M8 Camera Quality on Lollipop - One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Has anyone noticed if the stock google camera performs better with a possible new api for the m8? I'm wondering if there's to be specific api updates for htc's sense camera, or if the google camera is much better?
My gut feeling is that the lower megapixels with larger sensitivity when shooting raw, may either be good or bad depending on how much data is collected with a faster shutter speed in marginal low light conditions. The improvements with ois camera (nexus5) with video is quite impressive, as are the still shots.
Can anyone share their thoughts on experiences with gpe roms (skydragon 5.0 or 4.4.4) with either htc's or aosp camera on lollipop? Thanks.

We can't really make any conclusions until the official gpe ota is pushed out, i really hope htc figures out a way to improve the crappy post processing on the gpe m8.

Here's the thing, Sense Camera will always be better than GPE or AOSP camera simply because the photos that you're taking on GPE (or AOSP) is only 4 megapixel unlike on Sense, you're using ultrapixel for shots. For ultrapixel to work, you'll need sense framework which isn't located in GPE or AOSP. Thus, even if google does update the camera API and their camera app, it'll never be able to take on Sense camera as it utilizes hardware and software to allow ultrapixel to work

Bobbi lim said:
Here's the thing, Sense Camera will always be better than GPE or AOSP camera simply because the photos that you're taking on GPE (or AOSP) is only 4 megapixel unlike on Sense, you're using ultrapixel for shots. For ultrapixel to work, you'll need sense framework which isn't located in GPE or AOSP. Thus, even if google does update the camera API and their camera app, it'll never be able to take on Sense camera as it utilizes hardware and software to allow ultrapixel to work
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Um, no. Ultrapixels is simply what HTC calls the (comparatively) huge pixel size of the sensor. It's just part of the hardware. You are going to get a 4Mpixel image no matter which camera app you use, because that's what the sensor is. That isn't to say one camera app isn't better than another, but the differences are largely in the control and post-processing. (I'm not sure if the GPE camera uses the depth sensor?)

Related

AOSP vs Sense Camera

Does AOSP Camera kill quality? I like CM but I like also good pictures quality...
Sent from the best combination ever - HTC One X Tegra 3 with CM10
I've never found AOSP to kill quality, the only difference if the ratio of the image compared with Sense.
It's not as good as the Sense camera as it doesn't make use of the image sense chip. Sense version is optimised.
Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2
I think the panorama function is better in the aosp camera
Colours and details are often much less prominent in the AOSP camera. I've done my own comparisons and the Sense camera has better white balance in photos, though details remain mostly the same. Some AOSP ROMs have very grainy camera quality though. When it comes to video, Sense ROMs record MUCH better footage with more accurate colours and much more detail, frame rates remain similar though. To capture photos with better colours when using the AOSP camera, you often need to manually change the white balance as the "auto" setting isn't very effective for getting realistic looking shots.
The Sense camera is also faster at opening up and at shooting and processing panorama photos. The Sense camera also has far better touch (and auto) focus, the AOSP camera is often difficult to focus for close ups but the Sense camera almost always focuses correctly. Additionally, the AOSP camera has somewhat fixed focus for video recording, where auto focus still sort of works but you can't touch the screen to focus because this takes photos during recording (this is how this feature was implemented on the AOSP camera). So basically, while recording video, you have to hope the phone knows what you're trying to focus on, especially if you want to take photos while recording. On the AOSP camera, taking photos while recording also has impacts on the frame rate at times.
The AOSP camera also can take a long time to switch between photo, video or panorama (depending on the ROM you're using). Burst fire is also a joke on AOSP ROMs, put simply, it doesn't work. You can take photos faster by tapping on the shoot button really quickly.
The most critical thing for me is the start up and focus time of the AOSP camera that makes you lose the moment where you needed to take that photo while something awesome was happening. I have some fairly stupid friends, who do very funny things, which i will often record hahaha, so it's quite disappointing when i miss that moment with AOSP ROMs. I've never really missed "that moment" on a Sense ROM though.
These are just my opinions though, i hope someone can find this post useful!

[Q] Custom ROMs and Image Sense

Well, most of us here have custom ROMs for sure. But one of the reasons we love the phone is it's fabulous camera. The ImageSense chip makes the camera app take some really amazing pictures. I bet there's a lot of post-processing going on. Some quick googling suggests that the stock camera app can't be ported to custom ROMs. But having the ImageSense chip do the post-processing would really make a difference. All those burst-mode images, vivd photos and quirky real-time effects really need it. I was wondering if the stock Jelly Bean camera app or any other camera app uses the chip to it's fullest.
Cheers,
Suraj

Camera on GPE

I have a converted T-Mobile M8 to GPE. I love everything about GPE except for the camera. I have found that I get poor quality pictures when compared to the stock Sense camera. Most photos look washed out. Is anyone using a different 3rd party camera instead of the stock Google one? If so, which ones?
Does anyone else have issues with the camera?
Don't think there is a solution to this. I would say best thing would be to run a customisable ROM and run with sense because sense camera is the best option.

General question about camera quality

With other HTC phones e.g. HTC Desire HD there was a significant reduction in camera quality for non-sense ROMs. Is this also the case with the M8? I gather this was because the phone had an image processing chip for which the libraries were only available in Sense-based ROMs.
I'm keen to install a CM or AOSP based ROM but just wondering whether there is a reduction in camera quality.
As in literal photo quality there's a very little difference IMO.
The main problem is that duo camera is not working, so no fancy bokeh effects with it anymore. 60fps and slowmo recording also don't work.
For a long problem also there wasn't a camera app that would let you change iso, exposition time, manual zoom. Mostly just point and shoot. However, ckpv5 made a working app so it's not a problem anymore.
If you care about camera and recording quality then you shouldn't be using a m8 in the first place Overall you should be satisfied with camera on los and aosp roms.

How to get the best camera quality?

So, this is it. I'm running ZUI 2.5.412 ST, and read somewhere that it has a glass lens and it can compete with many high quality cellphone cameras. The thing is, that with stock camera app I'm not getting nearly the performance on mid light as i see on youtube. Pretty much on outside light it looks amazing (anyway, the fact that i cannot tell the difference there doesn't mean that it's not there). Also there are [email protected] videos there, where the stock camera app and stock zui doesn't let me modify the fps settings at any way, the questions are mostl likely:
1) Is stock camera app the best quality option? I'm not into ROMs and this kind of apps neither, so don't know how much it would change. Could I change the fps and more quality settings with this or that is a ROM-thing
2) I want to flash a new ROM (as I read, Jaguar is the most stable) but, if I'm not mistaken, general camera quality for videos and photos on ROMs tends to be worse, can you confirm me this? Or there's a ROM with good photos and video quality that I can check out? I'm using automatic settings and that's mostly what I look for, anyway wouldnt mind having great manual settings to adjust if i want to for some specific shots!
3) When you flash camera blobs and default camera app on a custom ROM, what does it really mean? I can get stock performance on custom ROMs? Will it work for any camera app as long as I install the blobs?
4) What's the native and best output scalation for front camera and front back camera? Don't know how to tell if the lens are 4:3, 1:1 or 16:9, is there info of that somewhere?
Thank you so much!
Stock ZUI has better camera quality than a custom ROM. AFAIK, no one has ported the ZUI camera app and framework to a custom ROM.
On a Nougat custom ROM without camera2 API support, your best bet is the OnePlus camera app. It does HDR, but photos are still awful. This is the current setup I have, and photos are much worse than the Nexus 5 I migrated from (which used the GCam app with HDR+).
Some Oreo ROMs support camera2 API, so you can use a modded GCam app. Google's HDR+ algorithm produces pretty decent photos. This is probably the highest quality you'll get on a custom ROM - but it's still a little unstable at the moment and I don't know how it compares to the ZUI camera.
Passa91 said:
Stock ZUI has better camera quality than a custom ROM. AFAIK, no one has ported the ZUI camera app and framework to a custom ROM.
On a Nougat custom ROM without camera2 API support, your best bet is the OnePlus camera app. It does HDR, but photos are still awful. This is the current setup I have, and photos are much worse than the Nexus 5 I migrated from (which used the GCam app with HDR+).
Some Oreo ROMs support camera2 API, so you can use a modded GCam app. Google's HDR+ algorithm produces pretty decent photos. This is probably the highest quality you'll get on a custom ROM - but it's still a little unstable at the moment and I don't know how it compares to the ZUI camera.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, but I mean, I saw some photos on youtube/google and also videos, my quality is not even near that, I understand photos could be taken with manual options, but the videos too? Also saw that many low-light videos look slow af, mines doesn't, but the quality is waaaay worse. Don't know what setting I'm missing really. Does the OnePlus camera app let you configure all the settings for photos and video? Or it's as limited as the stock one?
No, the OnePlus app has very few configuration options. It's probably worse than stock in that regard.
You could try flashing one of the ROMs with camera2 API support and see how you find the quality of GCam HDR+. I don't know where you saw videos of fantastic Z2 camera performance - it's always been really disappointing for me personally, regardless of settings or configuration.
Passa91 said:
No, the OnePlus app has very few configuration options. It's probably worse than stock in that regard.
You could try flashing one of the ROMs with camera2 API support and see how you find the quality of GCam HDR+. I don't know where you saw videos of fantastic Z2 camera performance - it's always been really disappointing for me personally, regardless of settings or configuration.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just saw a few from youtube, I didn't mean it's fantastic, but it's better than mine for sure
following
I installed jaguar and didn't find any noticeable difference in quality and jaguar let's u change fps...
Some Oreo ROMs support camera2 API, so you can use a modded GCam app. Google's HDR+ algorithm produces pretty decent photos. This is probably the highest quality you'll get on a custom ROM - but it's still a little unstable at the moment and I don't know how it compares to the ZUI camera.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does the modded Google Camera HDR work on these roms?
Passa91 said:
Stock ZUI has better camera quality than a custom ROM. AFAIK, no one has ported the ZUI camera app and framework to a custom ROM.
On a Nougat custom ROM without camera2 API support, your best bet is the OnePlus camera app. It does HDR, but photos are still awful. This is the current setup I have, and photos are much worse than the Nexus 5 I migrated from (which used the GCam app with HDR+).
Some Oreo ROMs support camera2 API, so you can use a modded GCam app. Google's HDR+ algorithm produces pretty decent photos. This is probably the highest quality you'll get on a custom ROM - but it's still a little unstable at the moment and I don't know how it compares to the ZUI camera.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a nexus 5 , looking to upgrade. Good choice?
I keep switching between ZUI stock camera app, Open Camera, and Camera MX app.
I guess they process images quite differently from each other so at different condition, different app (out of those 3) produce good results.
I am not a camera guru so I rarely go manual. So I keep switching between those three in auto mode to find the best one to shoot.
GopalKaul said:
I have a nexus 5 , looking to upgrade. Good choice?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I got the Z2 early this year - it was a good replacement for the N5. Similar form factor, much better battery life, faster performance. But the N5 has a better camera and the ROM scene was much better.
Passa91 said:
I got the Z2 early this year - it was a good replacement for the N5. Similar form factor, much better battery life, faster performance. But the N5 has a better camera and the ROM scene was much better.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does the ported GCam work on this? The camera on nexus 5 rocks with HDR+... If it works, this device is mine...
GopalKaul said:
Does the ported GCam work on this? The camera on nexus 5 rocks with HDR+... If it works, this device is mine...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, but only on Oreo roms because only there does the camera2 api work, and at the time all the Oreo ROMs are on an alpha stage, so unless someone manages to enable c2a on nougat, or if you want to be using an alpha/beta stage roms, you will have to wait a bit for the best experience
panchodmb said:
Yes, but only on Oreo roms because only there does the camera2 api work, and at the time all the Oreo ROMs are on an alpha stage, so unless someone manages to enable c2a on nougat, or if you want to be using an alpha/beta stage roms, you will have to wait a bit for the best experience
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So..... I'm gonna get this beast in 2 months?
panchodmb said:
Yes, but only on Oreo roms because only there does the camera2 api work, and at the time all the Oreo ROMs are on an alpha stage, so unless someone manages to enable c2a on nougat, or if you want to be using an alpha/beta stage roms, you will have to wait a bit for the best experience
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the update. That's encouraging! I would've migrated the phone to Oreo if it were not for the lack of Agps.
glasseffects said:
Thanks for the update. That's encouraging! I would've migrated the phone to Oreo if it were not for the lack of Agps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is no GPS on the phone?
GopalKaul said:
There is no GPS on the phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is gps and Agps, maybe he meant that on actual Oreo roms there's no way to enable Agps, don't know
GopalKaul said:
There is no GPS on the phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A-GPS is network assisted GPS and it's not yet possible on Oreo for ZUK Z2. GPS on the other hand will work but a location fix will take minutes, that means no instantaneous location sharing or resolution in apps.

Categories

Resources