Develop Bugs

XDA Mini S Camera Quality

I have now owned the xda mini s (wizard) for about 3 weeks and i am very happy with it. I have made some personal changes to the device to customise it to my liking. But there is still one thing that really annoys me! The camera! To be honest i think its rubish! the quality is so poor. Before this phone I owned a samsung D500 and the camera on that was so much better. Iv tried changing settings and stuff but it does'nt seem to make much difference. Inside shots are the worst, which is understandable anyway because normaly the light is poor inside. But still i would of have thought it would of had been better than what it is.
Just wondering what other peoples thoughts on this? also is there anyway of improving this ie software update. :shock:

Camera on MDA XDA all units with opaque flash
These cameras are the worst I have ever seen on any phone. The flash on the camera can be used as a flash light digging for trash in the middle of the night but thats about it.
The quality of the pcitures are terrible. They have to improve these cmos cameras or put a translucent brighter flash with better iso features

Some people wrote here that the camera quality became better after upgrading ROM upto 2.16.
I don't see any improvements at all!

Im glade some people agree with me on this one!

I agree completely.
But it is also amasing that no commercial camerasoftware is made.
It should not be so hard to create better pictures than the **** we have now.

Very true!! the quality of the photos you get out of the XDA mini-s is very very poor for today digital world of photos.
Talking about the software, I don't think its so much the software, its the hardware itself embeded in the phone.
If you look at the back of the phone next to the camara lens and the floodlights, its says 1.3 mega pixel. I don't think that is true.
I compared grandads photos taken with his Agfa-45 analogue camara during the secound world war to one of XDA mini-s out-door photo, and I ccould not fine no diffrence, with the exception of the colour.
Above all the phone itself is pretty cool..

It might be 1.3 Mega pixel, but i did hear from a bloke that was into cameras and he said its not just how many pixels the qulity depends on, its mostly the lense. But yer its a cool phone

The Flash is Excellent (for HTC)

As my first HTC phone with flash and one of the few HTC phones which actually does have flash I wasn't expecting much, especially as it's a LED? light and not Xenon Flash or anything like that.
The flash actually seems to perform 100x better than my Sony Ericsson which boasts Xenon Flash.
I attached a picture that I took in the middle of the night when I was bored. This was in complete darkness. Lights off, curtains drawn, no external sources of light.
As you can see... you can't really tell

Yeah its LED.
I'm really impressed with it too, and its a major plus coming three past HTC devices that all didn't have one lol
Sent from my HTC Desire using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk

Looks good, what SE phone did you have?
I got a C905.

Nekromantik said:
Looks good, what SE phone did you have?
I got a C905.
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I think it's a K850i, it's always been my secondary phone (need to have a phone with a o2 PAYG sim in it). I used the camera when I had my G1 because (on paper) it was better.
Cybershot 5.0 megapixel camera with Xenon Flash.

The C905 cam is pretty good but not the best 8MP cam fone as the lense is small.

That's expressive to me.

Too bad it overexposes shots that aren't taken in complete darkness, which for most people is far more likely to represent a larger share of their picture taking eh?
But yes, that is quite impressive for a complete darkness shot.

Arc S has a horrible camera quality

Hello, i bought a new Arc S. I found, that camera produces really low quality pictures. Is there any way to improve compression? I heard, that CM has a improved quality camera.
Thank you

Hello there
Unfortunately, there is currently no option available to improve the crappy quality of the camera output (compression).
Neither CM7 nor MIUI have any significant improvement in this area.

Are you sure you bought an arc because my arc takes good pics but it isn't an arc s but I find this hard to believe maybe your only taking pictures in the dark ?

Check your settings. Some phones have the camera set to poor quality from start.
Sent from my Sensation using xda premium

I've bought an Xperia Arc S too about a month ago, but in my opinion the camera is fantastic! Maybe you have to set the camera in high quality. My camera was also standard at 2 MP 16:9. Now I'm using 6 MP 16:9 and the pictures are great, even in the dark.

septix said:
Check your settings. Some phones have the camera set to poor quality from start.
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Resolution is already set to 8Mpixels.
Which other settings could I check?

rioka said:
Resolution is already set to 8Mpixels.
Which other settings could I check?
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I'd recommend 6 MP, because it has a 16:9 instead of a 4:3 format.

Mine works awesome with 8MP...
Could you post a pic made by your cam?
Sent from my iPad 2 using Tapatalk

I would also recommend you post the picture you have taken, x10 and arc are best known as their 8M camera, they should be able to take impressive picture compared to all the phone available back then and even able to compete among all phones on the market to date
Sent from my Sony Tablet S using xda premium

I don't understand people who say Arc camera is crappy.
It's the best I've ever used in a mobile phone to date.
It can't be compared to my compact camera but it's a phone after all
and the results are more than decent for quick shots.

I don't say my arc is perfect but It's not really that bad in taking picture .
I'm ok with it ...
Using 6MP 16:9,
maybe Your lens is dirty ! clean it if it's needed.

arc is one of the best camera phones out there.if not the best.

Best camera 2011/2012, it won that price
Sent from my LT15i using XDA Premium App

The camera is great - no 2 opinions about that.
But after I downgraded from .62 to .42 with data&system wipe, because of the root, my phone started to take really low quality pics in low light - identical conditions, the same camera settings, but now pics appear with a great level of noise, nomatter how I adjust the settings. On videos also. This is my second time downgrading from 62, the first time without wipe - everything was OK, but now I think smthing must have gone wrong - lots of noise and heavy purple dots...
Any ideas how to fix that, cause I really miss the good low light pics - one of the reasons I bought it.

iridaki said:
I don't understand people who say Arc camera is crappy.
It's the best I've ever used in a mobile phone to date.
It can't be compared to my compact camera but it's a phone after all
and the results are more than decent for quick shots.
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+1
Maybe some users are expecting a miracle out of arc's camera (e.g. comparing the pictures against DSLRs' large sensor and lens)
Its great for casual shots and videos imo.
It even won an EISA award.

The camera is great, the software is horrible. MIUI and CM7 support to change the jpg compression, which the stock ROM doesn't. The jpg compression sadly ****s up everything and destroys the overall quality of the shots.

I find the quality of the arc's shots to be great, I don't understand why so many people complain. Yes the output file is pretty small for an 8MP resolution photo because its been compressed to ****, but I don't really notice this, even when plugging into my 42" TV it still looks great (until you start to zoom in) Take a range of shots, when shooting in darkness you will find a decent amount of noise but this is just the Exmor-r working wonders - without it, you'd find you'd just have a very dark picture.

Like many people already said, I'm totally happy with the picture's quality of my ARC, especially on 6MP 16:9. I love the colors, the tones, the clarity.. I'm sure that Sony (still SE for me ) will improve a little about JPEG compression in next ICS release..

iridaki said:
I don't understand people who say Arc camera is crappy.
It's the best I've ever used in a mobile phone to date.
It can't be compared to my compact camera but it's a phone after all
and the results are more than decent for quick shots.
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Exactly. Only my old Nokia N95 comes close, but that also was a little sony carl zeiss optic if i recall correctly.

Arc S camera is crappy.
I know it, because i used a Samsung mobile for a long time before Arc S, to take more than 4K pcs photos, so i can compare them.
It makes a lot of color noise under low light conditions of scenes.
Even a bit better when the light is enough, but then it makes white burned photos
The objective is distorted (fish eye aka barell), and also makes color noises in its corners.
The video record of this mobile is blurred, shaked, in low light condition makes color noises too.
You have to use Noiseware, or similar software to remove unwanted color noises from photos which are dotted by Xperia Arc /s
I don't know what is the meaning of the Exmore r, because i can't find a reason, maybe it' s only a commercial thingy
Sorry for my bad english.

About camera shots compression rate

It seems that the stock camera compress the pictures a lot. Are there any ways to adjust the compression way? maybe smali the camera.apk? Thanks.
Sent from my HTC One X using XDA

I´d like to know it too. The compression is pretty strong and you can see artifacts even on pictures taken with good light.

I downloaded Camera 360 for this reason - adjustable compression (if I remember)

Try igcamera free version, its the best if you ask me, Camera ICS+ is also good.
Cheers.

Wow! I didn't realize how aggressive the compression was until I tested this.
Took two pictures of the same subject, one with each camera app:
Default Camera app: 1.3mb
ICS Camera app: 4.3mb.
ICS camera pic has noticeably better quality.
Why would HTC do this? What is the benefit of making the pictures so small? They did this on the Vivid, too, including video, and it kind of ruined the quality.

greyhulk said:
Wow! I didn't realize how aggressive the compression was until I tested this.
Took two pictures of the same subject, one with each camera app:
Default Camera app: 1.3mb
ICS Camera app: 4.3mb.
ICS camera pic has noticeably better quality.
Why would HTC do this? What is the benefit of making the pictures so small? They did this on the Vivid, too, including video, and it kind of ruined the quality.
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Yup kinda of sucks doesn't it?
Also checkout the different in bit rate when recording with the stock camera and the igcamera or ICS+
You get like 12 mbps in bit rate with the stock and with the others you get 30 or more igcamera has the option to go to 100mbps, the difference is very noticeable.

greyhulk said:
Wow! I didn't realize how aggressive the compression was until I tested this.
Took two pictures of the same subject, one with each camera app:
Default Camera app: 1.3mb
ICS Camera app: 4.3mb.
ICS camera pic has noticeably better quality.
Why would HTC do this? What is the benefit of making the pictures so small? They did this on the Vivid, too, including video, and it kind of ruined the quality.
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I'd say it's probably for faster uploading to the web. Dropbox, social networks etc. Which is probably what most users are going to do with the photos they take of their mates vomiting in the gutter when pissed up.
Sent from Bindroid

I have just installed the igcamera and the quality is REALLY REALLY superior to HTC's stock camera. It really makes you wonder what was HTC thinking.

What's igcamera and where can I get it from please ?
Ohhh LG! My bad
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium

aslan93 said:
What's igcamera and where can I get it from please ?
Ohhh LG! My bad
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium
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https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=rubberbigpepper.lgCamera

Wow! Just installed ICS camera, what a difference! Higher bit rate etc = so much better! Glad I checked this topic, this forum just keeps on giving! Cheers all.

backudog said:
Wow! Just installed ICS camera, what a difference! Higher bit rate etc = so much better! Glad I checked this topic, this forum just keeps on giving! Cheers all.
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Ics takes worse pictures than stock I found, grainy in low light and over exposed out side.
I took a picture of my dogs in the river by my house with both stock and ics, and ics made the water purple.
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium

Any other alternatives aside from ics+ and igcamera.? I've found both to be extremely unstable.
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium

Well I tried the lgcamera and ics camera.. well the lgcamera is bad in low light conditions and ics camera crops the photo.. it doesn't take advantage of the full ratio.. by the way what I did observe the phone gets heated up like crazy at 50 degrees battery temperature.. well loosing a little detail to battery drain I don't mind.. I generally take portrait or group photos in good lighting conditions.. well this is my take on this..
Sent from my HTC One X using XDA

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/39122770/htc one x.jpg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/39122770/360.jpg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/39122770/ics.jpg
These three photos were taken one after the other in the same conditions, first one is with the stock camera, second one is with camera 360 and the third one is taken with ICS camera, I prefer the stock, more natural colours in my opinion, what does everyone think. This is the north coast of Ireland.

I'm not a pro by any means, but I think we can all agree that images shot in low light conditions with the HTC one x lack detail and are extremely grainy. The image chip was supposedly going to give us a superior camera experience but after trying the stock camera, ics + and a few others I'm still less than impressed. Not giving up hope yet though that the right software modifications could still make this a great point and shooter, as under perfect lighting it performs extremely well.
I'm currently trying procapture. In direct comparison with other alternatives mentioned here, I am finding the images to be of marginally better quality when pointing and shooting in shades and less than ideal indoor lighting. Although blacks remain too gray for my taste.
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium

The camera takes great pictures under good lighting as examplified by your images. My problem is that for everyday situations, where lighting is usually not ideal, the picture quality is horrendous.
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium

I've tried almost every camera application I can find and, honestly, I find the stock HTC camera app to be the best. Some applications are better in certain situations, but the stock camera app is the best all round. People always complain about the terrible low light pictures but with the exception of the Galaxy S 3 and some of the Xperia range, I've never owned a phone that can take such good photos.
The advert with the sky diver taking videos and photos is ridiculous and misleading though, those videos and pictures would look awful!
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium

treebill said:
Ics takes worse pictures than stock I found, grainy in low light and over exposed out side.
I took a picture of my dogs in the river by my house with both stock and ics, and ics made the water purple.
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium
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I agree with you but the recording is nicer with ICS due to the bit rate which HTC SHOULD have fixed somehow...

With every app i tried video recording looses focus
refocusses every 20-25sec or so

Camera TERRIBLE indoors?

Hi all,
Quick question about the quality of images on my HOX.
They are absolutely terrible, for a HOX, especially when one of their major selling points was the apparantly, amazing camera?
The quality of images out doors, is acceptable, but again for a camera such as the HOX I think they should be better.
But indoors, they are almost un-viewable they are that bad.
Im no camera expert, and don't know much about what to do to produce a good image.
Has anyone else experienced terrible HOX images?
Is their anything I can do to improve the quality of the images?
Thanks all !

In my experience indoor performance of the One X camera is as good if not better than other well regarded smart phones out there. I have personally compared indoor performance against the Galaxy S3 and the iPhone 4S; picture quality in most cases turned out to be better than 4S and on par with S3. However, having said that, don’t expect the quality of a DSLR or even a cheap point n shoot compact camera.
What exactly is the problem with your indoor photos? Are they too dark, noisy or blurry? When taking photos indoors try to hold the phone as stable as you can, because under low light conditions the shutter stays open longer to take in more light, this causes even the slightest movement to make your photo very blurry.

PhoenixFx said:
In my experience indoor performance of the One X camera is as good if not better than other well regarded smart phones out there. I have personally compared indoor performance against the Galaxy S3 and the iPhone 4S; picture quality in most cases turned out to be better than 4S and on par with S3. However, having said that, don’t expect the quality of a DSLR or even a cheap point n shoot compact camera.
What exactly is the problem with your indoor photos? Are they too dark, noisy or blurry? When taking photos indoors try to hold the phone as stable as you can, because under low light conditions the shutter stays open longer to take in more light, this causes even the slightest movement to make your photo very blurry.
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Hi, thanks for the reply.
I compared with the S3, and the HOX looked like a disposable camera compared to the S3.
Indoors they look very pixlated and blurry as you said.
I hold it as steady as my hands allow me.
Im not sure what noise etc is.
Thanks for the reply mate, is there anything I can do to improve?

Wilks3y said:
Hi, thanks for the reply.
I compared with the S3, and the HOX looked like a disposable camera compared to the S3.
Indoors they look very pixlated and blurry as you said.
I hold it as steady as my hands allow me.
Im not sure what noise etc is.
Thanks for the reply mate, is there anything I can do to improve?
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Same issue here on my gf's htc one x.
Blurry pictures. Setting iso to 800 manualy helps a bit but still not like my note 2.
And the low light setting I have been reading about is night setting I presume?
My note 2 has a low light setting and with it you make awesome pictures.
Doesn't work like this on one x.
Real shame because outdoor pictures are great.
If you advertise with it make it f***** work.
Focus is wierd to. Note 2 flashes long for focus then again short and adjusted during the shot.
The htc focusses in darkness then flashes and takes the shot.....no wonder they're out of focus.
Anyway we are not happy. Especially when we heard they don't take it back.
Now she's stuck with a crappy indoor phone camera for 2 years.
Htc better update on this issue quick

Nathalex27 said:
Same issue here on my gf's htc one x.
Blurry pictures. Setting iso to 800 manualy helps a bit but still not like my note 2.
And the low light setting I have been reading about is night setting I presume?
My note 2 has a low light setting and with it you make awesome pictures.
Doesn't work like this on one x.
Real shame because outdoor pictures are great.
If you advertise with it make it f***** work.
Focus is wierd to. Note 2 flashes long for focus then again short and adjusted during the shot.
The htc focusses in darkness then flashes and takes the shot.....no wonder they're out of focus.
Anyway we are not happy. Especially when we heard they don't take it back.
Now she's stuck with a crappy indoor phone camera for 2 years.
Htc better update on this issue quick
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Same here, gutted.
Can't understand how they can advertise a man jumping out of a plane with it, and getting focused stunning shots, but yet us trying to take a picture of a dog in our bedrooms is not stable enough and comes out blurry.
Yet again, HTC successfully blags its consumer base.
Anything we can do?!

Wilks3y said:
Same here, gutted.
Can't understand how they can advertise a man jumping out of a plane with it, and getting focused stunning shots, but yet us trying to take a picture of a dog in our bedrooms is not stable enough and comes out blurry.
Yet again, HTC successfully blags its consumer base.
Anything we can do?!
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I called with htc customer service and they said if enough complaints come in that they'll update on the issue.
So report it and hope for the best
Edit: I had mine replaced with a galaxy s3.
Better flash, more functions ( that actualy work and do what they should do. )
Very sharp indoor pictures.
With flash is perfect but without and low light mode is perfect too.
I'm just gonna stick to samsung phones from now on.
Save myself the trouble of going through countless discussions with htc and customer service to replace a phone.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using XDA Premium HD app