Develop Bugs

[Q] Neo - Question about camera compression

I'm thinking to buy a Neo this week and it will be my first Android phone. In a few reviews I've seen some complaints about the .jpg's being over compressed using the stock camera app. If you use a different camera app are you able to set it for less compression and better pictures?

Hi mattarse
The jpg compression is fine as it is, I believe the discussion on the compression has been started due to very high expectations of the camera in the new xperia phones. The camera IS very good I think considering it is a mobile phone with a very small camera sensor.
Pictures will when you magnify them on your pc never look as good as a dslr or newer compact camera with bigger sensors and better optics. This is probable what started the jpg compression discussion as it would have been nice to just change the jpg compression level and have super sharp pictures even when you zoom in.
The Camera Advance app will give you the option to change the compression but my own tests show no visual difference from the xperia camera app and the picture from camera advance. File size differences was 1MB from xperia camera and 2.2MB from camera advance app.
Camera360 Ultimate will give pictures at the same sizes as the xperia camera app even when you select the finest compression level.
I personally prefer to use the xperia camera app compared to camera360 and camera advance.
I have allways enjoyed photography and normally use a dslr. This is actually the first mobile phone where I have started to use the camera as I have allways disliked the picture quality from my older mobiles. It is amazing to see pictures at iso 1600-2000 being useable from this small camera, the low light performance is very good and the dynamic range under sunlight is also very good.
I have the xperia arc and not neo, but I belive the camera is the same on both mobiles. Have seen some samples from neo where it actually looks like it is producing better pictures, could be due to different optics in the slightly bigger mobile or just differences in firmware.

Well I've bought a Neo for my wife recently. But was surprised also to see the size of the files for an 8mp camera. I was also surprised there is no option for the level of compression.
What is more important that the camera does not produce good quality for darker rooms.(in a room with 15*10W halogen light bulbs). The pictures have a visible yellow-greenish tint and a lot of noise. I haven't tried on outside just yet.
May be my expectation are too high. But I still think this is a marketing trick. They could have easily put a sensor with less density (5mp or 6mp) which is supposed to produce less noise.

valqka said:
Well I've bought a Neo for my wife recently. But was surprised also to see the size of the files for an 8mp camera. I was also surprised there is no option for the level of compression.
What is more important that the camera does not produce good quality for darker rooms.(in a room with 15*10W halogen light bulbs). The pictures have a visible yellow-greenish tint and a lot of noise. I haven't tried on outside just yet.
May be my expectation are too high. But I still think this is a marketing trick. They could have easily put a sensor with less density (5mp or 6mp) which is supposed to produce less noise.
Click to expand...
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I do believe the exmoor sensor has improved low light performance compared to a regular mobile camera sensor. But this is still only a small camera and even my dslr would struggle indoor with only artificial lighting unless flash is added.
Have only shot a couple of low light pictures with my arc both outside and inside and agree that pictures especially at iso1600-2000 contain a larger amount of noise. I would say the pictures are very good compared to my old mobile which was useless in low light and good compared to my compact camera.
You can change the scene mode to make the xperia use slower shutter speeds and lower iso, that will give you some very nice scenery shots in low light with little noise. I have to my surprised shot a few sharp fotos at 1/4 shutter speed in low light, that would not be possible without fixed mounting on my dslr or an extremely steady hand.
You will ever only be able to archive good low light pictures with expensive slr and optics. One thing I have learned using slr is that light is king, you can not get enough light if you want sharp, good looking, strong colors etc.
Now you got me interested in doing some tests to compare the low light performance with my dslr and compact camera

Well hygge, I am quite an amateur in shooting but I also know from my extended zoom camera that noise in low light is a nightmare (at least I use Program mode and not automatic ).
I really got the phone form several days and did not had the time try it good. I've just changed settings from 6mp 16:9 (strange for default settings) to 8mp.
Then the LED flash came on automatically. But the result was not good. (3 from 4 shots were with yellow-green tint and one was too bright (or is more correct over-exposed). But I must confess the scene was complicated if this matters at all: my baby in the bathing tub. So there is water, reflection.....
But anyway I put my bet on the dslr with a huge distnace

valqka said:
Well hygge, I am quite an amateur in shooting but I also know from my extended zoom camera that noise in low light is a nightmare (at least I use Program mode and not automatic ).
I really got the phone form several days and did not had the time try it good. I've just changed settings from 6mp 16:9 (strange for default settings) to 8mp.
Then the LED flash came on automatically. But the result was not good. (3 from 4 shots were with yellow-green tint and one was too bright (or is more correct over-exposed). But I must confess the scene was complicated if this matters at all: my baby in the bathing tub. So there is water, reflection.....
But anyway I put my bet on the dslr with a huge distnace
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Click to collapse
That would have been a nice picture, but it do sounds like a challenging picture with the reflecting. Remember to record movies of your baby in the bathing tub. My daughters now 3 og 5 years really enjoy looking at short movie clips of them as babies splashing in their bathing tub
(they love playing games on the xperia, mostly drawing apps )
What I have seen so far is that the xperia tend to prefer low shutter speeds in low light situations. I still only have a handfull of shots to base my conclusions but with flash on it was using 1/25 sec shutter. This is too slow taking pictures of moving kids, you will need 1/60 or even 1/120 which is normally only available on slr's. Without flash it has been 1/8 and high iso, must admit it was under circumstances I would never have used my dslr without flash and maybe a bit unfair to judge the xperias camera capabilities.
I agree that the wrong color balance will totally screw up the pictures, have you tried setting the white balance manually in the camera? A setting I have not yet changed on my xperia and are not aware what options are available.

I have now made some quick comparisons of my three cameraes under low light conditions.
Might upload test pictures later when I have the time, for now you will have to trust me
Camera 1. Xperia Arc 8MegaPixel
Camera 2. Olympus u Tough 12MegaPixel
Camera 3. Konica Minolta 5D dslr 6MegaPixel
Test 1 without flash
Xperia 1. Kamera advance app with lowest compression, no flash
ISO: 1000
Exposure: 1/8
Olympus 2. Default settings with disable flash
ISO: 400
Exposure: 1/4
KM 5D 3. Full auto, no flash
Could not focus, too little light, camera suggested 3-4 sec shutter speed
(was using OEM lense with bad aperture which gave it problems focussing, could have used a better lense but decided to use OEM lense to keep the comparisons fairly)
Results:
Olympus had only a tiny bit more details and allot more noise, picture was looking very bad up close.
Xperia Arc, even at iso 1000 the noise was lower than my Olympus and the picture looked more clean with nicer colors. I definitely prefered the Xperia result.
The olympus will not go lower than 1/4 shutter speed and iso 400. I selected night scenery on the Arc and got a picture with iso 160 and shutterspeed 1/2. This picture had even less noise but was slightly blurred at 1/2, need a more steady hand but still a very useable result.
My DSLR would not take a picture without focus.
Winner:
Xperia Arc, higher shutter speeds and a cleaner picture with less noise. I was surprised to see the loss of details on my 12MP Olympus at ISO 400 compared to the Xperia Arc.
Test 2
With Flash:
Xperia 1. ISO 400, shutter 1/24
Olympus 2. ISO 100, shutter 1/30
KM 5D 3. ISO 100, shutter 1/60
Result:
The Olympus with flash and ISO 100 gave a sharp, low noise picture and the 12MP provided better details than the xperia could show. The flash on the xperia is not very strong and it was not possible for me to configure it to use lower ISO than 400. The xperia arc picture did give a nice result with low noise.
The 6MP DSLR with flash give the same amount of details as the 12MP Olympus, my old DSLR is still going strong and a better lense will give an even sharper picture
Winner:
KonicaMinolta 5D wins, followed by Olympus. Xperia Arc still gave a nice result but with less details and more noise than the other two devices.
One last test at a really dark area without flash also proved xperia arc to be the winner. My Olympus would not go lower than 1/4 iso400 while xperia used 1/8 iso2000. The motive was only visible on xperia arc and even a fairly noisy picture at iso2000 is better than no picture at all
My own conclusion is that the xperia arc/neo is really good at low light performance and even outperforms many compact cameras, but the the weak flash give some serious limitations. The low shutter speeds will probably also be an issue taking pictures of moving motives in low light.
(did shoot a couple of shoots with sony camera app and did not notice any difference from Camera Advance, I used the 3PP camera to use as little jpg compression as possible but I doubt the pictures visually differ much)
It would be interesting to do some tests during daylight as well, it will not benefit from the improved low light performance compared to other camera sensors. I am curious to see how the dynamic range of this sensor is, can it compare to my Olympus compact camera then it would be a serious contender as my primary point and shoot camera as long as flash is not needed.

Thanks forthe replies - I'm not expecting amazing things from camera on a phone Just want to make sure that software isn't unnecessarily hindering the hardware.
It also looks like it will be a couple of weeks before I pick one up...Unless i opt for something else in that time, but for a smallish screen size Android phone this currently looks the best. I do wish it had gorilla glass - but you can't have it all
Now I've found a confusing thread about in line remotes on the headphones that I need to figure out (yes I do seem to put way too much thought into these things!).

valqka said:
I really got the phone form several days and did not had the time try it good. I've just changed settings from 6mp 16:9 (strange for default settings) to 8mp.
Then the LED flash came on automatically. But the result was not good. (3 from 4 shots were with yellow-green tint and one was too bright (or is more correct over-exposed). But I must confess the scene was complicated if this matters at all: my baby in the bathing tub. So there is water, reflection.....
But anyway I put my bet on the dslr with a huge distnace
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think the yellow green tint you're seeing will be from the lights in the room - you see this on most cameras of any quality, if you have a white balance setting you should have one for indoor/halogen lights. It's also normally easy to fix in Photoshop.

Photo quality

Say "cheese", then rate this thread to express how photos taken with the OnePlus 3T come out. A higher rating indicates that photos offer rich color (without over-saturating), sharp detail (with all subjects in-focus), and appropriate exposure (with even lighting).
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add!

Great photos :good:

Enviado desde mi ONEPLUS A3003 mediante Tapatalk

I would like to share this

Some photos from dark Finnish winter. "ok" photo quality.

Valistaja said:
Some photos from dark Finnish winter. "ok" photo quality.
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Use HQ mode for low light still shots, I find this helps a lot with noise and overexposure, HDRa for all others. Also if you are interested you can shoot raw and develop them with snapspeed. The photo on the left I took was a raw image developed by snapspeed. Pure raw lack any post processing so look awful but allow might greater image tuning due to not being compromised to jpeg.

Camera is very acceptable (not that of My S7 Edge) however it is to my liking....
Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using XDA-Developers mobile app

Decent quality for a phone, low light need improvement

Like this camera, Dont take to many pictures, just messing around with it!

Not bad, all shots in auto HQ
---------- Post added at 05:19 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:07 PM ----------
Few more on Auto HQ

What is better, hq or hdr?

Outdoors are fine. 2 stars because as soon as you are shooting moving subjects, even tiny moves, the pictures become unusable, blurry mess

vicusbass said:
Outdoors are fine. 2 stars because as soon as you are shooting moving subjects, even tiny moves, the pictures become unusable, blurry mess
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Click to collapse
Agreed. Photo quality of moving objects is horrible (probably the biggest flaw of OnePlus 3T) and indoors (regular everyday lighting you have in indoors) is quite ****ty. Most of the pictures come out quite blurry. Outdoors is fine!
I actually have discovered that in order to get better indoors pictures you have to set Flash to always ON as it really helps to improve image quality, especially regarding the sharpness, blur and better detail overall.

jemeljsh said:
Agreed. Photo quality of moving objects is horrible (probably the biggest flaw of OnePlus 3T) and indoors (regular everyday lighting you have in indoors) is quite ****ty. Most of the pictures come out quite blurry. Outdoors is fine!
I actually have discovered that in order to get better indoors pictures you have to set Flash to always ON as it really helps to improve image quality, especially regarding the sharpness, blur and better detail overall.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know, but using flash when there's plenty light and any other phone I tried has no difficulties...

EmreSo said:
What is better, hq or hdr?
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md3Ow6AEwLU
I think HD got renamed to HQ which we have now.
¨
But basically HDR tries to get both bright and dark areas in the pictures to shown without them being totally black or white. Doesn't always mean that picture is better quality tho, can be a lot worse what it comes to noise etc.
Not sure is this correct but found that HQ mode will reduce the noise when taking pictures in dark.

jemeljsh said:
Agreed. Photo quality of moving objects is horrible (probably the biggest flaw of OnePlus 3T) and indoors (regular everyday lighting you have in indoors) is quite ****ty. Most of the pictures come out quite blurry. Outdoors is fine!
I actually have discovered that in order to get better indoors pictures you have to set Flash to always ON as it really helps to improve image quality, especially regarding the sharpness, blur and better detail overall.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
vicusbass said:
Outdoors are fine. 2 stars because as soon as you are shooting moving subjects, even tiny moves, the pictures become unusable, blurry mess
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Click to collapse
That concerns me... With kids (and dogs) I rarely have a still target 😯
Sent from my Note 3

YankInDaSouth said:
That concerns me... With kids (and dogs) I rarely have a still target 😯
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Turn off HDR and HQ (which increases the shutter speed to pick up more light) also manual controls are there to help.

LMcR92 said:
Turn off HDR and HQ (which increases the shutter speed to pick up more light) also manual controls are there to help.
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While that may help, often times with kids there's no time to play with settings... Just point and shoot.
Sent from my Note 3

YankInDaSouth said:
While that may help, often times with kids there's no time to play with settings... Just point and shoot.
Sent from my Note 3
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Click to collapse
Good point. I mainly need phone camera to take pictures of my kid and I can say that it's pretty much impossible to get good/decent quality indoor pictures while taking a picture of a kid (HQ, HDR modes), except if you set the flash to always ON, where even moving objects come out are pretty good.
If with all my previous phones (no particular order, but phones with which I had no issues taking fast quality pics of my kid -> Iphone 7, xiaomi mi5, galaxy s6, nexus 5x, xperia Z3, xperia Z3 compact) I had no issues getting a decent quality picture of a moving object, with 1+3T its either impossible or very hard to do. It's a fact. Camera is average at most.

jemeljsh said:
Good point. I mainly need phone camera to take pictures of my kid and I can say that it's pretty much impossible to get good/decent quality indoor pictures while taking a picture of a kid (HQ, HDR modes), except if you set the flash to always ON, where even moving objects come out are pretty good.
If with all my previous phones (no particular order, but phones with which I had no issues taking fast quality pics of my kid -> Iphone 7, xiaomi mi5, galaxy s6, nexus 5x, xperia Z3, xperia Z3 compact) I had no issues getting a decent quality picture of a moving object, with 1+3T its either impossible or very hard to do. It's a fact. Camera is average at most.
Click to expand...
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Appreciate the honesty... That being said I think I may cancel my order and grab an international S7 (SM930F) - It's $500 on Amazon ATM so very similar pricing.
Sent from my Note 3

Photo quality

Say "cheese", then rate this thread to express how photos taken with the Moto Z Play come out. A higher rating indicates that photos offer rich color (without over-saturating), sharp detail (with all subjects in-focus), and appropriate exposure (with even lighting).
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add!

This is one of my favorite photos taken with my Z Play, just amazing!

Excellent smartphone pictures as long as there is sufficient light.
I also use third part app Snap Camera.
Some focus instability but all in all a very good camera.

Great smartphone with great camera!

I actually think it's worse than the G5plus despite it's a 16mp vs 12mp.
I got both phones so I spent time comparing the shots. I can't imitate the G5plus shots, they just come out better and sharper.

My front camera has dust in it and back cam is full of scratches

Condensation
YASH2406 said:
My front camera has dust in it and back cam is full of scratches
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I've seen a post about dust (with picture) posted to a moto subreddit.
I too am experiencing an issue but related to condensation on the rear camera (front seems fine) on my moto.
I have no idea if it's related to humidity/dewpoint, or sweat being sucked into my device while in my armband when I'm working out.
What I DO know is that neither of my older 3 devices from various manufacturers (none of which are by moto) exhibited this issue.
It's still under warranty, so I'm going through the painful (error issues, ...) process of getting it repaired, but there will be the question of if it's going to be considered "liquid damage" which won't be covered under warranty and will leave me to just remove the rear lens so I have easy wiping access.

YASH2406 said:
My front camera has dust in it and back cam is full of scratches
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Strong or light risks? If they are light enough to soften, apply a thin steel wool to the lens.

Photo quality

Say "cheese", then rate this thread to express how photos taken with the Moto Z2 Play come out. A higher rating indicates that photos offer rich color (without over-saturating), sharp detail (with all subjects in-focus), and appropriate exposure (with even lighting).
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add!

The moto z2 camera has a lot of noise in anything except the brightest light. Seems like it uses a very high iso

rickykemp said:
The moto z2 camera has a lot of noise in anything except the brightest light. Seems like it uses a very high iso
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Normally under not-so-good light conditions the night mode kicks-in and it helps a lot. The noise is hardly noticeable then, it can be seen only on specifically coloured surfaces like dark furniture.
That's why I went for Hasselblad mod, its xenon flash (if you know how to use it, of course...) allows to take great photos. But it requires some time to learn how to use manual settings and control flash strength; then it's possible to get nice, not overexposed photos with nice light balance in them.

Looks like it has quite good image stabilization. Just did this movie today and I am impressed.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/smaqUb8zPgXuG8fE9

The Z2 Play has a pretty good camera but I expected as such: it's using a rebranded sensor that's just the camera sensor from the Galaxy S7 without OIS. F/1.7 means a nice wide aperture for some good bokeh without really needing to add artificial lens blurring a la portrait mode that everyone seems to really love nowadays.
The lack of OIS, Snapdragon 626's only decent image processing, as well as the fact that Motorola still kinda sucks with image processing on their end holds the the Z2 Play from having a great camera. It's still good however and with great lighting and a still hand, you can take some really nice shots. Night shots are alright though the lack of OIS means you'll be better off using a tripod or gimbal if you don't want your photos going all noise city on ya.

I have the same sony camera as "better photo quality" solution.

Photo quality

Say "cheese", then rate this thread to express how photos taken with the Sony Xperia XA2 come out. A higher rating indicates that photos offer rich color (without over-saturating), sharp detail (with all subjects in-focus), and appropriate exposure (with even lighting).
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add!

ugly, very ugly

Extremely difficult to get a decently sharp picture while holding the device in your hands.
Expect blurry details at any resolution and in any shooting mode.
You'll be better off taking screenshots instead of real photos; before shooting, the preview looks really crisp and sharp. You might get better results with better postprocessing of the images, like with a different camera app (?) or with a non-Sony ROM. Not exactly sure what can be done here.

aeolist said:
Extremely difficult to get a decently sharp picture while holding the device in your hands.
Expect blurry details at any resolution and in any shooting mode.
You'll be better off taking screenshots instead of real photos; before shooting, the preview looks really crisp and sharp. You might get better results with better postprocessing of the images, like with a different camera app (?) or with a non-Sony ROM. Not exactly sure what can be done here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's actually not that difficult, but you need to practice a little bit. I have already taken quite a lot of nice pics with my Xperia.
Only night photos are not so good, or rather... mixed bag. Different result each time.
And different camera app is not a solution, I've tried already a lot of them and it seems that none of them can work correctly (a lot of noise in the photos, even with good light) - looks like Sony has changed camera libraries somehow and third party apps don't know how to use them. So it's just stock camera and... well, that's it.

I've put already this information in other thread, but latest software upgrade (50.1.A.13.83) is a real gamechanger. Sony has really improved image processing. Impressive ! Now photos are much, much better. And the HDR mode in Manual camera section does really great job.

emcom said:
I've put already this information in other thread, but latest software upgrade (50.1.A.13.83) is a real gamechanger. Sony has really improved image processing. Impressive ! Now photos are much, much better. And the HDR mode in Manual camera section does really great job.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, it's much better now (manual + HDR). Superior mode still not ok. But manual + HDR.
But for some reason update no available for my XA2 dual phone, installed via flashtool + XperiFirm

Is there a "touch to focus" function like the Google camera has? I think that's the feature I miss the most from my nexus. I actually don't know how to get the camera to focus at all!

メジロ said:
Is there a "touch to focus" function like the Google camera has? I think that's the feature I miss the most from my nexus. I actually don't know how to get the camera to focus at all!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello,
Camera Settings -> Metering -> Touch
or
Enable "Object tracking" then touch to thing what you want to shoot.

Focus mode is not good. unfortunately It's worse than my Mom's Phone which Xiaomi Redmi 6A is. video quality is ok but at low light it has insane noise.like ISO 3200. Selfie is ok but don't expect too much.
at low light with auto flash on , it can take a good image but you need to wait 2 or 3 sec.

Photo quality is the worst thing, it is so bad. Only in daylight picture is good, one of them, about in 10-15 shots

gioyocho said:
Photo quality is the worst thing, it is so bad. Only in daylight picture is good, one of them, about in 10-15 shots
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Click to collapse
Photo quality may not be so good but your house must make more than up for it! Dream location, it looks like to me. Congrats.

here is my photo serial ...