[Q] Video recording close-up doesn't focus well? (on screen panels) - Galaxy S II Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I tried to record some real time data on some equipment's panel screen today (at work place) using the sgs2 stock camera app video recording..
Many had told me the video recording suppose to have auto focus but the wordings are very blur and I can't identify each words at all during recording and also when playback.
At the end I have to borrow my colleague's iPhone 4 to get the job done, it focus immediately on the screen wordings and appeared clearly..
Normally I never use video recording but now I'm bugged by it lol
Am I doing anything wrong here? I'm using Checkrom 3.1.1 though I doubt they have tweaked anything on the camera app, it looks the same as the stock one.

Related

[Q] Full hd video camera's field of view

Why when recording video at Full HD the angle of view changes ?
The higher the video resolution the narrower the field of view becomes.
Of course the lens is prime so is it using only the center of the sensor ?
thanks
zoom - wide
when recording video at 1080p the lens becomes zoom.
when recording video at low resolutions or just using the camera for photos it becomes wide lens.
have you noticed it ?
A thought I made was that because the lens is prime it crops from the center of the sensor for HD video. But what's the reason to do something like this? Easier CPU processing ?
any thoughts ?
And talking about the video ...
Is there a possibility (mod or app) to record video with the screen off ???
camera noise
I don't know about the screen but I am glad they silence the camera's shutter sound when the phone is at silent mode with the new official update.
There was someone that enabled a no-zoomed mode in the camera app. But that made you lose 720p recording, as he had to change the 720p mode into 1080p "wide" recording. Maybe someone knows what I'm talking about and has the apk for you.
good idea
Why not recording full hd video at wide and zooming in (like the camera does) when ever you want ... maybe because this means that the phone has to capture video at 8 megapixel and then downgrade it at Full HD. So this must be more CPU demanding.
Probably the phone records video at 1920x1080 using the center of the sensor. Capturing only the center of the sensor does the zoom effect. I cant think another reason why loosing the wide angle.
The narrow field of view is useful in some cases (maybe outside) but recording inside rooms everything is very close...

Xperia X10 mini pro camera issues

I flashed MiniCm7 2.2.0 recently and there is something weird going on with camera app. When I start recording a video it goes on fine for a while then randomly the recording freezes for a second and will resume the recording. During the play back.. right after the part where recording freezes the entire audio will be out of the sync. Tried lgCamera same problem.. unless I reduce the bitrate to 100k
The second is with auto brightness. If I start capturing video at a well lit area.. it adjusts the brightness correctly.. but it sticks to that level. If I come to a poor lit area, it does not adjust itself. I have to stop the video recording and should start again fresh in order for camera to adjust.
Third.. Flash. During video recording, if I set the flash to ON. It stays on, even though when I am not recording and when I start the video recording, the flash gets turned off.
The problem was almost identical with 2.1.9. And now.. the same with 2.2.0. I tried camera.apk in cm7pro v21. Still the same result.
I am suing nAa's 2.6.29.6-nAa-11 kernel.
Please, any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

[Q] Touch-to-Focus while taking video?

Has anyone heard or seen any demos/reviews/preview videos of someone taking a video and re-focusing by touching the screen? Relying on only autofocus on the S2 made many unfocused videos unwatchable.
The One S has it (I played with it), as well as iPhone and the Razr.
YAY! Update:
According to the manual, touch to focus while recording video is confirmed!
5 Select [REC button] to start recording.
●● To change the focus, tap where you want to focus. To
focus on the centre of the screen, select [AF button].
●● To capture an image from the video while recording,
select [STILL SHOT button].
6 Select [REC button] to stop recording.
The video is saved automatically.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Update 2:
On another note, it looks like anti-shake is available for video, too, unless it was a copy/paste mistake from the Photo/Still Camera section of the manual.
Anti-Shake
Activate the anti-shake feature to reduce
blur caused by the device’s vibration or
movement.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
naddie said:
Has anyone heard or seen any demos/reviews/preview videos of someone taking a video and re-focusing by touching the screen? Relying on only autofocus on the S2 made many unfocused videos unwatchable.
The One S has it (I played with it), as well as iPhone and the Razr.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dude you can do this on the S2 I use it ALL the time..
fOmey said:
Dude you can do this on the S2 I use it ALL the time..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On TW ROMs while taking a video? Are we talking ICS? I haven't tried taking a video on a TW ICS ROM yet.
Regarding the S2, I'm not the only one who sees this limitation:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1541019
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1471112
Anyways, I'm concerned because I know stock ICS doesn't do it, so I hope the S3's camera app finally has TOF while videoing.
I flashed to the stock ICS TW ROM and verified that touching the screen while videoing does not allow for Touch-to-Focus, either. There's nothing in the settings to allow it either. When I touch while videoing, it says "Zooming is not supported while recording Full HD Video". When not filming at 1080p, it just zooms instead of focus.
Are you using a custom ROM, 3rd party app, or modified camera.apk?
Yeah I've seen many videos where this was done, Samsung even added automatic face recognition when you take a photo and instantly sends them to all your friends in that photo.
That's all fine and dandy, but sometimes, you want to control where you want to focus. Short of an unfriendly manual focus slider, touch-to-focus is a quick way to kick the focus algorithm in gear.
Relying on the auto focus to adjust itself doesn't work well on the S2. Sometimes it tries to refocus when it's already in focus and everything becomes blurry for the next 2-3 minutes, ruining the video. Happens a lot in low-light conditions (indoor).
naddie said:
I flashed to the stock ICS TW ROM and verified that touching the screen while videoing does not allow for Touch-to-Focus, either. There's nothing in the settings to allow it either. When I touch while videoing, it says "Zooming is not supported while recording Full HD Video". When not filming at 1080p, it just zooms instead of focus.
Are you using a custom ROM, 3rd party app, or modified camera.apk?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lgcamera works flawlessly for this. Bitrate customization, touch to focus etc
DramatikBeats said:
lgcamera works flawlessly for this. Bitrate customization, touch to focus etc
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm talking about the stock camera app. I hope someone can verify if touch focus on the S3 will finally have it.
According to the manual, touch to focus while recording video is confirmed!
5 Select [REC button] to start recording.
●● To change the focus, tap where you want to focus. To
focus on the centre of the screen, select [AF button].
●● To capture an image from the video while recording,
select [STILL SHOT button].
6 Select [REC button] to stop recording.
The video is saved automatically.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

how to lock focus on 4k mode ?

hello all...
was just wondering if i can lock the focus while shooting in 4k mode ? Coz leaving it on auto in bad light causes blurred videos...
actually...ive noticed u cant lock focus on ALL video modes...!
Is that correct ? Or am i missing something?
I have been annoyed by this too! It's frustrating to have it constantly refocus itself.
Juan_Largearm said:
I have been annoyed by this too! It's frustrating to have it constantly refocus itself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sony needs to rework the entire camera software as alot of stuff are missing and/or needs fixing (i have complete confidence the hardware is top notch...just the softwate quality doesnt quite match it).
Unfortunately for us, a good camera is hardware + software. For Z2 to become a great camera phone (from just a good one) we need:
- ISO preview (you can change it but you can't see the effect on the screen)
- all modes available on 15 and 20 MPx
- better software alltogether
right, so just to confirm and clarify
- there is no way to change how the focus works?
- it can't be set not to refocus every few seconds?
- is there any chance it will ever be fixed in an update, eg. lolipop? Could someone confirm if it isnt already fixed?
To be honest, the video recording is terrible, the image is sharp and blur on and off, making the video unwatcheable and makes the film-watchers question, whether I used my calculator to record a video. This is riduculous with this kind of phone ('best camera phone there is')

Video Stabilization off when setting is set to "on" and vice versa.

Anyone notice that one the T-Mobile Edge, that when you set "Video Stabilization" to "On" it actually doesnt stabilize the video?
Only when you set it to "off," it'll stabilized the video recording?
It's kind of the opposite, not sure why no one else noticed.
Could be wrong here, but I believe that while recording you not going to notice any stabilization. It's happening but you won't see it until replaying the processed video after the recording is done.
Pure+ said:
Could be wrong here, but I believe that while recording you not going to notice any stabilization. It's happening but you won't see it until replaying the processed video after the recording is done.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To check video and photo stabilization, try zooming in to 3x, point it at something and try to do a recording with it On and off, the video will do the opposite.
It work none the less, but it's counter intuitive to have it day off when it's actually on.
OP seems to be spot on. Same problem with my regular S6. Video stabilization = off turns stabilization on. With it = on, videos are jittery as hell where even my pulse through my fingertips causes the camera to shake.
So guess there's a bug in the camera app.
I just noticed the same thing with my unbranded regular Galaxy S6. If you have video stabilization turned on in camera app settings it is in fact turned off. I was surprised how poorly it stabilizes the video, so I had to use 'Stabilize' option in YouTube. Then I thought maybe my optical image stabilization component is damaged so I started playing with it and once I turned it off my video stabilization started to work very well. So it seems to be a bug in camera software. Anyway - if you want to have video stabilization you need to have it turned off Samsung logic
The reasoning is because the video stabilization setting in the camera app turns on DIGITAL Image Stabilizing by Samsung via software which is really just counterproductive to the Optical Image Stabilization already built into the camera.
So yeah, trust the OIS hardware because typically hardware > software in this field.
facetubespam said:
The reasoning is because the video stabilization setting in the camera app turns on DIGITAL Image Stabilizing by Samsung via software which is really just counterproductive to the Optical Image Stabilization already built into the camera.
So yeah, trust the OIS hardware because typically hardware > software in this field.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just a question so OIS is default by default and always on am I right? Even on UHD recording?
More evidence that the switch in the camera options refers to DIGITAL image stabilization:
Set video resolution to FHD (not the 60fps option). Otherwise, the Video Stabilization setting is not available (grayed out).
Set the Video Stabilization setting to "ON".
Go back to the camera, zoom in fully (8x). While pointing at something easily identifiable, without shooting video, note that the image is stabilized quite well -- you can simulate "shaky hands" and the image is very stable, not jittery. However, you are not shooting video yet, so settings specific to video are not activated. What's happening here is the OIS is working, and doing a very good job.
Now, click the video recording button. You will notice two changes in the image: It will zoom in a little bit more without any zooming input from you, and the image will get rather UNSTABLE.
It turns out, what you had selected in the settings is actually, truly, being invoked. No, this is not a bug. The switch is not acting the opposite of how its labeled, even though the RESULT is exactly that in practice.
Here's what's happening: As someone else noted, that switch controls digital image stabilization. This is a software process, that basically crops off a small margin all the way around the picture and reserves these pixels for calculating a smaller moving "window" in the larger captured image space. The software tries to move this window around so that it follows the random small movements from jiggling, unsteady hands, etc. In this way, the image appears stable rather than moving around in the capture space.
This is why, when DIS is turned on, the displayed image zooms a little bit -- that's the "reserve image edges" being cropped off and the remaining image being expanded into the display area.
So, here's what I think is happening: When you have Video Stabilization on, the phone turns off OIS and enables the DIS algorithm. The OIS camera hardware is something like a Googolplex times better as IS than Samsung's crappy algorithm, so the end result is the appearance of IS being turned OFF and a little loss of resolution of the video image as well.
Once the video is stopped, after a few seconds you'll see the DIS turned off, OIS turned back on, and the image will zoom out a tiny bit and become very stable again.
Bottom line: The Video Stabilization setting in the S6 camera app is worse than useless. It's adverse. It should be left off at all times under all conditions.
How did this happen? My guess is, the engineering team responsible for the hardware was organizationally distant enough from the camera software team (keep in mind the latter are trying to develop an app that can run across many phones). The hardware guys put this incredible camera in the phone with awesome OIS. The software guys, not focused only on the S6, passed through the DIS that's been in the camera app forever, and no one engineer was responsible for integrating all this stuff for the camera feature itself, testing it, making sense of it, blah blah blah.
And here we are.
Bottom line: Because of the OIS in the S6, the DIS feature in the camera app is unnecessary and should be left OFF. In fact, the way it works misleads the user into thinking IS can't be had with the video resolutions higher than non-60fps FHD. In fact, exceptional IS is available at all times in all resolutions for stills and video -- the hardware OIS is always on the job, unless you turn it off by turning on the [digital] Video Stabilization option in the settings.
The only bug here, if any, is that this setting seems to turn off OIS, when it doesn't need to. Perhaps with OIS on, and the DIS processing applied to that stabilized image, we might get something even better than OIS alone. Alas...

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