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Hey guys/gals,
Just wondering on how the quality of the pictures are with this phone. I've seen pics taken by reviewers, but it's always better to look at it from a user's perspective. Has anybody tried playing around with the camera?
Also, can someone be kind enough to upload some sample pictures of random shots, like daylight shots, night time, and macro shots? I know the camera is supposedly very good, but it'll be nice to actually see a few real samples, especially the night time shots.
bump, anybody? hehe
Actual pics to come, but from my own experience as both a previous user of the Nexus One AND a hobby digital photographer are;
All of this is using the default Camera, default settings (except for turning OFF the shutter sound).
1. The Nitro does a rather good job in low light situations. Opting to raise the ISO more than use Flash. On more than a few occasions where I expected to see flash, it didn't. When blown-up you certainly can see the picture is grainier without the flash, but for web/facebook viewing the results are quite good and a LOT LESS harsh from not using flash.
2. LONG shot-to-shot time! I wonder what the buffer size with the camera is, IF there's even a buffer that comes with it! Because it takes me about 6 seconds between taking one picture before I'm able to take the next. Even when I try using a 3rd party app (Camera Zoom FX) I only got the time down to 3 seconds. Do NOT plan on using this phone's camera for any kid's birthday parties!!
That's all I've got for the moment, will add more when I've done more playing/testing.
Guess I can upload a bunch I took.
A note, some are taken with HDR + and others with Camera Zoom FX.
http://thewisedumbass.tumblr.com/post/14540968432 (Had to make it a post on Tumblr, pics kept messing up here)
The photos looks decent for a phone, nothing spectacular, at low light is more like "meh" - an average or slightly above, but when it comes to movies at low light I'd prefer have grain (Atrix 4G / Nitro) rather then ghosting (any other phones). On Nitro and Atrix 4G regardless of the light the picture is smooth 30fps, as opposite to Skyrocket or ANY HTC phone with 5fps and all smugged.
Here are some shots to compare:
Nitro with flash (left), no flash (right):
Atrix 4G with flash (left), no flash (right):
Also note Nitro has much lower lens focal length, which makes it capture wider surroundings. The photos were taking from 4 feet away and Nitro's photos captured much more surroundings then Atrix. Even when you hold both phones side by side the image at Nitro looks at pretty much correct distance, rather then on Atrix it looks like zoomed in. Yet, in low light Atrix's ISO captures much more light.
This is first phone camera that beat Atrix's (IMO). /me very happy with it.
Nice!! thanks guys for the details comparisons. I am liking wat i see with the Nitro. Do any of u guys find the auto focus annoying, or is there an option to do manual focus, like the atrix??
Not sure what manual focus you are talking about, but the camera does allow you to touch to pick the area to focus. Still auto-focus to the region, but better than the normal.
aquariuz23 said:
Nice!! thanks guys for the details comparisons. I am liking wat i see with the Nitro. Do any of u guys find the auto focus annoying, or is there an option to do manual focus, like the atrix??
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Click to collapse
Neither stock nor MIUI camera has manual focus on Atrix...In fact Atrix doesn't allow you pick which part on the picture you want it focus to, it's always at the center.
Any one else allready noticed that all one x's have lag in the burst shots? tested it on 3 different units all the same result.
When you keep taking burst shots the lag will increase because phone is to slow to store them in time. thats not the worst part. the worst part is that these delayed burst shots will not be saved once you stop shooting. so when the object you want to picture is passed by and you stop shooting you still dont have it in your burst shots. because all taken pictures that are in queue to be saved are lost when you release the camera button.
Also picture are never really sharp. HTC put a filter over it to let them look sharp. but the smae thing can be done sharpen it in photoshop. it only creates noise on the picture so it looks sharp on small screens. but when viewing it full size it gives pretty ugly pictures.
HTC always had crappy camera units build in to their devices and the one x is no exception. only now they put in software to make it look like its better.
Hi all,
I noticed that whenever I take a picture and then open it up in the gallery, the colours are all different than the actual colours that appear on the screen when you are in the Stock camera. So I tried pressing the screen capture button and comparing the same picture, Stock VS Screen capture.
The results where great imo, screen capture has a better representation of colour and better contrast, also the lighting and brightness come out more accurately.
I also noticed that even without auto enhance on (A feature that appeared in a modded camera app recently) the colours and brightness are still saved incorrectly.
Now I am using the home button with a Capture Screen function in Viper X with the capacitive button set to the shortest delay.
The good:
Better colours, better contrast, better lighting.
Saves in .png format.
Smaller size
The bad:
Only 710*1280 pictures with a size of around 1mb
Delay between shots until the .png file is saved.
No auto-rotation of pictures taken in landcscape view.
Lower quality images - Compression discoloration.
I have attached some pictures with comparisons so you can see the difference.
I used the UiMod camera I posted recently with the lyapota mod: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1875022
All the best
imo the standard pictures look better
The pictures have been resized so there is some quality loss there too..
Try it on your phone if you have a mod that allows you to take screenshots.
The quality is not that good, but I think the colours look better.
All the best
htckt said:
The pictures have been resized so there is some quality loss there too..
Try it on your phone if you have a mod that allows you to take screenshots.
The quality is not that good, but I think the colours look better.
All the best
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Click to collapse
I think the skull looks alot better on screen capture, other two I'd say camera wins.
But I think the camera on the HOX is a total let down, considering when they were advertising they jumped out of a bloody plane with it, if we did that it would be blurry as hell, false advertisement bloody hell !
Wilks3y said:
I think the skull looks alot better on screen capture, other two I'd say camera wins.
But I think the camera on the HOX is a total let down, considering when they were advertising they jumped out of a bloody plane with it, if we did that it would be blurry as hell, false advertisement bloody hell !
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
unless you use burst-shooting
the thing is when you are using burst, at least one of them will look sharp
try it with a fast moving animal, guaranteed you will get one good one
Wilks3y said:
I think the skull looks alot better on screen capture, other two I'd say camera wins.
But I think the camera on the HOX is a total let down, considering when they were advertising they jumped out of a bloody plane with it, if we did that it would be blurry as hell, false advertisement bloody hell !
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think the camera is a let down too, I was so excited when I first bought it but then after a while everything started seeming strange, colours, contrast, brightness, the saturation was way too much also. Pictures look pretty good with the lyapota mod though :- )
all the best
the camera is great for fast moving objects, took a few pics of my nephew running around the other day, every single pic was focused and not blurry.
i have noticed that the hq camera mod slows it down, unless you reduce the quality a bit.
Just bumped into this thread and i have to agree with the OP, i just noticed that 2 days ago and I was trying to find a solution. When I take a picture it looks great during the review time ( 3-5 seconds) but then when I open it in the gallery it seems it loses its quality. It's driving me crazy!
Ok, let me start out by saying I know very very little about photography. I pretty much just leave it on Auto. I mean, I know how to switch between different presets (Auto, Portrait, Night, HDR, etc.) and that you can tap to focus there.... that's about it. I don't know how to set ISO levels or anything else.
Anyway, so I was at a 3-day event a few weeks ago, and was hoping that my M8 was going to be a huge quality boost over my EVO 3D. Sure, the photos would be 4MP instead of 5 (Though most of my photos were 2MP anyway since I mostly shot in 3D) but I figured the phone being several years newer and having high low-light performance would offset that.... boy was I wrong.
I noticed that my indoor photos were kinda fuzzy and blurry, even with my hand held still (thank you HTC for removing the OIS...) so I resorted to taking the same photos 2-4 times and hope I can pick a "best shot" out of the batch later when I could review all my photos on a PC. (Yes, I know I can hold the shoot button to make it auto-snap quick images, but I wouldn't have time to review and select the best out of each one for each photo I took). Even with this many of them even with perfect focus were still pretty terribly grainy/noisy, some even out of a batch of 5-6 remained blurry.
Outdoor where there is a lot of sunlight...... had it's OWN problems! Any object, sign, wall, or person clothed in white was overexposed to near comical levels! I had taken many shots, both with the subjects in focus and out (on a shaded area so it used more light on the subjects) and both on auto and flash off. This resulted in photos that were kinda badly over-exposed to photos that were so badly overexposed anything with white in it just looks like a bunch of white blobs! Even of the ones where it managed to get decent exposure on the subjects, the image was overly dark and anything not in focus which was white was still overexposed to the point of any and all detail being lost. (Seriously, it was so bad that there were signs which just looked like a solid white rectangle or circle, no words or symbols could even be noticed on them).
I took over 2000 photos (over 4 gigs worth) during those three days, mainly just mashing the shutter button at slightly different settings and angles hoping one out of every 20 or so would at least be usable... and to say that I can even get 100 to 200 "passable" photos out of these 2000+ would be a stretch!
The other day I was experimenting with the HDR option that I was advised to try which should hopefully alleviate these under/over exposed issues. Purposely shooting white objects in bright outdoor conditions in different conditions with HDR on and off. Didn't really help. The condition or light focus on which I shot them in HDR mode seemed to not matter, but the image was still fairly over-exposed. Not AS bad as when the focus is off the white object, but still pretty close (and still nowhere near as good as when the focus IS on the white object). On top of that, many of the HDR photos looked washed-out and with dulled colors (I thought HDR made colors more vivid?).
So I am at a loss, I don't know if this is a problem with my new expensive phone which I am stuck with's camera, if I am just using it horribly incorrectly, or both. (I remember several reviews mentioning over-exposure being an issue, but I didn't expect it to be worse than my EVO 3D, and it was mostly for background objects).
Does any have any tips or advice on what I can do?
Cyber Akuma said:
Ok, let me start out by saying I know very very little about photography. I pretty much just leave it on Auto. I mean, I know how to switch between different presets (Auto, Portrait, Night, HDR, etc.) and that you can tap to focus there.... that's about it. I don't know how to set ISO levels or anything else.
Anyway, so I was at a 3-day event a few weeks ago, and was hoping that my M8 was going to be a huge quality boost over my EVO 3D. Sure, the photos would be 4MP instead of 5 (Though most of my photos were 2MP anyway since I mostly shot in 3D) but I figured the phone being several years newer and having high low-light performance would offset that.... boy was I wrong.
I noticed that my indoor photos were kinda fuzzy and blurry, even with my hand held still (thank you HTC for removing the OIS...) so I resorted to taking the same photos 2-4 times and hope I can pick a "best shot" out of the batch later when I could review all my photos on a PC. (Yes, I know I can hold the shoot button to make it auto-snap quick images, but I wouldn't have time to review and select the best out of each one for each photo I took). Even with this many of them even with perfect focus were still pretty terribly grainy/noisy, some even out of a batch of 5-6 remained blurry.
Outdoor where there is a lot of sunlight...... had it's OWN problems! Any object, sign, wall, or person clothed in white was overexposed to near comical levels! I had taken many shots, both with the subjects in focus and out (on a shaded area so it used more light on the subjects) and both on auto and flash off. This resulted in photos that were kinda badly over-exposed to photos that were so badly overexposed anything with white in it just looks like a bunch of white blobs! Even of the ones where it managed to get decent exposure on the subjects, the image was overly dark and anything not in focus which was white was still overexposed to the point of any and all detail being lost. (Seriously, it was so bad that there were signs which just looked like a solid white rectangle or circle, no words or symbols could even be noticed on them).
I took over 2000 photos (over 4 gigs worth) during those three days, mainly just mashing the shutter button at slightly different settings and angles hoping one out of every 20 or so would at least be usable... and to say that I can even get 100 to 200 "passable" photos out of these 2000+ would be a stretch!
The other day I was experimenting with the HDR option that I was advised to try which should hopefully alleviate these under/over exposed issues. Purposely shooting white objects in bright outdoor conditions in different conditions with HDR on and off. Didn't really help. The condition or light focus on which I shot them in HDR mode seemed to not matter, but the image was still fairly over-exposed. Not AS bad as when the focus is off the white object, but still pretty close (and still nowhere near as good as when the focus IS on the white object). On top of that, many of the HDR photos looked washed-out and with dulled colors (I thought HDR made colors more vivid?).
So I am at a loss, I don't know if this is a problem with my new expensive phone which I am stuck with's camera, if I am just using it horribly incorrectly, or both. (I remember several reviews mentioning over-exposure being an issue, but I didn't expect it to be worse than my EVO 3D, and it was mostly for background objects).
Does any have any tips or advice on what I can do?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is an Anti-shake mode. I'd check your lenses for scratches, sometimes the coating gets scratched and causes problems. It can be removed.
Incidentally my lens is perfect and nothing at all wrong with the photos it takes.
Hey guys,
I am having trouble taking good pictures with indoor lighting. The first problem is that the viewfinder (or the image on the screen) is not very smooth. It's jittery and lags and its super annoying. How can I improve the speed of the viewfinder so I can frame shots better?
I also hear that the LG has fantastic low light capability. However, with indoor lighting (fluorescent bulbs) I find the images have a lot of noise and the details appear very muddy and very oil painting-ish.
I don't have any problems during sunlight but indoors, the G4's camera is a mess. It's slow, jiterry and all round annoying to use. Any help would be appreciated!
mufaa said:
Hey guys,
I am having trouble taking good pictures with indoor lighting. The first problem is that the viewfinder (or the image on the screen) is not very smooth. It's jittery and lags and its super annoying. How can I improve the speed of the viewfinder so I can frame shots better?
I also hear that the LG has fantastic low light capability. However, with indoor lighting (fluorescent bulbs) I find the images have a lot of noise and the details appear very muddy and very oil painting-ish.
I don't have any problems during sunlight but indoors, the G4's camera is a mess. It's slow, jiterry and all round annoying to use. Any help would be appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't tried it on my G4. But on other digital cameras, I have seen the displayed preview screen image get jerky in low-light when aiming the camera around.
My theory is that, to make the image bright enough, the camera needs to take a longer preview exposure. Capturing the image for the preview screen works the same way as taking an actual picture, of course. In bright light, maybe the sensor takes a 1/500 second exposure to generate the preview. But in low light, maybe it needs a 1/5 second exposure to make the preview image bright enough to be useful on the sccreen. So now it can only take a max of 5 preview images per second, and the screen will look jerky.
The muddy details, and looking like an oil painting, are at least in part due to the image sensor's ISO value being turned way up, due to the low-light conditions. Some of it may be due to the JPG compression settings, and perhaps noise-reduction. Pictures taken with the flash should help with this, as you're providing more light, and therefore the camera can use a lower ISO value, for better image quality.
You could try taking the same picture in Auto, then in Manual mode. Turn the ISO value down in Manual mode (to maybe 200, 400, something like that), and slow the shutter speed as needed for a proper exposure. In the Gallery, you can check the Details for the picture taken in Auto, to check the ISO value that the camera used. Use a lower ISO value for the Manual mode picture, and see if the results look better. Doing this with the flash turned off should help make the difference more apparent.
You can also capture JPG + RAW in Manual mode. The RAW files do not exhibit JPG compression, or other processing, they are straight from the image sensor. So you may get less muddiness and oil-painting effect.
..
mufaa, can you post any example indoor pics you've taken? That might help provide some context for what you're seeing.
What are your requirements for the picture?
Do you have a moving subject that demands a fast shutter, or can you afford to use a slower shutter speed?
RedOCtobyr said:
mufaa, can you post any example indoor pics you've taken? That might help provide some context for what you're seeing.
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Click to collapse
Well, here's one for starters. This is the only non-personal image I can share at the moment (I am at work!) but if it's not enough I will snap one tonight and post it for you.
http://i.imgur.com/5mpaT2h.jpg
Zoom into the picture and you will find details buried in blurry oil painting like smudges. This happens in bright pictures as well. Is this how the sensor on the camera is?
KingFatty said:
What are your requirements for the picture?
Do you have a moving subject that demands a fast shutter, or can you afford to use a slower shutter speed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I usually shoot with subjects (my family, nephew, etc.) and I need the viewfinder to be fast. Because the viewfinder is so slow, subjects come out blurry even with the slighest movement. I also have to have a super steady hand.
This wasn't the case with the iPhone 6 i had. I just turned on the camera and snapped away.
phineous said:
Reboot or try force stop on the camera app. I've had mine get like this occasionally but force closing the app or rebooting fixed it when I opened it again.
If that doesn't do it, you could have a bad camera. There were some people complaining about camera problems in early June.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh boy. I will try that. I have rebooted my device multiple times and the result has been the same though.
..
somebodyyy doesn't know how to use manual mode for iso
iiEatTurdz said:
somebodyyy doesn't know how to use manual mode for iso
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Any tips?
phineous said:
Maybe try clearing the cache and data on the camera app. Also, check that the laser window next to the camera lens is clean and unobstructed. Most of my pictures, even in lower light are very sharp when zoomed in.
Gotta be a bad camera or focusing laser.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you share some low light/indoor pictures of yours, and what settings you used to take those pics with?
That sample pic does not appear to have the EXIF data where we could check the ISO and shutter speed etc. that you used, can you check on your camera or source image what the settings were?
..
mufaa said:
I usually shoot with subjects (my family, nephew, etc.) and I need the viewfinder to be fast. Because the viewfinder is so slow, subjects come out blurry even with the slighest movement. I also have to have a super steady hand.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The sample picture looks fairly normal to me. That is, it looks like ones I've taken on my G4. I believe the effect you're seeing is partially noise-reduction done by the camera processing, but I'm not 100% sure. A high ISO value will also contribute.
Now I'm wondering if maybe I misinterpreted what you meant in your original post. When you say the viewfinder is slow, do you mean just the jerky image if you move the camera around? Or that the pictures themselves come out blurry?
With only so much light available, the camera typically needs to use a longer exposure to get a bright-enough picture. A steady hand helps, as does OIS, Optical Image Stabilization. But neither of those can help if your *subject* is moving, of course.
You have 2 choices to make a moving subject sharper in low-light:
- Add more light. Use the flash if you aren't already, assuming the subject is within reach of the flash (probably around 10 feet, max). This will change the look of the picture, making it look more "harsh", but the added light should improve the image quality. With more light, the camera can use a quicker shutter speed.
- Raise the sensor's sensitivity, by using a higher ISO value. Effectively turning up the amplification, and allowing a quicker shutter speed. But as most of us have experienced, when you turn up a weak/noisy signal (car radio, etc), you observe more of the low-level background. Static, hiss, and so on. In a picture, this shows up as "noise" in the details of the image, and will typically result in pictures with more of the oil-painting look.
The lens on the G4 is f1.8, and should let in more light than the iPhone 6, at f2.2. It's certainly possible the iPhone does better noise reduction, or things along those lines. I'm not saying the G4's camera is perfect. But it shouldn't be woefully worse in low-light, anyways.
To get a comparison of how ISO affects things, try taking the same, stationary-subject picture, at maybe ISO 200, ISO 800, and ISO 2000. Then zoom in and look at the details of each picture. BTW, every camera will exhibit this behavior.
mufaa said:
Any tips?
Can you share some low light/indoor pictures of yours, and what settings you used to take those pics with?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it has nothing to do with the cache and stuff lol they sound stupid. just play with the settings. i typically use my outdoor iso from 100-500 depending on what kind of lighting or colors are present. for indoors i set it 500+. just don't go within the thousands if there's no vivid colors or bright lights. try like 500-800 for the iso and 1-1/8 for the shutter.
RedOCtobyr said:
The sample picture looks fairly normal to me. That is, it looks like ones I've taken on my G4. I believe the effect you're seeing is partially noise-reduction done by the camera processing, but I'm not 100% sure. A high ISO value will also contribute.
Now I'm wondering if maybe I misinterpreted what you meant in your original post. When you say the viewfinder is slow, do you mean just the jerky image if you move the camera around? Or that the pictures themselves come out blurry?
With only so much light available, the camera typically needs to use a longer exposure to get a bright-enough picture. A steady hand helps, as does OIS, Optical Image Stabilization. But neither of those can help if your *subject* is moving, of course.
You have 2 choices to make a moving subject sharper in low-light:
- Add more light. Use the flash if you aren't already, assuming the subject is within reach of the flash (probably around 10 feet, max). This will change the look of the picture, making it look more "harsh", but the added light should improve the image quality. With more light, the camera can use a quicker shutter speed.
- Raise the sensor's sensitivity, by using a higher ISO value. Effectively turning up the amplification, and allowing a quicker shutter speed. But as most of us have experienced, when you turn up a weak/noisy signal (car radio, etc), you observe more of the low-level background. Static, hiss, and so on. In a picture, this shows up as "noise" in the details of the image, and will typically result in pictures with more of the oil-painting look.
The lens on the G4 is f1.8, and should let in more light than the iPhone 6, at f2.2. It's certainly possible the iPhone does better noise reduction, or things along those lines. I'm not saying the G4's camera is perfect. But it shouldn't be woefully worse in low-light, anyways.
To get a comparison of how ISO affects things, try taking the same, stationary-subject picture, at maybe ISO 200, ISO 800, and ISO 2000. Then zoom in and look at the details of each picture. BTW, every camera will exhibit this behavior.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
"do you mean just the jerky image if you move the camera around? "
Yup. I hate the jerkiness but I guess there's no way to work around that other than decreasing shutter speed and increasing ISO which results in super grainy pics.
I will try the flash light and see if its any better. Usually, I dislike using flash in normally lit indoor places. It doesn't feel natural.
iiEatTurdz said:
it has nothing to do with the cache and stuff lol they sound stupid. just play with the settings. i typically use my outdoor iso from 100-500 depending on what kind of lighting or colors are present. for indoors i set it 500+. just don't go within the thousands if there's no vivid colors or bright lights. try like 500-800 for the iso and 1-1/8 for the shutter.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, it has nothing to do with the cache. I will try those settings. Thanks!
..
Just run into this older post.
My two cents: to avoid high iso muddiness in indoor lower light portraits, you should turn on the flash (or better, use an external led panel to create off camera light)
Indeed flash photos are unappealing, but you can improve them with Snapseed's selective editing, by lowering exposure and warming temperature on your subject faces.
You could also selectively increase exposure on one side to create a less flat picture.
mufaa said:
Hey guys,
I am having trouble taking good pictures with indoor lighting. The first problem is that the viewfinder (or the image on the screen) is not very smooth. It's jittery and lags and its super annoying. How can I improve the speed of the viewfinder so I can frame shots better?
I also hear that the LG has fantastic low light capability. However, with indoor lighting (fluorescent bulbs) I find the images have a lot of noise and the details appear very muddy and very oil painting-ish.
I don't have any problems during sunlight but indoors, the G4's camera is a mess. It's slow, jiterry and all round annoying to use. Any help would be appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am a photographer and am trying to change over to the new mobile camera trend that started years ago but I do know that with LG, since my friend has one, doesn't have a good sense of lighting, period. I am not trying to put down your device, I do not think you need a new one. A good artist can make art from anything and everything to their best of the ability with what they have. I think you should start trying to do things like opening blinds to a window, putting white sheets of paper around or maybe some gray or black sheets of paper to balance your lighting. Is it at all possible for you to share a visual load of what you're doing with the community? I think it would be valuable to have multiple sets of eyes and have many different minds working with you to solve your problem.