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Teaching an old Dog new Tricks - How to build a DIY 3D Camera from two HD2’s

Firmware Upgrades are one way to revitalize old Hardware but we are still limited by the Hardware itself. So what best to do before donating the Device to XDA? How about a single dedicated usage like a DIY 3D Camera?
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After careful consideration and plenty of “3D is not important for my decision” talk I decided on a Samsung 46” LCD 400Mhz 3D Capable TV. What a beauty and 3D came as a bonus with two glasses included. Unfortunately free content is rare so I thought and I set out to search for more material. As I soon found out Stereography has been around since the 1840’s. There is an abundance of Tools and Material you just have to find it.
I also realized there are a whole bunch of 3D Standards but found the Half-SBS (Side-by-Side) function to work best for me. This brought up an idea. I still had two HD2’s laying around and I figured from what I read Stereoscopy is really not that much more than taking two pictures side by side at the same time. Easy enough I used my 20 year old Stockis/Mechano set to construct a crude frame for the HD2’s.
It took a couple of tries to get the rig to be easy enough to carry with me and take pictures simultaneously. An Android or Windows Mobile App to synch the Cameras would be nice to have but for now it works fine manually. Up to this point I really didn’t expect too much from my contraption. Once I had the rig done I took some test pictures, hooked the Phones up to the Computer and transferred the files. With the “StereoPhoto Maker” for Windows I created the final Stereo Pictures and transferred them to the TV. Among other things I suggest you try Auto Alignment to optimize the 3D Image.
Eager to see the results I turned to my TV, put on my Glasses, and Voila a perfect 3D Image. I can now capture the world in 3 Dimensions and all this without going bankrupt in this dimension. Off course a little adjustment and practice in taking 3D Pictures will most likely be need to get the best results. Here are a few Tips and Tricks to get you started.
Intra-axial distance on 3D Cameras:
The intra-axial distance is the distance between the lenses of the Camera. Two HD2’s next to each other have a Intra-axial distance of 7cm. The average human intra-axial distance is 6.35cm. Furthermore the distance from the Camera to an Object should at least be 30x the intra-axial distance.
Optimal Average: > 1.90m
Optimal for HD2’s: > 2.10m
​
The Concept of Parallax on a modern 3D LCD TV:
The Distance an Object is felt from the Screen. Whereas the Screen has a zero or neutral Parallax.
Negative Parallax (comes out of the Screen)
Object shift -15pp to the left to get a negative Parallax effect.
Positive Parallax (goes into the Screen)
Object shift +12pp to the right to get a positive Parallax effect.
Objects are best felt as 3D when at the bottom of the image the objects come from the outside to the inside and at the top from the inside to the outside. Never the other way around or you will get a headache looking at the pictures in 3D.
HD2 / Phone Camera Tips:
The HD2 Camera is good enough to take these kind of pictures but you are preaty much limited to good light conditions. I prefer Portrait Pictures on my 46" TV. Turn off the Flashlight it will make a simultaneous pictures much easier to take.
3D Films with DIY 3D Camera
For 3D Films the timing is absolutly crucial. Use StereoMovie Maker to auto allign, rotate, and create the final 3D Movie. See Links in next Post. In order to keep it the picture sharp move the Camera slowly and stay atleast 2.10m away from the Object.

Reserved for more Information
Samples for comparison:
HD2 DIY 3D Camera Sample Image (Right click and select "Save As")
Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS20 3D Sample Image (Right click and select "Save As")
Software Resources:
http://www.stereomaker.net (Everything you ever needed for 3D) - Great work from Masuji SUTO
Stereoscopic Google Earth
StereoPhoto Maker (Software for 3D Images)
StereoMovie Maker (Software for 3D Movies)
Stereo Web Browser, 3D Galleries, Java Applets, Viewers, etc.
Other Resources:
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereo_camera (3D Camera at wikipedia.org)
• http://3dfilmtutorials.com/the-flip-flop-of-negative-and-positive-parallax (Parallax)

For what else can old Phones be used for?
Backup Cameras for Cars
GPS Tracking Beacons
View Finder for Telescopes/Binoculars
Webcam
IP Surveillance Camera
XMBC Remote
The list seems endless. I wonder what other creative ideas people can come up with.

you are one awesome guy!

Placeholder for another DIY Project
rajalm29 said:
you are one awesome guy!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks I appreciate the kind words but on a Site like XDA I am just a very small light. But I guess I have to take what I can.
I will replace this Post later on with the information for a "HD2 Binocular Viewer". Another little DIY Project I am working on.

[UPDATED 2015/07/02] GEAK CAMERA with Powerful Real-time Filter

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Dear Professional XDA Users :
We GEAK Camera focus on developing an app on Android platform with powerful real-time filter to benefit all kinds of users. Without any Ads, it is not only easy used, but also practical.
If you dare try it, you must fall in love with it.
[What's NEW]
[FONT=&#21326]
[Fix] Solve the black screen problem when taking photos on some devices.
[Add] Available to call GEAK Camera on the third-party apps.
[Optimization] Accelerate the speed of launch, reduce the time between Multiple shots
[Optimization] Improved stability, fewer reboots and fewer viewfinder errors.
[Optimization] Improve 20% of the fluency when switching among Video, Shot and Square.
[Fix] Taking photos by Volume key to make it more easily.
[FONT=宋体][/FONT]
[FONT=宋体][/FONT][FONT=宋体][/FONT]
[/FONT]Go to GOOGLE PLAY to download:http://goo.gl/I5BNw0
[Description of GEAK CAMERA]
Based on the technology of OpenGL ES, GEAK Camera provides you with the powerful real-time filter. Clean and easy interface allow you to take gorgeous photos anywhere and anytime.
Key features:
-FILTER
We provide you 9 real-time beautiful filter effects which is most popular and widely used appear at the same time on your screen of Android device, allow you to choose the favorite one.
-FAST
Take beautiful picture and seize the forgettable moment less than 1s.
-SMALL
The size of GEAK Camera is unbelievable. Integrated powerful filter function in less than 400k, even smaller that one picture! Download and install in 1 second. Save your time and your space of smartphone.
Functional characteristics
We now have 3 kinds of shooting modes: camera, video and square.
-Camera
Take impressive photos and save the moment at any time, any place.
Let you experience IOS filter on Android device.
-Video
Record the video fluently and save easily. It is available to preview just by one click. Also you could jump to the gallery and edit the finished video by clicking menu bar on the top.
During the time you are recording video, you could also shot photos by clicking the button on the left corner.
-Square
Take square pictures and set as avatar or easily upload to SNS.
We would provide you more features in the following version. Welcome to connect our develop team and leave your feedback.
It is your ideas that inspired us to create better camera.
For further information, find us on
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/likegeakos
Google+ Community: http://goo.gl/ebLLJL

For more cooperation, please feel free to contact us :
EMAIL: [email protected]
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/likegeakos

Looks very nice so far, everything seems to be working fine, will be be the ability to change which folder it stores the images/videos to or to choose from Internal or SD Card (External) in the future?
Thanks. :fingers-crossed:

just installed this and I must say I really like it. reminds me of how fast taking photos was on my 6 plus
Sent from my Nexus 6 using XDA Free mobile app

Looks cool. I'd love to see an option to save photos to sd card tho

it'd be nice to have access to my full gallery when I tap on the bottom left after taking a photo...it only let's you look at the last one you took..
Sent from my Nexus 6 using XDA Free mobile app

ViolentR said:
Looks very nice so far, everything seems to be working fine, will be be the ability to change which folder it stores the images/videos to or to choose from Internal or SD Card (External) in the future?
Thanks. :fingers-crossed:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
okay, fine~ we will consider your suggestion, dear.
We will update more functions in the second stage.
Welcome to give us feedback any time

Only getting 2.1mp images from my Nexus 5 running 5.1 and there's no option to change it to 8mp
Also the video is 720p only and video quality is very bad.

Ui is perfect, bet the viewfinder is rather slow, and focus as well.
Add some more options to the gallery, like showing all picture folders.
Improve these things and i have a new daily driver!

I love the design however it looks too identical to the one on iOS, try making the design your own? Something unique but good looking.
You should add exposure functions and other camera functions. If that happens I will definitely ditch Google Camera for this.

Looks good so far. Is there an option for HDR?

Need a panorama mode and a settings section otherwise great app

Getting "Fail to connect the camera. Please turn off the flash or reboot your phone and try again." Tried rebooting and it stay this way. Google camera works fine. I'm using Samsung Captivate i897 running OMNIrom 5.0.2 Lollipop

i tried it on my nexus 5 , the video quality is very low and there is no option for change it !!
thank you for this application

OK, I tried this out a bit earlier and I'm digging the filters.. My only question is whether or not a soft back button can be implemented? It would make switching from the camera to another app a lot easier, instead of having to click on the gallery/last picture I snapped to get that functionality..

Only black in preview screen.. but capture is ok..
NOTE 2 with Android 4.4.2 dr.Ketan Rom
Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk

Implement Camera2 into this and it will be fantastic.

powerful?
Picture size is 1280x720 normal
switched to square and it's 2322x2322
switched back to normal and it's 4128x2322
Video is 1280x720
The only available setting is Flash. And it doesn't work.
Is that really worth mentioning at http://www.xda-developers.com/new-app-spotlight-geak-camera/ ?
Galaxy S4 TW 5.0.1

this is great, i would like to see an ability of saving the image in the sd card instead of internal memory. Please add the features from AOSP camera. like manual exposure and changing the image size and others. thanks and keep the good work up

just add small setting menu
and hdr
and i will move to these app
oh, and i like your compass and calculator apps

MIUI 12 Camera App Updates

While MIUI 12 brings many new features to explore, one of the most important updates comes in the form of the new camera app. The features available will be dependant on the Xiamoi phone that you have. So if you don't see a feature that we listed below, it might just be that your particular phone doesn't support that function. I am running MIUI 12 on my Xiaomi Mi 9T and I'll be going over everything new that you can expect to find in the MIUI 12 camera app.
App info:
App name: Camera
Version: 4.0
APK name: com.android.camera
What's new?
Customizable interface
The new customizable interface gives you more control over the layout of your camera app. When you open the app, you'll find quick shortcuts running along the bottom of your screen. These will give you instant access to things like video, portrait mode, pro mode etc. When you scroll all the way to the right, you'll find the more option. This will bring you to a list of all of the features in your camera app.
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With the next MIUI 12 update, you'll find an edit button in the more section. When you select this option, you'll be able to drag features around and place your favorite ones on the app start screen. This makes it much easier to have quick access to the most used features on your camera. The feature I use the most on my Xiaomi 9T is the 48MP shot. Now I can go grab that feature and put it as the first option in my camera app. This makes it much faster to select that option quickly.
Pro Mode Settings
Pro mode is done in a very interesting way that makes things a little easier in MIUI 12. On most phones, you'll find the full list of pro features right on the bottom of the viewfinder. In MIUI 12, only the essential and most commonly used settings will be shown on the bottom. Additional settings are in a menu in the top right. Once this menu is expanded, you'll have access to the full array of settings on one screen.
This new layout is very effective at making pro mode simpler to use. Previously, it could be difficult to navigate pro mode with so many different settings in one spot. I've found myself using pro mode much more often than I normally would, thanks to the new layout.
Magic Clone
Of course, there are some really fun new features as well. Magic clone is a very nifty mode that lets you clone yourself in a photo. This option can be found in the more section of the camera app. In this mode, you can duplicate yourself in a photo or video. This trick is actually pretty effective at what it does. While I doubt I'll ever actually find myself using this for anything, it's kind of fun to mess around with for a while.
Subtitles
A feature that I was not expecting to find, is the fantastic new subtitle system. While filming a video, you'll be able to put subtitles on that video in real-time. Your camera app will be able to transcribe your speech and create a complete subtitle track. This makes it very easy to quickly make a video that can be viewed with no volume. There are many times where a friend sends me a video, and my environment might be too noisy for me to hear it properly. This solves that issue in a very effective way.
It also comes into play for social media sites like Facebook, which automatically start playing a video with no audio. Now your video can start playing with subtitles, and the viewer doesn't need to turn on the sound if they're in a public spot. If you've ever spent time adding subtitles to a video, you know how much of a time-consuming process this can be. It's great to see this simple solution that can save so much time.
I would like to show you this feature in action, but it doesn't seem to be available on my Mi 9T yet. I will update this thread if I ever get that feature. If anyone else has this feature working, please leave a comment with some screenshots.
Shoot in Fullscreen Mode
Your new camera app will have a new update called fullscreen mode. This mode lets you extend your preview display to the corners of your screen. Normally, your preview window will be a smaller screen in the middle of your phone, leaving room for your controls and settings at the top and bottom. Now you can extend this window to the entire display of your phone. Settings will overlay the preview window and still function as normal.
This is a good way of enlarging your preview and making things a little easier to see.
Go read about the global rollout of MIUI 12 here.

I am wondering when Xiaomi will add the voice control to their Camera app.

Photo quality

Say "cheese", then rate this thread to express how photos taken with the Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite 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!

Sometimes the Autofocus doesn´t work. The Picture isn´t sharp at all. It´s a bug? Did anyone encounter the same problem?

Tikil said:
Sometimes the Autofocus doesn´t work. The Picture isn´t sharp at all. It´s a bug? Did anyone encounter the same problem?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I have the same problem. It's like there's always a filter on the photos

Mi Note 10 Lite Astrophotography photo+raw samples
Hello guys, as a photography and astronomy enthusiast, i want to share my amasing experiences with my new Mi Note 10 Lite. Here is the link to most of my original samples.
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How i made these photos:
Most photos have been done with the stock camera in a non-light polluted remote place.
I chose the standard quality for the photos, as "high quality" doesn't increase quality that much, but it takes considerably more space on the phone.
I mostly used ISO6400. (ISO6400 is a bit too noisy, because denoising filter is removing detail in the stars. i would suggest a value between 3200 and 5000, making the photos a bit dimmer)
A exposure time of 30s, and focus set to infinity is mandatory for this kind of photos.
Use a very stable support, use a good tripod on a solid base. I used a car as a support (i placed the phone face down on the roof of the car), but a car is not stable enough because we leaned on it, making the car rock back and forth, and that minor rocking made a lot of photos blurry.[You can't do 30s exposure photos hand-held lol. (anything above 1/4s exposure is blurry)]
Use a bluetooth shutter button (or wireless bluetooth mouse/keyboard, or something else),or use wired headphones with button (carefully, so that you don't pull the phone), or use a timer (5 seconds should be sufficient). [pressing the shutter button, or volume button really shakes up the phone, resulting in a blurry image]
Eliminate any stray light sources (car lights, other phone's light, other lights) because any light that can shine directly or indirectly on the lens of the camera, does affect the final image a lot.
Raw or not raw:
I can say that in the stock camera the raw toggle is done poorly, as it does not save a jpg when shooting raw.
It's easier to edit a non raw photo, and with a bit of talent, excellent photos can be done with non raw (with editing, of course).
I use snapseed to edit the non raw photos on my phone, as it's great, and easy to use.
I use photoshop to edit the raw photos, the whole process takes a lot of time, luma and chroma denoising, color grading, saturation, temperature, are all a nightmare and a half.
Yes, you can get better looking photos with better quality if you use raw, but only if you know what are you doing. (usually raw astronomy photos require lots of tweaking that auto modes don't cover)
I would suggest everybody to not use raw, use the 64mp mode, way less hassle, better experience, great detail.
Google camera astrophotography experience:
I've not tried many google camera ports on this phone (PixelCam_Plus_V2.0, and PX Mod v4.0), but i've had problems with both. (when it comes to astrophotography)
PixelCam does save them after a while, but it takes an unknown amount of time, the results are ok, but i'd like to see what i captured as soon as possible, and it doesn't want to turn on astrophotography mode sometimes.
PX Mod doesn't save astrophotography photos unfortunately.
If someone knows a decent astrophotography gcam (with more than 30s of exposure), please write a reply.
Comparison with Oneplus 5
The oneplus 5 had basically the same settings, but it mostly used ISO3200, i don't know which photos are done with what iso, but assume they all were done with 3200.
Even at ISO3200, the oneplus has lots more noise, but it captures the natural yellow light of the milky way.
I think the Mi Note 10 Lite does a better job at everything, except yellow color.
You can compare side by side the shots, as they were done roughly in the same place.
Tell me your experience.

JoraForever said:
Hello guys, as a photography and astronomy enthusiast, i want to share my amasing experiences with my new Mi Note 10 Lite. Here is the link to most of my original samples.
Tell me your experience.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
DUDE!! Your work is super amazing and I'm quite impressed! Love all of them!

[Review] Honor 9A, my thoughts on Tripple camera.

I am provided this device as courtesy of Honor UK. I am going to express my thoughts and impression on Honor 9A. This is my personal and honest opinion of the device.
Before I jump to photography aspect of the Honor 9A I would like to discuses some other aspect of this device. some of features as follows:
1. 6.3”, 88.4% screen to body ratio full view 20:9 aspect ratio display of LCD panel. ( very computable to watch video contents.)
2. Magic ui 3.1 that is honor skin of android 10 out of the box. (latest operating system, many flagship of previous years are still on the list to upgrade to this)
3. 5000 amh battery (all day long battery) and ‘Ultra Power Saving Mode’ in case the device need to run longer in minimum power (12 hours on 5% battery power)
4. 3.5 mm headphone jack ( now we can use our favourite headphones)
5. FM radio without need of DATA ( Yeah!! Just need to plug in headphone to work as antenna)
6. Super comfortable hold and use, slim design with mate finish sides for strong grip.
7. Biometric and facial lock system along with traditional pin and pattern unlock system.
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Camera
Honor 9A comes with triple rear camera and a front selfie camera. Rear cameras are 13MP Main camera along with 5MP ultra wide angle and 2MP depth sensor camera. I will summarise these camera as average in general circumstances. However if you consider the price range of the device it is above average. It is known fact that Honor devices comes with awesome camera performance. This device in particular is not focused on the camera hardware section. Moreover it lacks many popular software features of Honor camera software. This does not mean it has bad camera but it feels weaker in comparison with other Honor Device. I will simply explain good and bad aspect of the camera in my opinion in few important aspect of photography.
General photography
Its simple basic camera very useful for armature mobile photographer. Simple and easy to use. Picture quality is good enough for general use such as social media post or keeping it for memory. Images has good amount of detail and clarity. Pictures are slightly over saturated so it appears vibrant. This is perfect for general users who don’t have much knowledge of post editing.
Portrait
This device is able to capture good portrait pictures. I would not consider this is above average. It has decent amount of background blur on portrait images. I was expecting more than this considering it has 2MP depth sensor lens. However I personally did find much benefit of having that extra lens. So the portrait images are acceptable. Moreover, it does some post processing that improves image quality.
Close up/macro
It is surprisingly good for close up photography. It’s 2MP depth sensor camera rally stands out when it comes to close up photography. There is also PRO mode section where we can manually control, focus, shutter speed, ISO and so on.
Video
Video quality is fine on this device. it is able to capture up to 1080P on 30 FPS. I personally like to take video with 60fps. It might disappoint some users who are not used to with video capturing cause 30fps requires good amount of balance on video capturing. 60 fps would be beneficial in such condition. However, when captured with good balance 1080p with 30fps is considered as good quality.
Light condition
This device takes good picture in good light condition. It may over or under expose on extreme highlight and shadow condition. Meaning if you take picture of a house at sunset it may darken entire house to bring light of sun set.
It has shown weakness in low light condition. Pictures contain some amount of grain at low light. It becomes very difficult to maintain quality in very poor light condition. Such as, darker room with table light. Having said that this is important to consider that this device is introduced as budget device and this level of low light quality need to be accepted as satisfactory.
Wide angle, this device has 5MP wide angle lens. Wide angle is very useful for landscape photography. When comes to landscape photography 5MP resolution is not that helpful. We would lose significant amount of details from image due to lower resolution. when using wide angle for close up images it produces good quality pictures. but majority use of wide angle is to capture more in single frame so higher resolution would surly benefit.
Negative
I have used Honor and Huawei device before so I am aware of some of revolutionary photography features of these devices. When comes to mobile phone photography I consider 3 things is must have Nightmode, portrait and light painting. Honor has decided to ditch these key photography features. Therefore I have come to conclusion that this device is not for serious photography. This might be true as this device is targeted to different demography that may not be much interested on top end photography features. If you are looking for device that is above average on photography than you should look for some other devices such as Honor9x pro, Honor 20 pro.
In summary, honor 9 A has various key features to meet your daily demand. Please read following great review of thee product my member of this community. If you are not into much into photography and just want a simple camera phone with simplified features than this device is for you. It is able to take good quality pictures ( main lens 1x) that does not need editing most of the time. User interface in the camera app is much simplified so it is suitable for entry level consumers.
Source: https://community.hihonor.com/uk/topicdetail/Honor-9a,-my-thoughts-on-Tripple-camera/topicId_23039/