Camera won't focus when up close [pics inside] - G1 Accessories

I've had a problem over the past month or two of where the camera on my G1 simply doesn't focus when close up to an object, most notably bar codes.
I used to be able to use ShopSavvy and Barcode Scanner effortlessly, as well as take pictures of things relatively close up, and have it be in focus.
However, that's not the case anymore. The camera takes pictures of things just fine when they're more than a few feet away, but as soon as you try to get as close as you'd need to scan a barcode, it just gets blurry, and won't focus. I've tried taking off the back cover, and wiping the lens and lens cover, to no avail.
Anyone else have this problem, or know of any suggestions to fix it? FWIW, I had been on a rooted JF 1.51 build, but just over the weekend I switched to CyanogenMOD, and I still have the same issue. Also, I've seen both this thread and this other thread on a similar issue, but, the half-pressing of the shutter button does not work, and I have the same issue with ShopSavvy, SnapTell, Barcode Scanner, Snap Photo, and the native camera.
Here are some photos for evidence.
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrhaydel/3855605759/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrhaydel/3855605671/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrhaydel/3856395446/
Suggestions? Someone else mentioned that I should unroot it and take it in to TMobile for them to swap it out. Has anyone done this?

agreed!...i cant seem to use any barcode scanners cause of the fact that the camera will not focus in properly...I hope there is a solution to this.

I'm actually having the opposite problem, mine won't focus on anything that is more than one to two feet away which is pretty inconvenient since that's the range where the majority of things in the universe can be found
The only thing I can think of as a solution is (because I've got some experience in optics from university) find the precise range of focus of the camera and find a small lens that can adjust the focus to what it should be and put it over the aperture.
*****On the plus side, my camera can focus on very close objects, ~1inch, which is better than my CAMERA camera.

I have found that in order to focus properly, you must hold your finger on the "capture" button on the touch screen. When I let go, it takes the picture. I can focus on items up to about two inches from the lens. If I do not hold my finger on it, I would get the same type results as the OP has described/posted.

Related

Tweaking the camera settings

Two things I've found with the camera now with a few weeks of casual use - one, it produces blurred images unless i hold my breath and hold the thing as still as possible while it records the image. Even then it might have half the image clear and the other blurred, like its taking too long to poll all the pixels. It also seems to produce dark images even with the brighness setting on +2.0.
I have it set to take 3 mp images, on superfine quality, recording to the microdrive. Does anyone think any of these settings might be contributing to the problem? Maybe recording to memory and/or taking lower quality pics will fix the blurring (or half blurring) issues? I would hate to lower the quality.
Just curious what others have found as the best settings.
Ive tried so many different conbinations of settings and I almost always end up with a blurry picture, unless the lighting conditions are perfect and I mean perfect. If it's even slightly dark, or any form of artificial light, I get blurry images
i find the flash is useless n the device has to be resting on something and subject has too be still else it just dosent work!!!!!
If you get it right (and using the centre of the joystick as a camera shutter release button helps) then you can get some pretty decent lowlight shots.
Exposure is still horrible, but I've seen worse (universal was much worse than this).
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I've already switched to using the joystick's OK button as the shutter release, after holding the camera button half-way to prefocus. I wish the regular OK button below the joystick would work since it has a shorter throw (therefore less chance of motion), but it appears the camera doesn't read that button. < rant > On a related note, I wish the browser button would be disabled while the camera is active, I've lost track of how many times I've pressed it while gripping the right side in order to press the camera button half-way. Then I have to close the browser, interrupting the photo session. < /rant >
I just switched to recording to memory and a few test shots under my desk where its dark appear to be clear, even when I wiggled the unit while taking the shot. I guess a few weeks more of use will determine if its a solution or not. If not, then I'll try moving the quality or size settings downward.
Still interested if anyone has found any "good" settings.

[Q] Screen Issues with Medium Grays

I noticed this the first day I had my phone, but thought it was just a fluke or some new touchwiz feature akin to the "linens" that iOS 5,6 had. But my note 3, white now on full stock MJ4, never rooted or tampered with yet seems to have some banding and aberrations with displaying medium grays. I have attached a screenshot that you can download and try for yourself. I am positive this is a bug, and with my limited knowledge I feel it is a software issue more than a hardware one that will hopefully get fixed.
Steps to really see the problem:
Download my screen shot on to your Note 3 (or open chrome browser, remove all windows so it is the gray background with the product logo as attached, then screen shot it yourself)
Do the following in a dark environment to see it best. (please)
Open the screenshot in gallery.
Zoom into it and pan around.
Play with different brightness settings and see if the banding with grays is more evident.
Turn on screen rotation, rotate screen.
Zoom and pan on the same screenshot in landscape view to see that the banding is apparent still only on the Y-axis, proving it was not part of the image.
I attempted to capture this on video and even scan it in my scanner, but it wasn't obvious like it is to my eyes. I want to know, does this affect other people's note 3s? If so I won't care as it really isn't a problem. But if it's just my handset, then I want to get it swapped out instead of risking a bad screen or any other on board hardware. I am most worried because the problem is different day to day and the banding seems to be greater towards the bottom of the screen
If you did all this, thank you!
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Same issue here as well as my girlfriends N3. If you mess around with the different display settings (dynamic, professional photo, etc) it increases it or decreases it. I've only noticed this with Chrome however. I will boot up my Evo 3D to see if it does it on there as well as my 2k12 N7.
Sent from my MiniN3

Please help, Camera Problem

Hi Guys, got my Z2 sm couple of weeks ago, works fine but i have an issue with the camera when i capture images with the flashlight. Camera works well without the flash but i get
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[/IMG]some heavy distortion when i use the Camera with the flashlight.
I dont know weather its a hardware or software issue. Flashed a new ftf days back but the issue still remains. I have also tried using 3rd party camera apps, same issue.
Any help/ideas? Thanks in advance
Attached Image with flashlight (distorted):
http://postimg.org/image/dybgyo26v/
Attached image without flashlight (Same image as the first)
http://postimg.org/image/q26iwrc2l/
Do you wear your z2 in some (thick armor-like) case by a chance? Looks to me like something is reflecting flash led light and directing it into camera sensor. If not, try to check if camera lens is properly aligned (if its centered within back panel camera hole). Anyway looks more like a hardware problem.
kozio1 said:
Do you wear your z2 in some (thick armor-like) case by a chance? Looks to me like something is reflecting flash led light and directing it into camera sensor. If not, try to check if camera lens is properly aligned (if its centered within back panel camera hole). Anyway looks more like a hardware problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No i dont have a case, the back glass is broken. The camera is properly aligned, but i can say the about the flash. It is shifted a little to the left( Almost unnoticeable) in its hole. Can it be the cause?
Am thinking of trying the camera without the phone's back cover and see whether its the alignment causing the problem.
Thanks for the response, really appreciate it.

Why I think the camera app sucks on this phone

Recently I got an Xperia 5 Mk. II because I wanted a cheap, well built cameraphone, and largely it delivered. The Photo Pro software is the best I've ever used on a phone, but the RAW output seems to be not really that raw. First off, I couldn't disable lens distortion correction on the wide angle lens, which should be disabled by default when shooting RAW. Moreover, JPEGs come out with the natural fisheye distortion, RAWs come out filtered.
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On the other hand, while shooting RAW with the third party Firstlight camera app, DNGs come out exactly how they should be. But it's a buggy third party app and the autofocus is borderline unusable, especially compared to the native app.
Much the same way, another issue i came across, which also plagues the 5 III, 1 II and 1 III (although NOT the IV gen, as I've seen so far) is the telephoto RAWs. They seem to be infested with this 1px wide grid across the whole image, especially on the highlights. At first I thought it was the bad ISOCELL sensor, but again, tried with Firstlight and photos came out flawless.
(5 III and 1 III RAW samples taken from www.photographyblog.com; all images are contrast enhanced)
Worst thing about this grid problem is that it seems to translate to JPEGs as well, but in RAW it is absolutely intolerable.
And not only that, both these issues seem to persist across multiple versions of the app. I did try from 1.1 to 1.3, which is the latest one supported by my unit.
My theory about this is that these filters could be pulled out of the APK, for which i just don't have the brains to get around. I did decompile the app and found some tiny bits of glsl and some vague "pre-output correction" calls in the DNG builder that do confirm my suspicions, but i really have no clue how to navigate around this stuff any further and, well, make RAW raw again. For a phone series that prides itself on having an accurate and natural looking camera, this certainly takes a lot away from it.

Question Action / Sports shots with the default camera

What is the best way to take an action shot with the S23 Ultra? I am not an avid photographer but do want to take decent not-blurry pics from kids sports activities. Is it possible without going into RAW mode and changing exposure settings? Back in the day, my Note 8 had a "sports" mode that was easy to use though haven't seen it in a while. But I do see a "food" mode that I'll never use...
The "motion photo" setting is useful; it can only be viewed and edited with Samsung Gallery app though. The phone allows you to make gifs too.
This is on my N10+/Pie, presumably the S23U still has these options.
There's also burst mode.
Live tracking as well which may or may not be useful. Set up is rather convoluted as certain options are only available at certain resolutions, fps or with other options. Guides for other older models may be helpful if the S23U guides aren't providing enough information. Many of the features date back years.
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A combination of burst mode and live tracking is definitely your best option.
I would still recommend looking into gcam using this gcam and config :
Post in thread 'Working GCAM for S23 Ultra' https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/working-gcam-for-s23-ultra.4550019/post-88277895
That version will offer face focus tracking by default which is great for kids action shots. You can also enabling focus tracking if you often need to take pictures of your kids without seeing their faces but otherwise, you want to leave focus tracking disabled so it better tracks faces. Picture quality for the time being will be better than stock cam.
In the end though, even under good light conditions, smartphones won't do miracles for action shots as their focus system isn't that fast. But I'm sure with stock or gcam you can manage some decent shots

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