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Hey Guys....thanks in advance for any replies...
Can anyone give me some tips on how to take decent pictures with the Evo? In most cases I am taking pictures in dimly lit restaurants or bars (no comments please, heh heh) and most of the time the pictures are completely washed out due to the flash coming on and lighting up the subjects faces like a Christmas tree.
Does anyone know if there are settings, other software or any other tips that can be used to help me take better pictures??
Thank you!
From the camera app,there is a tab on the left side in landscape mode. If you slide it open, choose settings, then brightness a slider will open. I've found that in dim to dark conditions, best results with flash on are with the brightness set to around -2.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
Theres an old photographer's trick, not the most elegant of solutions but putting a piece of scotch tape over the flash will help diffuse the light and also get rid of the harsh shadows from the flash.
bluehaze said:
Theres an old photographer's trick, not the most elegant of solutions but putting a piece of scotch tape over the flash will help diffuse the light and also get rid of the harsh shadows from the flash.
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Honestly this has started to cross my mind too. The two flashes 'sounds' like a good idea...but they are WAY TO HOT for a close up (within 6 feet or so). Now they did actually work pretty well at dusk for a test shot about 12 feet away. (So that should tell you they are too bright for close work)
I am thinking of maybe taping just one and testing.
But you could use scotch tape as posted, because the frosted look of the tape would help diffuse the light. (Remembering it will diminish ability to flash far away.)
Have to start treating this more like cameras now...they are going to require more than point and forget.
Idea
I asked the same question a few weeks ago - why doens't the EVO do light metering.
One though would be to use a LED application to turn on the LED light - maybe on low, and don't use the flash on the camera application? I know a pain to do (and a loss of coolness points) but might work?
if you really want to be photo savvy go to a photo store and get a sheet of diffusion gel, and just place a small cut out in between the flashes and the battery cover. also always shoot as low as you can go with the ISO, the problem with the EVO camera is that when in low light situations it switches to a high ISO, but it doesn't factor in the fact that the flash is going to go off, so when the flash goes off, the high ISO coupled with the strong flash means super overexposed picture. so either leave the camera at iso 100 or 200 and try shooting that way or try the diffusion i stated earlier.
the camera is just very badly coded. for instance what the camera should be doing is lighting the flash to focus, read exposure and compensate, then take the picture with the proper level flash. as it is now all it does is try to focus completely in the dark, then just flash the flash at full power while its taking the picture. it really is a terribly coded camera.
its like the people over at HTC basically just added the lcd's just to add them, i mean we already know that the LCD can be used at various levels of intensity...its a damn shame...
Are there no apps out that improve the cameras function? i figured there would be.
Sony Smart Watch 3 Review
TLDR? Quick version here.
First Impressions: A small plain little box, clear plastic and the rather plain looking watch. It’s all quite an non-fancy affair, simple and nondescript. The watch is just like the box, plain and simple looking. Actually I like it in the flesh more than in photos, the matte black strap with the silver clasp and the black face. Mind you in photos the metal silver one looks considerably more fancy. I’ve seen it said that you should be able to buy the silver strap and transfer the watch face into it. That is something I certainly fancy the idea of.
Specifications: OS Android Wear, Display Resolution 320 x 320, Colors 16 bit, Diagonal Size 1.6", Transflective TFT LCD, Dimensions 36mm x 10mm x 51mm, Weight Watch Module 38g, Sport armband 36g, Battery 420mAh, Processor 1.2 GHz, Quad-core ARM® Cortex™ A7, Water and Dust Resistance IP68, Memory 4GB eMMC with 512 MB RAM, Ports & Connectors Micro USB, Connectivity Bluetooth 4.0, WiFi ready, Sensors Ambient Light, Accelerometer, Magnetometer, Gyro, GPS, Vibration Motor, Microphone
Okay that’s a lot of spec’s. so what bits of it matter? Well it’s pretty similar to most Android Wear watches. The RAM, the CPU, the storage space, the screen size and resolution are pretty much all the some as every other one. So why did I buy this one? Well that’s easy but unless you know about screen technologies you won’t have picked up what makes the Sony Smartwatch 3 different.
Accessories: Well the 3 comes in an assortment of coloured strap options. It also can come in metal and personally I think the metal one one looks freekin’ awesome. Sony did once say they were going to make the metal band available……… yeah they still haven’t and at this point I don’t see it coming. You can buy the rubber straps, they do black, white, luminous yellow or bright pink. Yet those straps seem to go for over £30. Errr no. Ebay also seems largely bereft of things, other than screen protectors. They also curiously do a universal holder thing. You put the watch facing into a rather unattractive black plastic holder and that then attaches to standard fitting watch straps. If it was metal and not black plastic I’d be all over that but as it stands, na, it’s pretty ugly.
Fit/Comfort: Excellent on both accounts. Now for charging the snap shut strap band thingy may be a pain in that it doesn’t separate but for use on the arm? Great stuff. Set to the size I wanted, hand goes in, snap the thing closed and voilà. I’m normally not wild about plastic/rubber straps as I find it traps sweat and you can get a bit of skin irritation. Though its easily cleaned and because the strap comes away from the electronic bit you can stick it under a running tap.
Screen: Some Android wear watches use AMOLED which only consumes power as it lights up individual pixels. So a mostly black screen will use relatively little power, a mostly white and it’ll eat much more. Then there is a normal LCD display. They work by shining a light behind the screen then the screen blocks out colours to make a picture. The whole screen is powered up no matter if you show a mostly black face or mostly white. The key similarity with both technologies is that they need to consume power to light up in order to be visible.
The Sony watch uses a transflective screen. If you don’t know what that means I’ll explain. An AMOLED screen is emissive, each pixel emits its own light. A normal LCD is a transmisive screen, allowing light to pass through the screen and it has to be bright enough to be visible, which is why LCD screens are pretty rubbish in the sunshine. A transflective is different. Transflective screens have a backlight just like a normal LCD but it also is reflective. That means with the back light (the power hungry backlight) is off you can still see what’s on the screen by utilising the ambient light of where you are. This makes is possible to permanently have the time showing on the display! Something that is kinda handy for a watch. It also means that in the brightest sunshine you can still read the screen too, in fact the brighter the environment the more light there is for it to reflect, just like an e-ink screen would. A feature I for one think rather useful in a watch.
Simply put this screen is what makes it a viable device to use in real, normal life.
UI: The user interface is the standard Android Wear one. Everything is a sequence of up/down to get to new cards. Then scrolling left to progressively go into that cards details. So the weather one, first card tells you the weather right now. The next card to the right tells the weather for the next series of hours then the next one gives you the option to open the app on your phone. The cards you have available changes based on what Google Now cards Google thinks are appropriate. Oh and of course any notifications you have outstanding. Personally I’d like the weather card to be always available. So I have to not sweep it away and sometimes you just do it without thinking.
It is actually a bit complex when you start adding in all the different notifications and different apps that add cards, you can over load yourself. You can fill it up and make it practically as complex to use as your phone is. Add in your own app drawer and everything, Wear Mini Launcher is so freekin’ awesome!!! Sure it’s not for everyone but if you want complexity and having every imaginable option in the world available to you then it’s just fantastic. I personally love it and the interface to all my apps it provides. However in many ways it’s not what you want for a watch and I understand that. It’s not for everyone and as is shown by the Iphone popularity, mind numbingly locked down and limited is a boon to many.
In short the UI can be as complicated as you like, though it can still be fairly simple if you want it that way but it require you to remember what commands you have available to you so it may not be for everyone.
Features: Erm anything and everything just about. In terms of what’s common in a smart watch the things it doesn’t have is Qi charging and more oddly, no heart Rate monitor function. Now given I have things that can do that, I’m aware just how not super useful that functionality is, they don’t monitor you continuously because it would destroy the battery so it’s only read when you tell it to. Sony for some reason, in might I add its very sporty looking watch, did not include it. The trade-off it seems is that it has built in GPS rather than simply relying on the phone (which may be in a pocket or at home) so the watch can chart your outdoors run itself. Yeah I live in Edinburgh and don’t run so it’s not such a boon to me.
The other lacking item, no Qi means that you have an awkwardly placed micro USB slot to charge it underneath a rubber flap. This is so awkward to use, I immediately hit up old ebay and got a right angle adapter for the damn thing. Seriously Sony what the F were you thinking? I know it does have a better water proof rating, IP68, which has been said is thanks to the rubber flap but I don’t see how Qi would have made that worse?
The thing also has not just Bluetooth but Wi-Fi too so….. what that means is you can use the watch without a phone. Stream Google Music directly to your Bluetooth headphones while on your run outside that the built in GPS can track for you. You can leave your gigantic phone at home. Though where you’re getting Wi-fi that you wouldn’t be wanting your phone with you anyway, yeah I don’t know. A gym that bans phones maybe?
Frankly, far and away the best “feature” on the 3 is that transflective screen. Words can’t express how useful it is over the highly pretty but battery destroying AMOLED on the 360. Personally having used both, I don’t think I’d buy a non transflective screened watch. Well e-ink maybe.
Build Quality: Very good. I have mixed thoughts on the rubbery strap, that may be because Sony swore the Silvery metal one would be coming separately and it yet has to. Still it’s nice so ignore my bitter grumble. Its everything you would just expect from something Sony stamped on it.
Usability: Well its really up to you. If you want it nice and simple you can keep it pretty simple. If you don’t then you can add it full of everything and have it tell you whatever you like. It really was a joy to use, I vastly preferred it over my Moto 360 and its retarded circularish screen. While the almost round screen looks great and watch like but the fact is square is more functionally useful. It just is better to use. Seriously, everything is made squareish, try imaging what a round monitor, round TV or round book would be to use. Square make it so easy to just swipe in or out across the screen. Round is awkward and frustrating. I really cannot emphasis enough how nice to use the Smart Watch 3 is. It’s so pleasant and easy, straight forward and really what I would hope all Android Wear things to be.
Battery: When it’s behaving, 2 days and maybe into a third depending on how much you use the thing. That’s what it’s like on a good days however, since the last update it got, I think that turned on the Wi-Fi direct thing the battery sometimes seem to just tear through the battery. I mean in half a day its gone. I don’t know what causes this battery abuse and thus I don’t have any way to avoid the circumstances that cause the battery destruction. Its entirely unpredictable and thus when it happens the first you may know of it is when you go to use the thing and it’s just dead. Very frustrating, VERY VERY VERY, get it fixed Sony, Google whoever is to blame.
N.B. So of course just after writing there was an update, seemingly it has cured the random battery drain issue so it’s back to being great. Still I’m not giving it weeks to time to test and confirm it’s cured so that’s why I’m leaving this as is.
Connectivity: It has Bluetooth® 4.0, NFC, Micro USB and Wi-Fi. It doesn’t specify the WiFi so I have taken it to be 802.11G. NFC doesn’t seem to do much but assist in pairing super easily. Though I suppose that if Google Pay is less utterly useless than Google Wallet was then maybe one day you might be able to pay for things with it. I however, would certainly not hold my breath on that one. (Frowny face at Google.) Otherwise Bluetooth worked just perfectly and without the faintest whiff of an issue. Paired easy, stayed connected, always reconnected easily and range was great.
Value: The metal one is currently going for about £185ish which is roughly what the Rubberbanded ones started at. They however have since plummeted to about £110. I look at the Smart Watch 3, at the £60 odd fit bit and my god, the 3 is vastly, vastly, vastly better and more feature filled. If you want it to be just a pedometer it’ll do that and act as a watch should and tell you the time. That’s already double what the Flex can. The other reason why this is super good value is that transflective screen. There is no way you can quite grasp how important that screen is. It stays visible not just in the blazing sunshine but it can be always on with negligible power consumption. You can glance at your arm and see the time!!!! Trust me these sound so stupid and trivial and they are too. They are right up until you use an Android Wear watch that has a normal type of emissive display. Just trust me on this.
Conclusion: The Smart Watch 3 isn’t a faultless device. That wonky battery issue is the most glaring thing but it’s only a software issue as it didn’t do it before. At present it seems cured however. The lack of Qi, well with the right angled adapter I bought it’s not so bad anymore and the rubber cover flap thing, well I’ve just gotten used to it. The positives waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than make up for it. That screen. That tranflective screen is the star feature of the 3. Sure when you first see it, it won’t wow you. It does look a little washed out in comparison to the stunning OLED one of the 360. It looks so lacking in colour and mildly greyed out. Ahhh but then you walk outside. You can see the 3 perfectly, it is perfectly clear somewhat like those of e-ink screens. The 360 in comparison may as well be a mirror attached to your arm.
So what about indoors then? It not like Edinburgh is blessed with endless days of brilliant sunshine. So the watch, on your arm, you flick it ever so slightly and glance down. With the 3 you can read the display and see the time, all the time. In theory the 360 can light up with a wrist flick but it’s not a subtle wrist flick or you can have it always, dimly lit. That destroys the battery like you would not believe. The transflective one on the 3 is the screen type that ALL Android Wear watched ought to use. Google needs to mandate its use. Yes it really is that good over normal display types.
The rest, well that’s really a question of if you want an Android Wear watch. I’d say you do if you have bothered to read this. It’s not something you will ever need but it’s so convenient glancing at your wrist rather than pulling out your ginganto phone just to see the time or to see who it was that just texted you. The little vibration on the wrist I found super helpful in actually noticing notifications too. That and telling the time was worth it for me. You? Well only you can answer that but if you have read this far, you clearly want one and the Smart Watch 3 is no question, THE Android Wear watch to get.
N.B. i did have photos but it seems to be a total arse to add them to XDA, that is why there is none showing.
Nice review. I believe that the usb charge option is great as i can charge it in most places. Nowadays microusb is everywhere. QI charging cannot even use the phone equivalent version so I need to carry the mobile one which is kind of irritating.
Nice review. I am new to the SW3 and currently have an iphone 5s so I'm using with the new iOS Android Wear (I'm hoping to change my phone to a OP2 soon) The functionality on iOS is currently very limited so I'm definitely not getting the most out the device but that aside I'm enjoying the experience.
Do you really thing NFC will not be able to be use for Android pay? I really hope it will.
When I was dating my ex, I always kept our text conversation open on my Note 4, and my Note 4's screen was set to never sleep/dim while plugged in. I had the screen on with our text messages for probably 8-10 hours a day for months.
Now her name, phone #, the keyboard, texting app, everything is burned into my Note 4 screen. It's really bad and noticeable in every app.
I tried running the screen burn-in fixer (that flashes different colors every 2-3 seconds) for over 18 hours and it did not seem to help the problem.
Does anybody know of a fix? Could I perhaps open a pure white screen for two days and hope that burns in?
There's really no fixing it. OLED screen burn-in is a brutal thing. If you're lucky, you might be able to get it replaced under a warranty.
The important thing to do is to learn from the experience. I mean that sincerely, and I hope it doesn't come across as at all condescending in tone. Going forward, if you get an OLED device, you'll want to make sure to avoid letting things like the status bar stay the same color for very long periods of time, and shorten the time before the screen shuts off.
---------- Post added at 03:40 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:39 AM ----------
Your idea to potentially resolve it with a pure white image for an extended time, as I understand, is generally effective with LCD technology, but not OLED.
To understand why running the screen burn-in fixer for 18 hours will not fix it, you must understand how OLED, and plasma display panels, and even old-school CRTs work.
All 3 display technologies have self-illuminating phosphors. OLED panels use organic LEDs. Plasma display panels use tiny cells filled with, well, plasma. CRTs use phosphors which are illuminated by being bombarded with electrons. These phosphors slowly degrade over the life of the display, and as they do so they grow dimmer over time. By the end of their long production run, CRT phosphors reached the point where they would not noticeably dim during a human lifetime. Plasma phosphors never did, which is why burn-in was possible on the very last Panasonic plasma TVs that were manufactured before the whole thing was scuttled by the nearly bankrupt company.
Now we come to OLEDs. OLEDs are still a very immature technology and the problem of phosphors dimming rapidly and having a short lifetime has not been solved. There is a reason why LG is purposely using white OLEDs with an overlaid color filter on their OLED TVs. Samsung attempted to make OLED TVs for mass production using RGB OLEDs but withdrew from the market while they worked to improve the effective lifetime of the OLEDs, especially the blue ones.
So what actually is burn-in? It's simple. If you leave something showing statically on the OLED panel forever, such as your text message window, the illuminated OLEDs will drastically dim relative to the ones which are dark. What you're seeing is uneven wear of your OLED panel. Some pixels are worn out a lot, others are mostly unused.
Now you understand why your burn-in fixer will not do anything. Because the burn-in fixer shows static, full screen colors, it will wear down all your OLED phosphors evenly. This will never fix burn-in because you have some which are worn down unevenly, so wearing all of them down more does nothing!
Some people have attempted clever solutions, like taking a color-inverted screenshot of their burn-in and displaying that for a long time to try and wear the non burned-in pixels more to match the wear on the burned-in ones. This may theoretically work, but you must leave this image displaying for as long as you displayed the original screen that caused the burn-in. In your case, since you left your ex's text window on the screen for months, you will need to display the color-inverted image for months to wear the non burned-in pixels enough to match the burned-in ones.
My point is that you should just throw your phone away and buy a new one. You have basically destroyed your phone's OLED panel, chalk it up to a lesson learned and move on. Turn the damn screen off when you're not using your phone!
Colton127 said:
Now her name, phone #, the keyboard, texting app, everything is burned into my Note 4 screen. It's really bad and noticeable in every app.
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This thread is now over a year old, and I don't know if you've thrown away the phone by now/had the screen replaced under a warranty as user Bicknasty suggested/something else, but here's a relatively simple solution I'm surprised no one else has mentioned:
While you can't actually get rid of AMOLED screen burn-in per se, you can certainly burn in other parts of the screen to the point where everything is burnt in about the same and the difference isn't really noticeable. You would do this by first pulling up the exact image that's burnt in (go to screen you had open for so much time that it burned in; you might want to take a screenshot and edit out all the dynamic elements of the user interface like the stuff on the notification bar and individual messages, so that you don't end up with those burnt in when you're done), then inverting the colors (you can find an option to do this in the settings application), and then leaving that image open 24/7 until the burn in of the inverted image has canceled out the original burn-in (you should check on this periodically by pulling up a white image that fills the screen). Remember, this won't technically get rid of the burn-in, but it'll make it impossible to notice. Good luck
I have noticed that the notification led is too much low in brightness. I I find it really difficult to notice it. So I have "ripped" a bit the covering grid (that protects the speaker) and now I can see the full LED, it is incredibly bright now!
Is it normal or can it be a production defect from your point of view?
gianmaxfactor said:
I have noticed that the notification led is too much low in brightness. I I find it really difficult to notice it. So I have "ripped" a bit the covering grid (that protects the speaker) and now I can see the full LED, it is incredibly bright now!
Is it normal or can it be a production defect from your point of view?
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It's normal only, it's behind the speaker protection mesh only
gianmaxfactor said:
I have noticed that the notification led is too much low in brightness. I I find it really difficult to notice it. So I have "ripped" a bit the covering grid (that protects the speaker) and now I can see the full LED, it is incredibly bright now!
Is it normal or can it be a production defect from your point of view?
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Click to collapse
Hey my Honor and Huawei phones have a similar design of a very tiny notification LED behind the speaker grille. I am thinking of "ripping" the covering grid like you did but I am scared of damaging the phone or the display. What tool should I use and is it ok if safely and carefully done? As it is, the current notification LED is completely useless as you can't see it from 1 feet away.
xpclient said:
Hey my Honor and Huawei phones have a similar design of a very tiny notification LED behind the speaker grille. I am thinking of "ripping" the covering grid like you did but I am scared of damaging the phone or the display. What tool should I use and is it ok if safely and carefully done? As it is, the current notification LED is completely useless as you can't see it from 1 feet away.
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Don't rip it off as more dust will accumulate in your speaker. Notification led is less visible because of the dust which settles on that mesh. I have found one simple solution. Just buy one paint brush small one and poke it through that mesh & blow air over it. This worked for me. Dust will be removed and it'll become more visible. Hope it works for you too.
Hello, I just bought an S20 + and instantly I have noticed that the image quality is a little strange, the letters especially on black backgrounds look like with a reddish outline not very noticeable but enough to bother me and some images in general are come as low quality. I came from using an A71 where everything looked correctly maybe that's why I notice the problem so much.
I was reading on forums where they say the S20 has various display issues, especially the ones made in Vietnam like mine. Others say that the reddish tone is due to the screen protector that comes pre applied. I would like to know if anyone else has noticed these details or if it is just a problem with the firmware that can be fixed later. Thank you. Sorry my bad English.
This may have something to do with display's subpixel layout and subpixel rendering, but the effect should be very subtle, not immediately apparent.
Tell us face-to-phone distance in centimeters when you start seeing the effect, display's settings such as brightness, resolution and refresh rate, where exactly are you seeing this (name of the app, dark mode on or off), font size, visible in darkness or in well lit environments as well?
Best thing to do, if possible, is to go to a local store that has S20+ on display, and compare, or if inside glass showcase, ask if they can turn it on and show it to you.
Also, that factory screen protector is known to be of not the highest quality.
scaredy-cat said:
This may have something to do with display's subpixel layout and subpixel rendering, but the effect should be very subtle, not immediately apparent.
Tell us face-to-phone distance in centimeters when you start seeing the effect, display's settings such as brightness, resolution and refresh rate, where exactly are you seeing this (name of the app, dark mode on or off), font size, visible in darkness or in well lit environments as well?
Best thing to do, if possible, is to go to a local store that has S20+ on display, and compare, or if inside glass showcase, ask if they can turn it on and show it to you.
Also, that factory screen protector is known to be of not the highest quality.
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Thanks for answer. I have managed to reduce the reddish effect by calibrating the screen because it was warm by default. The blurring effect of the letters decreases a bit when using it in 1440p..... but I have noticed that it may be a problem with my eyes because the same effect occurs when I look closely at my PC screen (10 centimeters), black text with reddish tint. I will try to go to a local store and compare with another s20+. As I mentioned it's little noticeable, maybe I have very demanding eyes.
I wont remove the factory protector for now, although I know the screen would look better without it.
My complaint about low quality monitors at work and with phones has been resolved with visit at the optician, and i dont mean to offend you here but seriously since i have glasses screen looks finally sharp again!