Bad camera focus - Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

So, my problem is that my camera does not seem to focus an Objekt, even when I "touch " it in the camera app. It is still a bit blurry when I view the taken shot. When I look at my friends Nexus 4, colors are much better and everything is sharp. Is it possible that I have a broken camera? The settings are exactly the same...

It may be helpful to post some example shots.
1st thing to look for is to make sure that the glass covering the lens is clean. And shoot in good lighting.

Known problem, please star the issue http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=43153&thanks=43153&ts=1359017856

AW: Bad camera focus
And the washed out colors? Max it be the fault of rev10 devices? A friend of mine said something like that
//edit
Here's a sample. If you zomm in you will see the Blurry borders. They are really annoying because when I look at the pic on a PC, I am able to notice it. Maybe it's the cameras fault or Googles fault for bad drivers and software.
http://db.tt/QSb8F0KE
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda app-developers app

It seems to me like the hardware is perfectly capable of the focal lengths to get clear focus, it's just the autofocus implementation that's broken. Is autofocus a driver level implementation? If so, would it be feasible to try and create a custom driver to at least allow for true manual focus?

There are several things that can be going on here. 1.) it ain't a great lens, so not all areas of the picture are going to be razor sharp. I see a good degree of softness in the corners.
2.) I have noticed the camera's default behavior is to use lower ISO, and longer shutter speeds in less than ideal light, making camera movement a major factor in blurry photos. If you're gonna test under less than ideal light, rig up some kind of tripod.
3.) Auto-focus algorithms decide focus based on maximum contrast. If the area of your focus reticle is over an area that has poor contrast, focus will be compromised. Low light also lowers contrast.
4.) Depth of field. It is limited with this lens. Make sure areas you are checking for focus are on/near the same plane with shots that have reasonable distance separating foreground/background objects. They all can't be in focus.
With all that said, reasonable photography skills can get pretty reasonable results from this camera, as is exhibited in the photos posted in the photo thread of the "general" forum.

It does focus, but has a small delay tho..

actually the focus on N4 is slow a little bit ..

Is there any new piece of information about the bad camera focus?

anyone else have a pink haze when capturing white objects

Related

Lumia 920 camera issues (soft photos)

I really hope nokia fixes this.
"Despite what reviews say, this isn't only a problem with daytime shots. Nighttime shots suffer from this "soft" look too. The night shots are good at capturing lots of light, but still poor on the sharpening part.
It sucks because before taking a picture, when I push the camera button down to focus, the image in the screen looks BEAUTIFUL and very sharp/detailed. As soon as I take the picture, it completely changes the look and makes it very soft and takes away detail."
They are saying it will be a software fix. They meaning Nokia.
Sent from my RM-820_nam_att_100 using Board Express
I dont like it as well but you can easily fix it with the built in autofix in windows or just use nokia creative studio app.
The main thing though for me is although the phone takes amazing low light shots.. they are only good for static objects as if your subjects moves even a bit they will become blur because of the slow shutter speed..
I guess you cant have everything
To be honest I'm not seeing the problem when taking photos of objects near. I suspect that on landscapes f2.0 aperture creates a shallow depth of field and so things in the distance aren't sharp compared to cameras with a much smaller aperture.
This is physics at work, can't do much about that with a fixed aperture.
Sure you can, set the focal point on whatever the distance is to the landscape (in effect, "infinity" by photography definition). Now, if you try and photograph a scene with things at different distances, some of them will be out of focus and look soft, yes. That is absolutely a case of "physics at work". It may be that the camera is too eager to focus on something in the foreground - even something meaningless, like the ground at your feet - when trying to take landscape shots.

HTC one great phone, lacks focus

I mean it in a literal sense.
If you look at the image below, youll be able to see that its a bit blurry,
I've drawn 2 black lines in the image, notice that the top and the bottom is blurry and the center is focused.
It doesnt occur alot, but it does happen and sometimes even in videos.
Any help as to why? Perhaps 4.2.2 might fix this?
I think the DOF is so narrow because the lens has a wide aperture of F2.0 which helps in low light.
RoSonic_ said:
I think the DOF is so narrow because the lens has a wide aperture of F2.0 which helps in low light.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you explain what DOF is?
Is there anyway I could fix it? You think anyone else has this problem?
"depth of field (DOF) is the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image." - (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field)
And I don't think it's a problem. It's just how the lens is made with a large aperture to allow more light in to the image sensor.
You could try to compensate this a bit by increasing the sharpness from the camera menu.
I'd be more concerned with the poor dynamic range shown in the top of the pic. ;O)
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 4 Beta
That`s totally normal for the one, it only exposes the focus point, instead of the whole image, could htc not have given us a choice
John.
americasteam said:
I'd be more concerned with the poor dynamic range shown in the top of the pic. ;O)
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 4 Beta
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tinderbox (UK) said:
That`s totally normal for the one, it only exposes the focus point, instead of the whole image, could htc not have given us a choice
John.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well that sucks. One of the reasons I bought this phone was for the camera.
Do you know anyway I could fix this? or atleast minimize it?
The problem is when the image contains both dark and bright areas, if you focus on the bright, the dark areas will be underexposed and if you focus on the dark the bright areas will be overexposed, you need to find an area to focus on that will give you an average exposure for the entire image.
I have the same problem, but some photo`s are amazing and some are utter crap.
Try using hdr mode, it takes multiple images at different exposure levels and then integrates them into one photo, but you need to keep the phone very steady, hopefully HTC will fix this problem.
John.
uzman1243 said:
Well that sucks. One of the reasons I bought this phone was for the camera.
Do you know anyway I could fix this? or atleast minimize it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mine does this as well. Easiest fix I've come across is just tapping on the screen in the area you want focused...it seems to hold focus better after the first time and the photos look a lot better.
Problem is, I generally forget about this until after the first picture is taken without it. So it's a process for sure.
Sent from my HTC One using xda premium
Has anybody tried some other camera apps from the play store, maybe we can find one that exposes correctly, i wish the one had my nikon`s matrix metering
John.
---------- Post added at 06:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:46 PM ----------
I bought this Camera Zoom FX app for £0.50p on sale that i never used, i think it`s about time i tried it.
John.
Mine is the same way. Wasn't bashing the camera was just giving my first impression of the pic posted. I think the camera is excellent for a phone. Small sensor and tiny optics will only go so far. This device is fantastic as an overall package.
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 4 Beta
The sensor is great for a phone camera, but the software that does the exposure is very very poor or am i missing something???
John.
You rack focus
Sent from my HTC One using xda premium
Why are all you guys saying this is normal? Either you have defective phones or you don't know how to take pictures! ... The only time my One does this is when I use touch to focus on Macro mode. I have taken hundreds of pictures and no pictures look like yours unless I wanted them to.
Agreed. The picture in the OP looks like an issue with OIS, not depth of field.
If it was a one time thing then this thread doesn't need to exist. If it happens a lot the phone needs to be replaced.
Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app
NxNW said:
Agreed. The picture in the OP looks like an issue with OIS, not depth of field.
If it was a one time thing then this thread doesn't need to exist. If it happens a lot the phone needs to be replaced.
Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well its not a repetitive condition but occurs once in a while. Even in videos.
Try camera fv-5 from playstore. DSLR style camera app with multiple metering modes.
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 4 Beta
AllAboutTheCore said:
Why are all you guys saying this is normal? Either you have defective phones or you don't know how to take pictures! ... The only time my One does this is when I use touch to focus on Macro mode. I have taken hundreds of pictures and no pictures look like yours unless I wanted them to.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do think it's a flaw in the camera software that exposure and focus can't be decoupled. I LOVE the shallow depth of field but can't use it property because touching-to-focus blows out highlights.
uzman1243 said:
I mean it in a literal sense.
If you look at the image below, youll be able to see that its a bit blurry,
I've drawn 2 black lines in the image, notice that the top and the bottom is blurry and the center is focused.
It doesnt occur alot, but it does happen and sometimes even in videos.
Any help as to why? Perhaps 4.2.2 might fix this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most of these comments come from people who have no idea what they're talking about.
Your phone is perfect. Nothing wrong with it. All you did was tap to focus on the middle of the picture.
This did 2 things.
1. It will FOCUS on the center of the pic. Other areas will be blurred. Hence the term, focus. That's how cameras work.
2. The exposure was adjusted to where you focused it to. What does that mean?
If you focused on a light area the camera will adjust the exposure to compensate. What that means is if it's light, the camera will darken the overall image. Lights become darker, farms become darker.
If the photo is focused on a dark area, the camera will adjust the photo by making the dark area brighter and the bright areas, as a result, brighter. Which is why you have super white skies.
To fix it, go to the camera settings and I think select touch to capture. But to say fix means it's a problem.
It's not.
For landscapes, use landscape mode which will focus on the entire image and bot blur. Also you can tap on the area where you want adjusted, ie brighter or darker. Blur again is only cause you focused. Don't focus on landscapes.
Photographer here. Focus on this comment and not anyone who says your phone is messed up. This is why.
Take a look at my two attached photos. One I clicked on the sky and the other I clicked on the grass. Light then dark. Can you figure out which was which and see what happened to the photo?
Note that it was overcast and cloudy. There were NO BLUE SKIES. it was grey. So the sky wasnt killed by the camera
Btw don't always use Hdr. Don't. Its not a saving grace every time. If you shoot in the sun you're shooting in the sun. Photography rule #1: DON'T.
ALWAYS USE THE SCENES WHEN YOU CAN. WHICH IS WHY THEYTE THERE AND EXIST. SLRS HAVE THEM TOO FKR A REASON!
As for the lines, panorama? Did you move too fast? That's what happens when you do - camera can't stitch properly
Sent from my HTC One
chc31 said:
Most of these comments come from people who have no idea what they're talking about.
Your phone is perfect. Nothing wrong with it. All you did was tap to focus on the middle of the picture.
This did 2 things.
1. It will FOCUS on the center of the pic. Other areas will be blurred. Hence the term, focus. That's how cameras work.
2. The exposure was adjusted to where you focused it to. What does that mean?
If you focused on a light area the camera will adjust the exposure to compensate. What that means is if it's light, the camera will darken the overall image. Lights become darker, farms become darker.
If the photo is focused on a dark area, the camera will adjust the photo by making the dark area brighter and the bright areas, as a result, brighter. Which is why you have super white skies.
To fix it, go to the camera settings and I think select touch to capture. But to say fix means it's a problem.
It's not.
For landscapes, use landscape mode which will focus on the entire image and bot blur. Also you can tap on the area where you want adjusted, ie brighter or darker. Blur again is only cause you focused. Don't focus on landscapes.
Photographer here. Focus on this comment and not anyone who says your phone is messed up. This is why.
Take a look at my two attached photos. One I clicked on the sky and the other I clicked on the grass. Light then dark. Can you figure out which was which and see what happened to the photo?
Note that it was overcast and cloudy. There were NO BLUE SKIES. it was grey. So the sky wasnt killed by the camera
Btw don't always use Hdr. Don't. Its not a saving grace every time. If you shoot in the sun you're shooting in the sun. Photography rule #1: DON'T.
ALWAYS USE THE SCENES WHEN YOU CAN. WHICH IS WHY THEYTE THERE AND EXIST. SLRS HAVE THEM TOO FKR A REASON!
As for the lines, panorama? Did you move too fast? That's what happens when you do - camera can't stitch properly
Sent from my HTC One
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The black lines on the image, I DREW to show where it gets blurred (not panaroma).
You're right, but when I focus on the center, all objects in the background should get blurred right? I mean thats how the focus works. You focus on a particular subject (lets assume in the foreground) the objects in background gets blurred.
If you see the image I uploaded (in the top line) the upper part of the tree is blurred and the lower part is focused.
It doesn't work like that right?

Note 4 front camera HORRIBLE noise

Is it possible to capture a photo in broad daylight and have it look like this? The noise is HORRIBLE! (skin correction is turned off). I dont even dare take selfie shots. The results are ALWAYS awful not matter the lighting conditions.
This is during daylight:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ss4un6ftg86fvuz/front camera.jpg?dl=0
This is at dusk, so its not completely dark:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1y6jkki7o0xet9q/2015-08-11 20.18.00.jpg?dl=0
No one? Everyone's Note 4 takes so bad front camera pictures? Oo
bump
This is unfortunately typical of the Note 4's front camera. The module's just not quite up to snuff - it's got a tiny sensor without OIS. Sure, the optics get a bit more light in, but at the cost of stretching things near the edges.
Skin correction "helps" things a bit I guess, by blurring the skin surface so you don't see image artifacts, but it makes other things in the frame blurry.
This is very weird. The Note 3 I had before had a better front camera than the Note 4!

Can you use the wide angle (back) camera to take selfies?

Hi all - it sounds like the front (selfie) camera does not take the best pics.
One of the uses I wanted for the G6 is to use the back camera (the wide angle one) to take selfies instead.
I won't be able to see the screen, but with the wide angle lens, I don't really need to do much framing I'm guessing.
The only thing that I'm concerned about is the lack of auto focus and if the wide angle camera can focus on subjects about 1 metre away from them.
Does anyone have a G6 who could comment / or post a sample pic of this? This is pretty much the dealbreaker for me to get this phone.
Cheers!
I'm interested in the same question! Would be great if anyone could comment on this, hence bumping this thread.
Yes. Front facing camera is not as good as it should be. Specially in low light situation...
This, and lack of LED notification light are the biggest flaw to me
Back cameras takes good selfies though. I don't have any problem with framing or autofocus. Does a good job with defocusing background and shaking effect is at minimum thanks to new image stabilizing system.
Hope this help you
Cheers
Someone here at xda calculated that all things between 35cm and infinity are in Focus for the wide angle camera.
I also made some tests and I think that he is not totaly wrong with his 35cm.
So taking selfies should be ok.

I know what's wrong with g5plus camera.

The highlighted thing about g5 plus was also the reason for bad camera. The 1.7 aperture and wide angle camera are the cause here. Though it is good for shots within a certain distance like 10-15 feet. But any further the pictures loose sharpness and gets noisy due to which moto decided to use high denoising due to which the photos look soft. My father's redmi 4 clicks better distance pictures than this. It has 2.0 aperture and little less wide angle lens.
Don't forget that G5 Plus have the same camera sensor as HTC U11 or Asus Zenfone 4 (which takes good pictures on stock software).
Worse photo quality is caused by software (Motorola/Lenovo screw it up).
Did you tried any mods/apps? You can find a lot of these, but I suggest you to try Google camera app port.
.czarodziej said:
Don't forget that G5 Plus have the same camera sensor as HTC U11 or Asus Zenfone 4 (which takes good pictures on stock software).
Worse photo quality is caused by software (Motorola/Lenovo screw it up).
Did you tried any mods/apps? You can find a lot of these, but I suggest you to try Google camera app port.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use bacon camera on stock Android without root.
I disabled noise reduction and use hdr with manual mode and stable hands to get though grainy but nice pictures. Though the app is not perfect but it works
When I first got the G5+ I thought the camera was too dark... While a lower aperture may help in low light shots it does cause a bit of trouble for highly illuminated scenes.
HDR does compensate but it's nothing like HDR+ from Google.
Plus, terrible sharpen and overdone Noise Reduction excessive Color NR.
I felt quite dissapointed comparing it to my old Titan (G2)
Anyone tried to mod the camera to enable debug mode? You can disable noise reduction from there
ugupta100 said:
The highlighted thing about g5 plus was also the reason for bad camera. The 1.7 aperture and wide angle camera are the cause here. Though it is good for shots within a certain distance like 10-15 feet. But any further the pictures loose sharpness and gets noisy due to which moto decided to use high denoising due to which the photos look soft. My father's redmi 4 clicks better distance pictures than this. It has 2.0 aperture and little less wide angle lens.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Coming from an old school enthusiast of photography background - you're aperture on your lens (in this case f1.7) isn't going to cause noise - that's a function of the sensor. A lot changed when we went from film to digital sensors, but the impact of the f number of the lens did not.
You might be on to something with the with loss of sharpness though. Typically a fixed focal length lens is at it's sharpest at it's only setting... but they very well could have forked this up.
Given that the camera does pretty adequately with other camera software or other hacks - I don't think it's a hardware issue or lens issue. It could be a cut rate sensor...
It could also just be that whomever chose the default settings for this camera did a bad job
pwag said:
Your aperture on your lens (in this case f1.7) isn't going to cause noise - that's a function of the sensor. A lot changed when we went from film to digital sensors, but the impact of the f number of the lens did not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What about shadows in bright scenes such as outdoor scenery?
I mean, wouldn't lens aperture like f2.2 preserve more of these details?
That's a function of the film/sensor.
Your f number controls light and the depth of field (area that's in focus) - a smaller f number is more desirable because it allows more light to the film/sensor.
The only thing different here than fine that I can see is the size/diameter of the lens related to the f number. A larger f number, like f 8 or f16 increases the depth of field and sharpness, but at the cost of light hitting the film/sensor. That results in a longer exposure time.
A wide open f stop means more light and shorter exposure times.
One thing we gained with sensors over film is a wider range between highlights and shadows... You could get more shadows and more highlights. Film could get only so much of that before shadows went black and highlights blew out to white. But you still have a limited range. You can't get it all. In order to keep the highlights from going completely white you have to trade off some of the shadow range.
It's early and I'm probably explaining this horribly. Your spectrum between black and white or shadows and highlights is very long. But your camera sensors capability can only encompass a range of that spectrum. If the spectrum were a line of shades of grey from black to white that was, say, 10 units long, the range you could get in one image might be six units long. You've gotta give up somcombo of four units either at the black end of the spectrum or the light side.
If the cameras loaing details in the shadows that's because it's opting to the highlight/light end of the range.
So lens doesn't play a huge role in what chunk of the spectrum the film/sensor can encompass. But does play a role in how quickly the sensor can collect that info. Higher f number = smaller amounts of light on the sensor = longer exposure times.
My guess would be that the sensor or software is biased toward highlights because it results in faster exposures making life easier for snap shots and selfies.
M1810 said:
Anyone tried to mod the camera to enable debug mode? You can disable noise reduction from there
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you guys paid attention for once on this XDA, you might have seen my damn thread or the chromatixx thread https://forum.xda-developers.com/g5-plus/how-to/workaround-noise-reduction-t3744031
https://forum.xda-developers.com/g5-plus/themes/modcamera-aggressive-sharpening-noise-t3604458

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