The problem when using camera is:
At first, I set "Macro" for the scenes. The first photo captured was a macro one. Then I continued to take other photo, and the second and later ones have no longer been in "macro" mode, although I did not change the scene settings. It was likely captured in "normal" scenes.
There was a simultaneous problem with the "white balance" function. Specifically, at night I set "cloudy" for the white balance. The photo taken had a warmful color, likely normal with "cloudy". But the second and later ones were like in "incandescent" mode.
Thank you so much for any help!
Waiting for better firmware!
the camera is very slow to take pictures in low light conditions (e.g. an indoors party) it takes about 5 to 10 sec between pressing the button and the camera taking the picture.
I'm running android 5.1.1 that came with the phone (not rooted)
I tried changing settings and selecting a specific iso setting, white balance and macro instead of auto focus does make it quicker, about 3 seconds.
Any thoughts?
Here a a few tips on controlling the stock camera app in auto-mode that you may or not be aware off.
Just thought it may be of help to other owners.
We know we can control pretty much all aspects of camera in manual mode (focus, metering, ISO, WB, etc).
However, on the Xperia 5 the manual mode generates more noise in the images than the auto-mode, especially noisy in non-HDR mode whith dark environments on the photo background areas, edges and faces.
So I end up using mostly the auto-mode except to force HDR or for long-exposure shots.
In auto-mode, there are quite a few things I found frustrating compared to manual mode, but for which there are solutions:
Control scene detection: sometimes you don't want auto Backlight (HDR), Document, Food, etc. >> To temporarily disable scene detection in auto-mode, simply click on the sun icon on the left. When the icon is blue all photos are taken in standard mode: no HDR or special color processing.
1st Edit: Condition: you must use tap to focus. (If you just focus with the shutter software button, the hardware button or object tracking, scene detection won't disengage unless you actually change brightness or tint.)
Control focus: eye focus works quite well for faces. To focus on other objects, auto-mode has 3 options:
1. Auto-focus (the large green rectangle that appears when you click on shutter soft or hardware button): This tries to guess what the subject is and often leads to unpredictable results.
2. Object tracking (yellow rectangle): This is useful for moving objects. I don't use it for anything else because it typically detects and focuses on the outer edges of objects instead of the center of objects, making for blurred subjects. Also it works really bad for very small objects or when it's darker.
3. Tap to focus (blue circle): This lets you choose precisely the focus point. Much better focus results in general than method 1 or 2 above.
Control exposure: Auto-exposure is pretty good if you just point and shoot. But if you use the precise tap to focus method in auto-mode, light metering is measured on the point you clicked, and you also loose scene detection and HDR, so that's not often what you want, unless you want your black cat to turn white on the photo ! The problem is that in auto-mode there is no option in settings "Touch to adjust: Focus only" (option only available in manual mode). ...Well in fact there is a way: enable "Touch capture" in camera settings. This in fact lets you tap on screen to focus (and shoot), while still doing light-metering on the whole scene and keeping scene detection ON.
1st Edit: When touch capture is ON, tapping on screen sometimes fails to focus because the picture is taken before the camera has time to focus, especially in low light. In this case you have to take the picture twice or use the timer so it has time to focus. Well this pretty much makes this "tip" useless !
2nd Edit: Sometimes the camera fails to focus if there no contrast on the clicked zone, but touch capture is not the cause. Try to tap on a zone with more contrast to improve focus success.
So in summary here is how I set for most pictures:
1. Use auto-mode (better noise-reduction than manual mode)
2. Disable object tracking (enables the more precise tap to focus).
3. Enable Touch capture (preserve HDR, multi-metering and scene detection with tap to focus. 1st Edit: when it actually manages to focus before picture is taken, basically only in good light it seems.).
In some special situations, I adjust the following:
4. Click on sun icon, 1st Edit: then tap to focus (when I want to disable scene detection / HDR)
5. Use the lamp flash (only for macro shots in very dark condition to get usable ISO/speed)
6. Use the flash (only when necessary to get usable ISO/speed or to compensate huge backlit situation)
7. Adjust brightness with slider (if I really need to tweak brightness)
All in all I find that all the above settings allow for flexible controls and good results in auto-mode.
Of course you may have a different usage and set yours completely differently.
chgr said:
Here a a few tips on controlling the stock camera app in auto-mode that you may or not be aware off.
Just thought it may be of help to other owners.
We know we can control pretty much all aspects of camera in manual mode (focus, metering, ISO, WB, etc).
However, on the Xperia 5 the manual mode generates more noise in the images than the auto-mode, especially noisy in non-HDR mode whith dark environments on the photo background areas, edges and faces.
So I end up using mostly the auto-mode except to force HDR or for long-exposure shots.
In auto-mode, there are quite a few things I found frustrating compared to manual mode, but for which there are solutions:
Control scene detection: sometimes you don't want auto Backlight (HDR), Document, Food, etc. >> To temporarily disable scene detection in auto-mode, simply click on the sun icon on the left. When the icon is blue all photos are taken in standard mode: no HDR or special color processing.
Control focus: eye focus works quite well for faces. To focus on other objects, auto-mode has 3 options:
1. Auto-focus (the large green rectangle that appears when you click on shutter soft or hardware button): This tries to guess what the subject is and often leads to unpredictable results.
2. Object tracking (yellow rectangle): This is useful for moving objects. I don't use it for anything else because it typically detects and focuses on the outer edges of objects instead of the center of objects, making for blurred subjects. Also it works really bad for very small objects or when it's darker.
3. Tap to focus (blue circle): This lets you choose precisely the focus point. Much better focus results in general than method 1 or 2 above.
Control exposure: Auto-exposure is pretty good if you just point and shoot. But if you use the precise tap to focus method in auto-mode, light metering is measured on the point you clicked, and you also loose scene detection and HDR, so that's not often what you want, unless you want your black cat to turn white on the photo ! The problem is that in auto-mode there is no option in settings "Touch to adjust: Focus only" (option only available in manual mode). ...Well in fact there is a way: enable "Touch capture" in camera settings. This in fact lets you tap on screen to focus (and shoot), while still doing light-metering on the whole scene and keeping scene detection ON.
So in summary here is how I set for most pictures:
1. Use auto-mode (better noise-reduction than manual mode)
2. Disable object tracking (enables the more precise tap to focus).
3. Enable Touch capture (preserve multi-metering and scene detection with tap to focus).
In some special situations, I adjust the following:
4. Click on sun icon (when I want to disable scene detection / HDR)
5. Use the lamp flash (only for macro shots in very dark condition to get usable ISO/speed)
6. Use the flash (only when necessary to get usable ISO/speed or to compensate huge backlit situation)
7. Adjust brightness with slider (if I really need to tweak brightness)
All in all I find that all the above settings allow for flexible controls and good results in auto-mode.
Of course you may have a different usage and set yours completely differently.
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Quite useful tips, thanks! Especially considering that camera quality appeared to be below my expectations (coming from Pixel devices, Huawei Mate 20 Pro, P30, Galaxy Note 10+). There are few complains about X5 camera system with which I can't do anything about. Firstly, quite slow camera app start up time and its overall performance compared to other devices. Secondly, focusing system is clearly inferior too. Main camera struggles to focus on objects a way too often in situations where others do it easily. Thirdly, HDR mode nearly useless (absolutely useless compared to, say, Pixel 2). Also camera has difficulties to make decent pictures in conditions different from ideal - blown out skies, crushed dark areas, overexposure problems are not something rare here. Finally, low light performance is a way below the competition. Making good pictures in low light from handheld phone is nearly impossible. Blurry mess or aqua painting effect is guaranteed. I hope that Sony will address these issues in future updates.
I'm just curious about how people use Photo Pro. When I turn on Photo Pro, it goes directly to Shutter Speed mode. I have auto-focus continuous on, focus area wide, and meter area multi. I initially shoot with single-exposure and only move to continuous shooting as needed. Flash is off, white balance is auto, Auto HDR and D-'Range Optimizer are off. I have the histogram turned on.
I'm curious about your starting point and any observations you have on my parameters.
Might have to look under settings and see what it says under there like last mode or something
Thanks. I have that one set to open in Photo Pro on last mode used. It opens to "S-Mode", shutter speed priority.
So, I like to shoot cinematic videos with a smartphone.
I have four different apps that I use for this (Filmic Pro, ProShot, ProTake and mcpro24fps).
All four of these apps work just fine on a Xiaomi Note 9 phone.
The problem is that the apps cannot lock the exposure in manual mode when I install them on my Realme 5 Pro.
Even if both ISO and Shutter Speed are manually locked by me at my desired values, the exposure still shifts and compensates when I pan the camera from dark to light areas. This renders my shots completely useless.
The interesting part is that if I switch to Auto mode on any of these apps, and then lock the exposure reticle while in Auto, I no longer get shifting exposure. However in Auto mode I am not able to set my Shutter Speed and ISO to the desired values and I must rely on whatever values the app in use automatically chooses for me. This ruins the cinematic look of my shots.
In brief: there must be a setting in Realme 5 Pro's firmware that does not allow the apps to set manual lock on ISO, Shutter Speed and on Exposure in general.
What could that faulty setting be?
Do I have to root my phone in order to correct things somehow? I don't know nothing about root access etc...
Or should I just sit and pray that a future firmware update would solve this issue?
I think I found out what is causing the problem. It is called "dynamic tone mapping" and iPhone users have the same issue with film making apps because of it.
Is there any way to turn the dynamic tone mapping function on Realme 5 Pro off when shooting and encoding videos?