selfies: As this is the "killer feature" of this camera and its main gimmic, this was a focus of my testing.)
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One thing I noticed is that the front camera id 1 use ultra wide sensor with cropped resolution at 6.5 mp instead on main camera due to camera2 api. No idea why asus did this but this is the reason why the ultra wide lens doesn't perform as good as the main back camera.
Plus newer Gcam require a lot of individual tweaking by lib pacther settings. Once you try to play around with lib patcher. You realize how much headroom can improve photo quality to suit your tastes. It may not be as simple as the pixel because of different sensors setup but you can tweak as much as you like.

mickey36736 said:
One thing I noticed is that the front camera id 1 use ultra wide sensor with cropped resolution at 6.5 mp instead on main camera due to camera2 api. No idea why asus did this but this is the reason why the ultra wide lens doesn't perform as good as the main back camera.
Plus newer Gcam require a lot of individual tweaking by lib pacther settings. Once you try to play around with lib patcher. You realize how much headroom can improve photo quality to suit your tastes. It may not be as simple as the pixel because of different sensors setup but you can tweak as much as you like.
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I'm finding there's a lot of noise in some lighting conditions on the gcam wide angle lens. Anyone else found this? I've tried tweaking all the denoise settings but can't seem to get rid of it. It's strangely in the outer edges of the shot. Also, such noise is present on stock wide angle too at times.
Though very interestingly, stock night mode used in the same shot with the wide angle pretty much eliminates it.