Quick question. Is it just me or does V10's HDR camera option just doesn't work? I can't seem to tell any difference between On, Off or Auto. I compared it with my friend's Pixel and the HDR mode enabled and disabled on that phone was night and day differences. Anyone with similar experiences?
yh...same here...I change phones a lot, I'm starting to think that companies put different stuff in same mobile series...like lens cameras etc...
Hi,
it seems that HDR switched on or off does indeed make no difference while looking at the screen. HDR kicks in as soon you take a picture. If HDR was used by the camera can be easily checked as it adds "HDR" to the file name. I just took two pictures of my monitor with a mug in front in the darker area. One picture with HDR on and one with off. I held the camera so that the mug was used by it to measure the exposure resulting in an overexposed screen (almost white). There is definitely a difference in the bright areas of the screen as more details are shown when HDR is turned on. With HDR turned off there is almost only white. I try to upload the pictures later but you can try to take such pictures yourself. There needs to be a huge difference in brightness to see what HDR does.
Related
Not sure if this applies to other ROMs wtih sense, but on the verizon-deployed ICS OTA the Sense Camera seems to be brain dead if you try to take a normal aspect ratio picture (Read: not widescreen). Verified on another rezound with the same OTA.
Noticed this as the Sense camera defaults to widescreen "8mp" - when you actually get pictures cropped to 6mp. Not caring much for the widescreen anyways, I turned it off. Over the next few weeks, I discovered the previously stellar photo quality start to tend towards overly dark and ill focused - auto focus in particular was brain dead, especially at macro resolutions, where I had previously tested the camera being able to focus perfectly at about 2-3 cm. It'd take me messing with lighting, varying distance, angle, etc, to maybe get it to focus - most of the time it would either stop focusing before or after the ideal focus.
On top of the focus issue, sometimes the exposure calculations would be completely off, usually when there was some light shining at the camera - for instance, from a display. Amazingly terrible, overall. I'm pissed it took me so long to notice and figure out the cause. I was worried it was the camera hardware itself wigging out.
Downloaded another camera app - ICS Camera - and it took pictures just fine at the full 8mp resolution (non-widescreen). Focus and exposure calculations working fine. Oh, and it supports using the volume keys as shutter buttons, which has been something I'd been looking for for some time. Only noted problem is that it does not work as a camera data provider (ie. attaching to a message) - fails for some reason. Otherwise, it's replaced the Sense camera entirely for me.
Attached are pictures of one specific instance. Sun did decide to poke out at the end, but it didn't cause a major difference in the pictures as I was in a shaded area the whole time.
Notes:
HTC-initial is spectacularly bad, even for the addled state the camera was in.
HTC-best is the best i could get the camera to do, mashing autofocus a few times and messing with manual exposure.
HTC-widescreen is the first picture I took with me setting widescreen and everything else default. AF was done once, automatically.
ICSCam is the first picture I took w/ ICS Camera, no settings changed. AF once, automatically.
TLR; Sense 3.6 Camera does not handle 4:3 aspect ratio correctly; AF tends to be poor and exposure off.
Zig zag... That's a very fine analysis of the camera focusing problems I've been having. I've been quite upset with the camera behavior since the ICS update. On GB, the camera functioned remarkably. I'm an avid photographer and even have a Canon DSLR. I was loving the camera on this phone. Never used widescreen. Just stuck with mid-high resolutions but never full 8mp. Sensor has it's limits. Touch focus, just once regardless where I touched...it was clear. Ever since ICS....the camera app lags and the most important thing (Focusing), has gone to s**t. I have to keep touching all over the damn screen just trying to get it to focus on an area I want it And yes, very close shots are hell now. Just last night, I was about to throw the damn phone because it refused to focus on something I used to normally have no problem with. I have no idea what the issue is but it keeps adjusting the exposure level way too bright, sometimes too dark. I'll touch a bright cloud in the background and suddenly the exposure jumps 5 points and burns out the sky. The complete oppositte of what it's supposed to do. Hell frustrating. Has the same focus/exposure problems in Camera360. Yeah, being as bright as it is outside...I was pissed when I got home and found a pic of a cloudy horizon and a canal in front. The entire pic was completely out of focus. The camera AI is so dumb that it habitually withdrawls the focal point to the macro view...even when trying to focus at infinite.
Hmmm.. does one need ROOT for ICS Camera?
I don't think you need root. Here's the link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.moblynx.cameraics&hl=en
Honestly, I'm surprised that HTC managed to break autofocus and auto exposure - when I was looking through android APIs it seemed like those functions were all done below the level at which apps can adjust them. At any rate, using the ICS Camera, autofocus and exposure function just as well as they did on GB, once more. I'm assuming other apps would work fine as well - just something affecting the Sense camera only.
Hmm..it works well. Thanks for the link. Only thing I don't like is it's missing Saturation, Sharpness and Contrasts controls..also missing ISO setting. Tells you image size in megapixels instead of resolution. I haven't actually snapped a pic with it yet so I'll give that a try in a bit. I'm going to give the video recordibg portion a shot and see how the quality fairs out as for sound.
Hello,
I bought sony Z2 few weeks ago. It's a nice phone, it's very smooth and I'm very pleased. But it overheats, not as much in 4K(which I don't use so no bother for me) but Creative effect just puts too much stress on a battery and the camera very quickly shuts off because temperatures of the battery go over 46 Celzis which is probably a treshold temperature. I hope sony will optimize their code in future firmware updates for Z2. I don't change phones often, this was a step up from first! HTC Desire(more than 4years ago) and I'm hoping to get a few years of from Z2. I did tried a bunch of roms on desire, but Z2 is gonna wait, it is so smooth and ofcourse because of the warranty. If they don't fix the overheating problem, next time I'll try samsung or go back to HTC if they manage to make a decent camera which they never did make in any of their models(purple tint, poor sharpness, whashed colors etc. I'll stop here, don't wanna turn this into a flame thread, just my couple of thoughts)
Also, what's with the HDR in manual mode - it says it takes two pictures, but it takes only one and the picture is the same as the picture I take with HDR mode off. I see no difference... Or maybe I'm doing something wrong with HDR?
MartiniWisdom said:
Also, what's with the HDR in manual mode - it says it takes two pictures, but it takes only one and the picture is the same as the picture I take with HDR mode off. I see no difference... Or maybe I'm doing something wrong with HDR?
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Click to collapse
It will take two pictures and then combine them into a single one. The two pictures have different exposure (one underexposed to get more detail in the shadows, one overexposed to get more detail in the highlights), and when they're combined, the result is a single image with greater dynamic range (that is, the range of brightness from dark to light) than a single photo could've captured. The greater dynamic range will sometimes make them look flat and one-dimensional, but with the right shot it can be a big improvement.
If you want to test it, look for a scene with very wide contrast from shadows to highlights. A good example would be a dimly-lit room with bright daylight outside the window. In a single exposure the room would be dark, the window completely white, or both. With an HDR exposure, you'll see more detail in the room and/or window.
Tnx for the info,I know how HDR works and what it does but I didn't see any difference in photos. I'll try more photos with more shadows in scenes.
I bought my wife and I this phone because we had a baby recently and wanted to get some nice pics. No matter what I do or what settings I change, the shutter is slow and the slightest motion will yield a blurry pic. Not the whole pic but anything that was in motion will be blurry. Any movement at all ruins a shot. Even sports mode and burst take blurry shots. So does pro mode.
I have held it steady before and after shots, used voice activation to reduce shake, and put it on stable surface. I have tried lowering resolution, changing storage location, turning off 3 sec pre-pic video, turning off HDR, killing all apps, restarting phone, clearing cache and so on and so on. And no I do not have the protective film on the lense.
I have seen others online complaining about blurry pics too but I am not seeing solutions. I came from a Note 4 and did not have these complaints. My wife has the same issues. It is unlikely we both got defective devices.
Somebody I know has the S8 and we took pics of each other waving to see results and theirs was clear and my pic of them had a blurry hand. This was in a well lit room.
Is this Note 8 camera just lousy? Try taking a picture of your hand waving or fingers wiggling. See mine attached. I was not moving that fast and press to track my hand. Is anybody else noticing this? Is there a solution?
The solution is to take photos in better light. Take that same photo with a full camera and no flash and see if there is any marked difference.
If there is not enough light for the conditions of the photo, your camera will have to open the aperture for a longer period. The longer it is open, the more blur you will see. This is especially true when moving something like a finger that moves 'quickly'.
Try the same thing in daylight and see where you stand.
Those previous shots were under a dining room light that is bright. It was well lit. If you are saying I can only take shots in full daylight and get a good shot, then this is not a good camera.
I took a photo in my office in a well lit room and got a blurry hand. I took the same shot at the same time using voice activation on my coworkers S8 and hers was not blurry. Mine is attached.
Basically, I've bought the Mate 20 Pro and I Collected it today from carphone warehouse.
The selfie camera is horrible, there's an automatic beauty filter that's applied to your face to smoothen it out. Even my hair is smoothened out.
Right now, because of this, my S8 Plus' front facing camera looks better in terms of colour accuracy and image quality.
Once you take the portrait shot, it says "Sharpening image" and then when you view the image in your gallery, yes, it's a lot sharper, however why does the live preview have this beauty effect on even when Master AI turned off??
It's making my face extremely white and pale for no reason at all.
The "colourful" filter modes too that remove the backgrounds to add cool colour effects also doesn't work in the live preview. It's only when you take the picture shot will the image itself in your gallery appear with the colour filters which is extremely annoying.
TLDR:
Automatic beauty mode that smooths your skin and hair
Cannot turn it off
Background colour filters not working properly.
Selfie quality
How is the selfie quality compared with s8 or other smartphones? Its really terrible? I tested yesterday the front facing camera. My opinion is, its mutch better than p20 pro
YakuzaNeko said:
Automatic beauty mode that smooths your skin and hair
Cannot turn it off
Background colour filters not working properly.
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Click to collapse
After you switch to selfie cam, switch the mode to photo and there wont be any beauty mod apply.
I have the exact same gripe. I'm always taking selfies with my son in the morning and both our faces look washed out. I can't stand it when something basic such as this cannot be right. Although I like every other aspect of this phone. If there is no software fix for this I might have to go back to my iPhone.
The Selfie Cam Lacks Auto-Focus - So the distance from face to phone will make a difference in a crap image or a highly detailed image.
Obviously take steps to turn off beauty mode as well.
There's face brightening going on with the front facing cam. Is it anything like this video?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUmoTujgXlM&t=52s
Did @Leechoonhwee suggestion above help you fix the issue?
RoOSTA
HellraiserNZ said:
Obviously take steps to turn off beauty mode as well.
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By this, do you just mean setting the slider all the way to 0 ?
Go to selfie cam then turn it to photo instead of the default mode. This improves it. Also hold the phone steady after shot as I believe it's taking multiple shots and stitching them so it is better quality if you hold still. ie: "Sharpening photo hold the phone steady" etc.
Has anyone else noticed a change in colour/saturation between different lens modes?
For instance my wide angle lens seems more washed out than the main 1.0x lens.
Kind regards
Yes
i dont even know how to utilize each lens hahahs
This would be normal in my opinion. You have 3 different lenses of different quality (the main 1x being superior). You also have different zooms which means the auto white balance will probably be different since the scene on each is different. You also have a different amount of light entering each meaning different iso and/or exposure time.
This will all have a slight impact on the output of the picture. To get the closest look you would probably need to shoot raw.
That said, take a look at the 3 pictures I took of some frame in the room I'm staying at. I find the 3 to be relatively comparable (all taken in auto, master AI off). The 0.6x white balance is a bit off. It also look a bit blurry since the crop for the frame is much more exaggerated than the other 2.
I've noticed some white balance difference when taking shots outside mostly between the 1x and 3x lenses but like I said, sort of expected outcome. If you want to make sure it looks almost identical, you'll have to start playing with manual white balance, pro mode and possibly raw.
A real life example of 2 shots I took recently on a trip. One with the 0.6x, other with 1x. In this case, I'd say the 0.6x colors are slightly more vivid. Again, that's just the auto post processing of the phone based on overall scene exposure (these were also auto, ai off).
In lightroom I could probably get both to look identical even having shot them in jpg format.
Anyway, hopefully this all helps?
PhilMorin said:
A real life example of 2 shots I took recently on a trip. One with the 0.6x, other with 1x. In this case, I'd say the 0.6x colors are slightly more vivid. Again, that's just the auto post processing of the phone based on overall scene exposure (these were also auto, ai off).
In lightroom I could probably get both to look identical even having shot them in jpg format.
Anyway, hopefully this all helps?
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Click to collapse
That's brilliant thanks alot. Makes a lot of sense. I'm still getting used to this camera and have taken a few great photos so far but seems to be a lot of trial and error finding the best mode for a certain situation.
Nice pictures by the way.
Thanks again.
My tip to you: I stay in auto mode, ai turned off for almost all pictures only switching to portrait or aperture when needed.
I sometimes adjust exposure in high contrast scenes by tapping where I want to focus and then dragging the little sun icon up or down. I've almost never used pro mode as I was usually happy with the outcome.