I'm considering the XZ, however there are very conflicting reviews of the camera. Some show really nasty photos, some show good photos. I'm assuming some of this has to do with SW versions and I know the XZ recently updated to 7.0.
I can't tell anything from a tethered store display unit.
Anyone have any comments regarding photo quality?
Manual mode is fine for me to shoot in. I almost always use manual mode on my cell phones and also my digital cameras.
Thanks in advance.
I find it pretty good, the manual shutter speed goes right down to 1/4000, manual focus ISO etc.
In MM I did realise the camera quality was worse than in 7.0 - so they did improve it.
Photos I have taken have great colours, and can usually be edited quite well in lightroom.
Big downside is the no RAW support (Yet, hopefully they release it)
nzzane said:
I find it pretty good, the manual shutter speed goes right down to 1/4000, manual focus ISO etc.
In MM I did realise the camera quality was worse than in 7.0 - so they did improve it.
Photos I have taken have great colours, and can usually be edited quite well in lightroom.
Big downside is the no RAW support (Yet, hopefully they release it)
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Thanks.
Colors have pretty much always been good in reports. The main thing that some of the "bad" reviews have mentioned is the artifacts especially in lower light. The better reviews and pictures that I've seen online don't really show a huge artifact problem and some of the youtube videos show what appears to be very good lowlight performance using manual mode.
I knew about the lack of raw support and I've used LR for a long time.
Fred98TJ said:
Thanks.
Colors have pretty much always been good in reports. The main thing that some of the "bad" reviews have mentioned is the artifacts especially in lower light. The better reviews and pictures that I've seen online don't really show a huge artifact problem and some of the youtube videos show what appears to be very good lowlight performance using manual mode.
I knew about the lack of raw support and I've used LR for a long time.
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Sony has always been a bit dodgy with low light, but I have found the XZ really improves on that (Compared to ther Z3, and Z5) Manual mode really helps with some of that though (same as a DSLR though)
Another thing to note, the device unlocks super quickly, and same with the camera, good for those un prepared shots
nzzane said:
Sony has always been a bit dodgy with low light, but I have found the XZ really improves on that (Compared to ther Z3, and Z5) Manual mode really helps with some of that though (same as a DSLR though)
Another thing to note, the device unlocks super quickly, and same with the camera, good for those un prepared shots
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Thanks again for the response.
I suppose that there isn't really any infor on their nrw 19mp camera used in thr XZs, nor have I found any pricing on it. At any rate it seems only a small upgrade from the XZ, with mostly the new camera and another 1 of ram
Pictures are generally very noisy and blurry when its not in extremely good light (inside with the sun shining through the windows with the lights on as well) Video however is very very good. I dont use manual mode since I don't know what to do, but as a point and shoot I can think of several phones that do better and probably cost less. If you want to buy it for the camera, just dont.
omarfarrah said:
Pictures are generally very noisy and blurry when its not in extremely good light (inside with the sun shining through the windows with the lights on as well) Video however is very very good. I dont use manual mode since I don't know what to do, but as a point and shoot I can think of several phones that do better and probably cost less. If you want to buy it for the camera, just dont.
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Noisy and blurry? Do you have a xz? In my xz i don't have those problems...
djgigi94 said:
Noisy and blurry? Do you have a xz? In my xz i don't have those problems...
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Thats strange, I hope I dont have a faulty hardware , however did you try to take indoor pictures and zoom in, you'll really notice the noise atleast, and if I'm not still as a building then it will also blur.
Sometimes the SW can overboard with the sharpening, I wish there was an option to disable it. Most phones probably have this issue too though.
I dont know if this can be counted as an issue but the lens on XZ has kind of a fish eye effect, So If you are taking a picture of an object and put it i the corners, it stretches and looks a bit... uh, unnatural? Because of this I try to make sure to center people as much as I can.
Some also say that taking pics in 8 mp mode introduces some artifacts because of the conversion algorithm (23mp to 8mp downsizing). So I use 23MP to avoid any unwanted processing.
I find the colors of the photos, taken with the XZ, to be very dull and way too cold to my liking, and XZ's Camera UI and Camera API have very limited manual controls set, unlike the rest of the flagships out there. I made a few photos with my old Xperia Pro and my new Xperia XZ for comparison, you can check them here - https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0u28226fxm9z27d/AADrU08TmvfIUtSbprgharT-a?dl=0 . I was very unhappy with the XZ's camera so I sold it one week after I bought it.
EDIT: you check this thread for more information about the limitations, related to the manual controls of XZ's camera - https://forum.xda-developers.com/xperia-xz/help/enable-manual-controls-camera-t3580654
My experience, XZ pictures have a lot of noise (you can see that when you zoom in) when the light is not enough (and the phone is the one that decides what it means by enough )
I am coming from Galaxy s6 edge + to XZ Dual, and the S6 is the winner in my comparison.
If you want it for the camera, I wouldnt recommend you to go for the XZ.
---------- Post added at 04:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:09 PM ----------
check this for your reference
https://forum.xda-developers.com/xperia-xz/help/xperia-xz-dual-sim-camera-noise-t3582899
Fred98TJ said:
Thanks again for the response.
I suppose that there isn't really any infor on their nrw 19mp camera used in thr XZs, nor have I found any pricing on it. At any rate it seems only a small upgrade from the XZ, with mostly the new camera and another 1 of ram
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This review has sample photos in full res from XZS if you wanna know about picture quality. I own the XZ and i do see a difference in quality to the better in XZs compared to XZ..
https://www.lowyat.net/2017/128842/sony-xperia-xzs-review-one-trick-pony/
After I started using 4:3 full resolution instead od cropped 16:9 and disabled object tracking I very rarely see edge bluring and the photos in general are a lot better.
The "noise" people talk about in most cases is not really noise, it's a result of the image processing algorithm being too aggressive trying to eliminate noise even when there isn't any. First it sharpens the hell out of the photo to bring out as much detail as possible and then it tries to remove the resulting noise by applying heavy noise reduction. It's basically shooting itself in the foot. But, it really isn't as dramatic as some would say, you can't really see that effect until you zoom in really close. If Sony could find a middle ground, balance it out a bit, it would be perfect.
Sony's image processing has always been an issue for some unexplainable reason, they mastered sensors and image processing in photography a long time ago, but when it comes to phones it fails in software department, the sensor are the best on the market still.
It really is mind boggling, and they are aware of that, it's basically a software issue, it just needs some adjusting, why apply a noise reduction filter when there isn't any noise? HDR usually sucks as well. Then again, their DIS is top notch, the autofocus since the XZ is superb, the colors to me look great all around, low light photos are very good, specially in manual mode with adjustable shutter speed...there are great things about Sony's cameras, but usually things average user doesn't really see or cares about.
To be fair, the only time I see those artefacts is when I zoom in, not even when watching fullscreen on a PC, so I'm really pleased with the camera on Xperia since the Z3, but all things considered, Sony should have the best smartphone cameras in the world or at least be the top 3.
All that being said, shooting in manual mode is a different story, once you get a hang of it and learn how to use it, it can stand besides the best of them, easy. But that's not really a fair measurement, only auto modes, because that's what most people will use, and that's where Sony usually doesn't do that great.
The phone takes great photos, and I have yet to see a review that says it's a bad camera. It really isn't, it just isn't at the top few as it could be.
As for the XZs, currently it often produces lower quality photos than the XZ, depending on the scenario, it isn't a better camera, it's just different and has different strenghts in different scenarios. Plus, the slowmo gadget, if you care about that stuff. Other than that, there is no reason why it should be a better camera in average scenarios, maybe in low light because the pixels are bigger, but that's pretty much it.
If the quality of photos is your only concern about buying an XZ (or XZs, for that matter), you shouldn't be worried.
Hello,
A few weeks ago I've upgraded to EMUI 9.0.0.
The camera with EMUI 8 performed incredibly good, except for a few crashes when making extra long exposure shots.
Since the EMUI 9 upgrade I recognized several issues and drawbacks compared to EMUI 8.
1. To get the same nice colors and lights, I need to enable "AI", but at the same time this makes the camera much slowlier with shooting. Which makes it unusable for quick snapshots of moving targets.
2. Once in AI mode the picture resolution cannot be changed anymore. It only allows for full resolution. I loved the 18:9 format.
3. OIS seems to work way worse (or not at all) in AI mode. Maybe this is correlated to the previous topic, that full resolution is chosen automatically in AI mode. Having a final pic of full resolution I think it would leave no margins for OIS. For sure with EMUI 9 it is much harder to get clear shots.
4. Panorama mode: Pictures are almost impossible to get them sharp and several times the panorama shot was not able to be stopped/completed. Instead the app had to be closed and the panorama repeated.
Did anyone else experience similar behavior and/or has a solution to it? I'm already thinking about downgrading to EMUI 8 as for the bad performance of the camera app.
Thanks for any inputs!
IKR. I am experiencing the same thing. Quality of photos has reduced a lot and face unlock is slower.
I made similar observations concerning reduced photo quality over the course of updates for my Huawei Mate 9. It took me several downgrade attempts with different firmware releases to get it back to the photo quality it delivered when it was new.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=75034023&postcount=242
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=78311258&postcount=46
One could be forgiven for thinking that they do it intentionally to push their new models.
I have heard others complain.
I don't think the quality changed on mine
C675 b190.
Here's a picture of my week old kittens
Looks good to me.. But then I don't expect professional quality from a cell phone.
They make specific cameras for that.
This is so sweet. I love taking photos of my 6 years old tomcat Louis too. But I have to be quick, he is always sceptical about it ;-
Though your sample looks really cute it should definitely be sharper. Your phone is capable of taking photographs with amazing technical quality, in good lightning conditions often regardless of its firmware, but then again your sample picture could have suffered from the forums compression during upload.
itsjustmeagain said:
This is so sweet. I love taking photos of my 6 years old tomcat Louis too. But I have to be quick, he is always sceptical about it ;-
Though your sample looks really cute it should definitely be sharper. Your phone is capable of taking photographs with amazing technical quality, in good lightning conditions often regardless of its firmware, but then again your sample picture could have suffered from the forums compression during upload.
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Facebook does the same.. All my photos.. Even with quick shot.. Volume shutter.. Pictures come out good.
Night shots.. Yeah they suck
Not being.. Ya know
But Asians putting out bad cameras?
Got to be trolling.
Anyway, I decided not to update my Honor View 10 anymore to avoid the risk of quality degradation as I experienced with my Mate 9.
Btw. It is interesting seeing a phone camera perform without the bells an wistles of the vendor software optimizations. Just try any other camera app.
I have OnePlus 7 for exactly one week, use the stock camera on auto with default settings and took under 20 pictures. Even though I take images in bright summer light and my daughters are in little to no move, I often end up with these poor artifacts.
I will try switching HDR off. Any other suggestion (except trying GCam)? Does anyone else experience something like that? (Am I using it wrong? I had no issues with Samsung Galaxy S7.)
Have similar issues. Portrait mode comes out with artifacts as well. Stock cam sucks despite what everyone else says. Not sure if the OP7pro's cam is as bad.
I think OP needs to put more effort into marketing the OP7 globally (not just the pro) and improving the cam. I am very disappointed.
Have just installed GCam to try. Hopefully it is better.
HDR is and never will be made for super low shutter speeds.
As I reckon these kids are moving quickly there is simply not enough time for the phone to quickly burst shoot and merge those 5 or so pictures for HDR
Just my guess. Try holding your phone still and shoot a static object and see if these problems persist
The attached pictures were taken with shutter speeds of 1/50 to 1/450 sec and on Oxygen OS 9.5.5. I'm now on 9.5.6 but I still experience issues with HDR so I keep it off.
The thing is that with Samsung (S7), only really low shutter speeds of around 1/10 s and low light caused issues - but then objects were blurred, which is what I expect. Not weird artifacts like the samples.
I basically never have enough time to play with settings so I only use auto.
Without HDR or any multiframe nonsense. Just the main camera, base ISO. I have seen good photos from the S21, but so far the ones from the S22 don't look that good.
Kind of worried my old P30 Pro produces more detail at a higher resoultion. Maybe I should sit this one out.
It seems that the slow Expert Raw app produces DNG files with artifacts due to over sharpening. While the normal camera app produces clean but slightly softer dngs.
No phone is perfect at launch. I remember the S21 Ultra launch, I got the phone since day one and in less than 3 weeks Samsung pushed about 5 updates/patches that included, among other stuff, camera enhancements. Can't judge the S22 Ultra just yet
How is that relevant if a so called "expert" app creates over-sharpened raw files that need to be reduced in size to hide the artifacts while the normal app produces pure raws and is even faster in doing so.
I doubt the s21 raw output changed with updates.
That's not update/patch territory, that's bad decisions in creating the so called expert app. On par with misleading customers with digital zoom and interpolated megapixel specs.
I was considering upgrading from Note 20 Ultra (Snapdragon) to a new S23 Ultra and then realized the $800 (after trade-in) probably wasn't worth it so I should just stick to my trusted strategy of buying last years model refurb in like new condition (factory unlocked) and save my money.
So I hadn't experimented with difference camera apps (shamed to admit after 1.5 years using my Note 20 Ultra). I usually used just the normal app on auto mode and it's fine for casual shooting. After experimenting and discovering the Expert Raw app my jaw dropped.
The RAW images produced buy the native camera app in "Pro" mode are terrible - worse thant the JPEGS. Loss of detail when you'd expect more detail and no, I'm pretty sure it's just not sharpening vs no sharpening, they are really worse than the JPEGs. The RAW and JPEG images produced by the Expert Raw app are fantastic, especially if you install Lightroom and run the raw photo quickly through Lightroom for further, quick and easy tweaking on the phone itself.
So I started seeing GCam referenced in DPReview forums (which I've been absent from since a couple years) and I side loaded the latest version 8.4. It appears to me this app is designed to use the main sensor wide camera only and doesn't work with the ultrawide or telephoto cameras? Is that true? I took a low light indoor shot using the default settings and the Expert Raw produce a way better image than GCam. Gcam produce a similar quality image if I put it in Night Mode but it took a way longer shot processing time. Or just warn them to hold the phone stead and wait for the line to go all away around the shutter button circle.
I think for this phone the Expert Raw app is the way to go except in cases where I'm going to have someone else take the shot as Expert raw takes a lot longer to take the photo than the native camera app and most people are use to instant shots when they press the shutter so I can see someone move the phone after they press the shutter in Expert Raw before it's done taking the photo.