Hi all,
TL;DR - Pretty pictures taken with the HTC One here: Click
I've been very interested in the HTC One's camera ever since it was announced, as I believe that the philosophy behind the trade-offs made in its design are a step forward for the mobile phone camera industry.
I've recently returned from a trip to Japan and as an experiment, used the HTC One as my only camera (clearly not because my P&S was stolen two years ago!). I have taken nearly 8,000 shots over the 14 days I was in Japan and after nearly a hundred (if not more) hours spent in post-processing, I think I have a decent set of pictures.
I have annotated some of the pictures in a travel-journalistic manner. If you are a experienced traveller, I am probably not saying anything you do not already know. If you have never been to Japan, I hope they provide you with some insights.
A few observations I've made in the process of shooting said pictures:
The wide angle lens on the HTC One is wonderfully versatile, especially for landscape and architecture shots. Framing the shot is effortless and as it turns out, of utmost importance.
The most controversial aspect of the One's camera, the 4MP resolution does come with a very real drawback. You have little room in post-production to recover a badly framed shot. Cropping in post-production is often an unhappy compromise as you are left with less room to compensate for noise and blur. I would hazard to say that shooting with only the One for an extended period of time may be a great way to improve your composition skills.
The HTC One's camera software and auto-focus is fast and responsive, you can compose, re-focus/expose and shoot in a blink of an eye, which is something I took advantage of to take the multiple exposures required for the HDR pictures.
While no aspect of the HTC One's camera is exceptional, the package of a very fast f2.0 lens, optical image stabilization and above average sensor sensitivity means that vis-a-vis other mobile phone cameras, you will nail shot after shot in daylight and have a decent chance of grabbing something usable in low-light.
Will I do something like this again? Unlikely. The next time I can afford to travel, I will almost certainly be packing a decent camera. Do I regret the experience? Definitely not. Shooting with a camera like the One forces you to learn to frame your shots well. I like to think that technically, I am a decent photographer, but as far as composing a picture well, I have a long way to go.
Links to the various albums below. Sorry if you dislike Google+, but its easy to upload and annotate and it has a really clean interface. The albums are all public, so there is technically no need to sign in, but Google+ prompts you to login if you happen to be signed into another Google service. If you really want to avoid signing in, simply open the links in a incognito window.
If you are impatient, Kyoto and the Highlight albums are probably the best.
Comments, feedback and questions welcome. Wasn't sure if I should have created a new thread, if not, please merge into the photograph thread, thanks moderators.
Highlights
Tokyo (東京)
Odaiba (お台場)
Sensoji Shrine (浅草寺)
Meiji Shrine (明治神宮)
Tsukiji Fish Market (築地市場)
Hama-Rikyu Gardens (浜離宮恩賜庭園)
Osaka (大阪)
Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan (海遊館)
Nara (奈良市)
Himeji (姫路市)
Kyoto (京都)
Kanazawa (金沢)
Shibuya Scramble Crossing (Youtube Video)
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Photomatix Presets
edit: converted text to links
edit2: added link to timelapse of Shibuya scramble crossing
edit3: link to the photomatix presets I've used
Wow! Those are some very nice photos! Just goes to show how much power is behind our phone. It makes me want to go out and use my camera now.
Excellent shots! You clearly have a lot of talent! And that is some good post-processing too.
It would be great to know if you touched up the HDRs in post-production in anyway or are they mostly untouched?
ankanb said:
Excellent shots! You clearly have a lot of talent! And that is some good post-processing too.
It would be great to know if you touched up the HDRs in post-production in anyway or are they mostly untouched?
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Most of the HDR shots are not in-camera HDR shots, they are multiple pictures of the same shot combined in post.
Every picture has been touched up in post. The natural looking ones are probably just simple lighting/contrast adjustments, the surreal looking ones took more effort.
Love Japan. Absolutely love Kyoto. You took some really good shots
One thing I am a bit disappointed with is the amount of noise the camera has. (still love it hough)
Some of your shots (especially the HDR) are way too noisy for my liking, but that's a matter of taste or sometimes plain nitpicking.
Which settings did you mainly use?
Did you leave the phone in charge of most of the settings or did you do it manually?
I agree, you took some beautiful shots!
Makes me want to travel. Lol.
MartinS13X said:
Love Japan. Absolutely love Kyoto. You took some really good shots
One thing I am a bit disappointed with is the amount of noise the camera has. (still love it hough)
Some of your shots (especially the HDR) are way too noisy for my liking, but that's a matter of taste or sometimes plain nitpicking.
Which settings did you mainly use?
Did you leave the phone in charge of most of the settings or did you do it manually?
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Click to collapse
With respect to the noise, agreed. In most cases, with some work, as its only really bad for the uniform areas of the picture, the noise is entirely cleanable in post. But in most cases, I've chosen not to for effect. And the HDR process does tend to accentuate the noise and would typically not be visible if I had processed it for a natural look.
Still, it doesn't surprise me that much. I picked up a Fujifilm f100fd, a P&S as my last camera. It was supposed to be really good with low-light photography due to its excellent noise control. While clearly better then the HTC One, I found myself running into the same problems when post-processing the f100fd's shots vis the HTC One's shots. I think if you really want clean, low light shot, a DSLR/interchangeable lens camera with a fast prime lens is the only way to go, that or a tripod, depending on the picture you want.
Sharpness at -2 for virtually all the shots. Occasionally exposure at -1 is very useful, when you are sure that you can capture enough detail in a darker picture. You're essentially telling the camera, hey, I'm OK with a dark picture, take the next shot as fast as a shutter speed as you can. For that reason, almost all the aquarium shots are with exposure -1, as you don't really care about the walls of aquarium being properly exposed, you just want the fish exposed.
For the multiple shots needed for the HDR pictures, tapping at a bright spot, taking a picture, then quickly tapping at a dark spot, then taking another picture... The problem is that sometimes having the camera focus at a bright/dark spot means you screw up focus entirely.
The HTC One's backlight mode is incredibly useful when you want to take portrait shots with something bright in the background. I've used the landscape and HDR modes a few times, but I'm still not entirely sure what landscape mode gets me.
So... Long story short, normal mode, with sharpness at -2, with lots of tapping on the screen.
edit: oh, also, I manually flashed to 4.2.2, which meant that I had access to AF/AE lock. That came useful for the epic panorama of Himeji castle's surroundings.
Exposure -1 is indeed good in some cases. I've used that too.
I also want to try setting the ISO manually in dark photos as I believe there is room for lower ISO in some cases and the camera just increases it a lot.
I'm also not a fan of noisy, instagram-y photos like some of yours but you have some very nice shots.
I saw a link with a timelapse video. What's the deal with that? Is it yours?
Ooops, error.
Corduroy-21 said:
Exposure -1 is indeed good in some cases. I've used that too.
I also want to try setting the ISO manually in dark photos as I believe there is room for lower ISO in some cases and the camera just increases it a lot.
I'm also not a fan of noisy, instagram-y photos like some of yours but you have some very nice shots.
I saw a link with a timelapse video. What's the deal with that? Is it yours?
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Click to collapse
The timelapse video is mine yes. If it helps, the noise is inherent in the picture, and not added for "authenticity"
edit: I think the One generally makes good decisions when it comes to ISO, it priorities shutter speed over anything else, which I think, given the fact that in any low-light shot, you are going to get unhappy amounts of noise, is a good choice. A blurred shot is usually totally unusable.
shasderias said:
The timelapse video is mine yes.
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How did you do it?
Did you use the One?
Corduroy-21 said:
How did you do it?
Did you use the One?
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Yup. Sideloaded the stock android camera, used the timelapse function. Waited...
The pictures you have posted are just amazing.
Although I have a HTC One but I don't take much pictures. You have motivated me to take more pictures from this phone now.
The filters you have used in this are given ones or some other application for that?
Wow. I just went through every album. Those all turned out amazing.
Great pics! :good:
rahulwadhwani said:
The pictures you have posted are just amazing.
Although I have a HTC One but I don't take much pictures. You have motivated me to take more pictures from this phone now.
The filters you have used in this are given ones or some other application for that?
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Click to collapse
No filters used, photos are all taken normally and edited in post. Photoshop for all editing, Photomatix for most of the HDR pictures.
shasderias said:
Yup. Sideloaded the stock android camera, used the timelapse function. Waited...
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which timelapse function did you use? How come my phone doesnt have it?
aceonetwothree said:
which timelapse function did you use? How come my phone doesnt have it?
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I didn't use the HTC One's camera app, I sideloaded the camera app from stock android (the one with photosphere) to do the timelapse.
Incidentally, the photospheres for some reason, turned out super low-res.
How do you manage to take photos with the phone using 3 exposure values, going into the menu and changing the value after each photo while keeping the phone perfectly still?
Love these! The Shibuya Scramble pictures gave me to flashbacks to The World Ends With You.
Related
So I've been taking a few pictures on my phone, and I have noticed that the Galaxy S2 is very very inconsistent in taking quality photos. I can have a great clear shot of some mid-ranged photos, but far distanced photos have horrible quality. I understand if you take pictures of something really far, obviously it won't be that good, but when I compared to my friends iPhone 4, the 8MP is barely on par with it. Do any of you know what might be the problem? I've tried using auto focus and manual focus, but it is always blurry.
It seems to be an hardware problem. I find the sgsw camera pretty good, especially the dynamic range. My only concern is with indoor pictures, a bit noisy and cold.
Can you upload and provide some shots samples?
Everything on auto? It might help to know which ROM/mod you are using.
I'm not an expert in mobile digital photography but if I can see your blurry distant shots it might be able to tell if I get better result with my device.
The S2 tends to like low shutter speeds (1/4s - 1/20s) ALL the frigging time.
It will select this slow shutter speed even when it should raise the ISO and get a faster shutter speed.
This is why the S2 often takes blurry photos, because even 1/15 or 1/19sec is not fast enough to take a photo sharply with a 28mm lens (effectively what the S2 is).
The slowest shutter speed the S2 should use is 1/30sec to ensure the photos aren't blurred by *camera* vibration/shake. (But, if the *subject* is moving, like a child, then 1/60s or 1/80s are the minimum that are needed to freeze the subject).
This is why the photos are so often blurry as soon as the light gets slightly low - cloud day, in shade, etc. I don't have a solution sorry!
Proof: check the EXIF data of the blurry photos you take. Most will have a stupidly low ISO (like ISO25, ISO50) and a stupid low shutter speed.
Yes I have noticed that the shutter speeds are quite low...now I'm assured that its not just me
I can take SOME really good photos, but almost every other pictures are very blurry even at a close distance.
Everything is on default, except I have enabled Anti-Shake or something like that, and I am using CheckROM 3.1.1 (KJ3)
The first 2 are taken at a considerably good range, with no zoom or any effects, just a normal shot, but then the outcome was very weird.
The last one was a closer shot, but in a darker area, and that one was a little bit more clear
I don't want to be captain obvious, and I am sure you are a better photographer than me but can you check if the focus mode is set to macro if it is then change to auto focus.
Since this happened to me once i set to macro and forgot and all the photos were blurry.
I just felt that might be the reason.
I am guessing that what you're doing is pressing on the "Capture" button without focusing on the subject yet?
I do find that it's best to press to focus on the area you want to take and then press the main capture button to capture it. It seems like the focus hasn't focused on what you want to take.
It's quite annoying because then that means I have to press in the middle and then press the capture button to take a decent shot. I wish I could just hold down the capture button to focus, then release to shoot.. which works sometimes but not as good as what I said above.
Here you have 2 images, far and close focus. You can see the great quality of the camera. Take a look at the focus settings: better in auto mode if you don't want to manage it in all photos. Maybe you have some problem in the camera hardware... so warranty is the best option here.
There are at least 2 types of camera modules in SGS II.
Check this:http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1098834
Mine also had this problem (blury at far objects), the soultion is set the metering to matrix in camera menu.It works for me.
iocar said:
Yes I have noticed that the shutter speeds are quite low...now I'm assured that its not just me
I can take SOME really good photos, but almost every other pictures are very blurry even at a close distance.
Everything is on default, except I have enabled Anti-Shake or something like that, and I am using CheckROM 3.1.1 (KJ3)
The first 2 are taken at a considerably good range, with no zoom or any effects, just a normal shot, but then the outcome was very weird.
The last one was a closer shot, but in a darker area, and that one was a little bit more clear
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
are you using macro mode to take farer objects ?
thats why it is more clear when you are taking photo of the specimen (3rd one)
or the camera firmware is broken , if not ,it may be the hardware issue
I always touch the place where I want to focus, and that is why I am confused
Yes I was using Macro, but only because it had the best quality...Auto-Focus doesn't really help as it never focus properly, as in when I press the "Capture" button, most of the time it goes to red and doesn't turn green. I am holding the phone still and don't know why
The camera firmware is also up to date
What I don't get is that my old HTC Desire can take photos that are much more crisp than my Galaxy S2
Try resetting the camera settings see if that works,try a third party HDR camera app or Camera 360,if quility is still bad in the 3rd party app then it could be a hardware fault
Sichroteph said:
My only concern is with indoor pictures, a bit noisy and cold.
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Click to collapse
auto contrast I find helps take better indoors
Cant say I've had any problems with the camera. Love the macro focussing.
It seems obvious that your device doesn't behave like it should and have focus problems. I can have the exact same results with macro mode activated (and not shooting close objects)
I would suggest :
- trying another camera app (like TheiPhoneKiller suggested)
- trying a totally stock rom
- trying a rom like CM7 or MIUI
If you still got totally unfocused shots, you may very well have an faulty device. Try to get a replacement unit if you can.
(And did you try the fix kisstom suggested?)
Well... my shots is certainly much more grainy, since i upgraded to 2.3.5 - even if shot outside in bright sunshine. And many of the pictures is becoming more yellow than before - especially when using the flash-LED, so something has happened when i upgraded... this is one of my big complaints about the new upgrade. My old W800i 2Mpx beats the SGS2 in pure quality of the pictures now (but that was also, and still is, a VERY good camera for a phone)...
When comparing the newest pictures to some of the old pictures i have shot in the past, it's clear to me that i have a loss of quality since upgrading. How do i check manually, if there's a new camera-software version available - as i can't seem to find any in the Samsung apps, even if i have read somewhere that there's a newer one, comparing to my version of the camera-software???
But a least it's still not as crappy as my old HTC's camera - THAT was lousy...
Frankly speaking, 'Camera quality is bad' makes no sense. If you've said it's bad than this or that then I'd take it. Have used all the SE phones as I loved their image quality and I'll say after playing with the Satio, C905 I don't think this one would beat them. We are talking about a small image sensor here. So the main job is how good the post image processing is, some part still depends on the lens though.
The thing is I didn't buy this one for camera, believe me or not, after purchase, that is almost six months now, I've shot barely 10 pics with it. For normal usage and as a professional can't go without 350D, and for short tours and holidays I still shoot with my C905 , but not GSII.
But still this Camera is capable of taking some great pics, posting some of them here, after seeing them you certainly can't say Camera quality is bad.
The very bests I've found,
-> ithehappy
Well - i used to have that image quality too, but it has become somewhat impossible to shot such good pictures, since upgrading... i suspect that it's because my camera firmware still is TBEC28 (but of course not sure of it)
iocar said:
I always touch the place where I want to focus, and that is why I am confused
Yes I was using Macro, but only because it had the best quality...Auto-Focus doesn't really help as it never focus properly, as in when I press the "Capture" button, most of the time it goes to red and doesn't turn green. I am holding the phone still and don't know why
The camera firmware is also up to date
What I don't get is that my old HTC Desire can take photos that are much more crisp than my Galaxy S2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Confused!!! Are you saying that you always have macro focus on?
If so then turn it off. My cousin complained about the exact same thing, blurry and red box when trying to focus. Went through his settings, turned macro off and everything was good again.
Also auto focus will not work correctly if macro is on, unless your taking really close range pics, which is what macro focus is for.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium
well i am on 2.3.5 Images are really Perfect for me am seriously impressed the Quality iam on kI8 here is one example
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/708/20111118205552.jpg
iocar said:
Yes I was using Macro, but only because it had the best quality
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Click to collapse
That's exactly why your pictures are blurry at a distance.
Macro focus is for close-up pictures, use auto focus for longer distances
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lng0004/sets/72157633487686583/
Very good looking photos, taken with the HTC One. Impressive what can be done with a little knowledge of lighting, and a bit of post editing.
Apparently all the editing was done with stock features or Avairy.
Great shot!:good:
Those are some awesome shots indeed. But I think there are a couple of these threads already that this could be merged with.
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 4 Beta
sly101s said:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lng0004/sets/72157633487686583/
Very good looking photos, taken with the HTC One. Impressive what can be done with a little knowledge of lighting, and a bit of post editing.
Apparently all the editing was done with stock features or Avairy.
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Click to collapse
Stunning!
Downloading Aviary now
The content and artistic value is impressive. The quality of the images are not really that mpressive though. You can tell its been taken on a mobile phone.
Rubbish
mwatson said:
The content and artistic value is impressive. The quality of the images are not really that mpressive though. You can tell its been taken on a mobile phone.
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The only way to tell that these are taken on a mobile is if you knew before hand!
Great shots, that could have been taken with the majority of compact cameras
No shame in any of them!
Great shooting
Dal1970 said:
The only way to tell that these are taken on a mobile is if you knew before hand!
Great shots, that could have been taken with the majority of compact cameras
No shame in any of them!
Great shooting
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Click to collapse
They way to tell is view them at their full size (in other words at 100%), its then VERY clear they were taken with a low MP phone cam. They aren't very sharp. Remember your monitor is lower resolution than the images, if you view them even full screen the reduction gives a sharpening effect, hides aliasing on lines, masks artefacts. The 'effects' applied also hide the Ones poor dynamic range.
They are very very well composed shots, and are great looking scenes, which is something the One does very well because it has a fast shutter and therefore little blur, but no they arent quality images from a technical standpoint. The problems with the One camera are still quite clear.
If you zoom in close on any shot you see the pixels - it is digital
I use a D7000 as my main camera and if you zoom in close enough is is pixelated
When you view these shots at a sensible size, there is nothing wrong with them. They will never blow up as large as my dSLR, but that is a different animal entirely.
the low light shots and indoor shot I took on my iPhone 4 are attrocious in comparison - took me ages to correct the colour casts and reduce the HUGE amount of noise
100% is not zoomed, its native. Its shortcomings are very evident at native resolution. I suspect those that don't notice are viewing on the phone or on a fairly small monitor. If thats the case, and you're happy, then fine.
Yes its great in low light, although some other phones manage quite well with HDR mode in low light, however in daylight the One is just a poor quality 4MP camera. Those images have done their best to hide it with great composition and effects, but its still evident.
One way to hide it a bit is to enlarge the picture in Photoshop, maybe to 16MP or more, then apply a smart sharpen of maybe 2.5 pixels and 75%, then drop back to 8MP. It cleans up a lot of the aliasing, artefacting and in effect interpolates a higher resolution.
Awesome shots welldone!
It always amazes me that some people expect a phone camera to match a DSLR.. i have both and yes the One isnt as good as my DSLR but it takes brilliant shots and is a whole lot easier to carry around in my pocket
sharpey said:
Awesome shots welldone!
It always amazes me that some people expect a phone camera to match a DSLR.. i have both and yes the One isnt as good as my DSLR but it takes brilliant shots and is a whole lot easier to carry around in my pocket
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No one expects it to match a DSLR, but to approach a 5 year old 5MP phone in daylight would be nice, and it just doesnt. This is why people are upset by the Ones camera. Its low light abilities are great, but its daylight abilities, especially moderate to long distance shots are very poor, even for 4 MP.
mwatson said:
The content and artistic value is impressive. The quality of the images are not really that mpressive though. You can tell its been taken on a mobile phone.
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This.
The same photographer could have made equally amazing photos with any other smartphone or crappy point and shoot.
The value of those photos come from their composition and lighting, not the image quality. Its the old argument of photographer vs camera.
But yes, very nice photos
Those are some great photos, is that Chinatown in Manhattan?
rovex said:
No one expects it to match a DSLR, but to approach a 5 year old 5MP phone in daylight would be nice, and it just doesnt. This is why people are upset by the Ones camera. Its low light abilities are great, but its daylight abilities, especially moderate to long distance shots are very poor, even for 4 MP.
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Click to collapse
Well, see... this is where I have a problem: I think the daylight abilities are quite good, but that it really sucks in low light.... For me, all the photos I take in low light (ex. a street corner at night, with lamp posts around) it turns the black into blue noise and it takes some time and a few shots to get a focused photot, even with all the blue in the picture...
Impressive pics imo
Sent from my HTC One using Xparent BlueTapatalk 2
We have a photo sharing thread already. The OP in this thread put up some specific shots and claimed they were "impressive". There's plenty to discuss there without opening it up to random new shots with generic captions
Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app
NxNW said:
We have a photo sharing thread already. The OP in this thread put up some specific shots and claimed they were "impressive". There's plenty to discuss there without opening it up to random new shots with generic captions
Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app
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Sorry wrong thread... Will delete.
Sent from my HTC One using Xparent BlueTapatalk 2
Yeah if you just want to share you can always go to
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2169626
Plenty of good shots in there..
Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app
Incredible quality. One of the main reason why I choose One. I can probably say goodbye to my digital camera now.
Flattered you think my shots are impressive. Sure, I agree that the photographer makes the difference (;p) but the HTC one camera tech really helps. I've yet to take a photo in low light only to find it shaky later. Never. Of course, sometimes sharpness comes with higher noise level but better than a shaky image.
I feel like I'm using an old camera with fixed wide angle lens when shooting with the HTC One. HDR what? ;p
Hi guys, I would like to share some photos I took with my HTC One from the summit of Mount Elbrus.
Just a note tho, i was wearing ski goggles and the sun was extreme bright. So i couldn't really see the screen. It was mostly 'point and shoot' without the focusing part.
It was roughly -20 degrees at the summit, I was genuinely surprised when my beloved One was still functioning (my brother's iPhone died at the summit).
I did experience some difficulties taking some pictures while near the peak, I don't know if its from the cold (the battery was around 3 degrees Celsius) or everything was too white for the autofocus to work properly. sometimes it took roughly 10 seconds (from pressing the shutter to picture being saved) for the picture to be taken.
I would love to hear your guys opinion regarding the photos!
Another thing, The battery on the One is EXTREMELY resilient, I was able to run the GPS chip to do Geo-logging for over 12 hours and the battery was only down the 30% even in the extreme temperature!
General information about Mount Elbrus:
Highest mountain in the continental Europe, standing at 5642m above sea level.
nice!!
Wow. Nice pictures from a nice adventure. Thank you.
Skickat från min HTC One via Tapatalk 2
That's incredible! Thanks for sharing, and congrats on your climb!
Those look like some great pics to me..
Thanks for sharing them and the story behind it..
Very nice indeed the camera on this phone despite what some so call experts say is one of the best on a smartphone
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app
These are really great pictures.
They remind me that the One has very coarse granulation of image adjustments. ie, trying to increase the exposure of a scene by the minimum increment will *drastically* increase the exposure.
In scenes like the ones in these pictures where there is a lot of snow, you generally want the snow to be a little whiter, less gray, so that the distant sky and forest will have a normal exposure. If the One allowed you to increase exposure *a little bit* , you could probably get the perfect balance of detail and realism. But I imagine if you set the camera to the smallest possible increase, ie " + 1 " , it would completely blow out all the lighter areas of the picture.
..at least with the initial versions of the camera software (ie system software 1.2x). They may improve this later I realize.
Of course at 5000+ meters you probably don't want to be playing around with the "image adjustments" menu anyway. So the default settings produced perfectly acceptable shots considering the conditions.
Gorgeous pictures. Congrats as well, amazing milestone.
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 2
Someone should spread this story. A feel good story for the One.
-Sent from Marino's One-
Great story and great pics mate :thumbup:
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium
Amazing pictures man.....great adventure...
The only thing is... its a pitty that there is so much noise in the bluesky in the pictures..
I hope htc will fix this...other wise great
Here's some more photo near the summit.
I don't understand why there is so much noise...
john291 said:
Amazing pictures man.....great adventure...
The only thing is... its a pitty that there is so much noise in the bluesky in the pictures..
I hope htc will fix this...other wise great
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I was about to say, am I the only one that doesn't agree that theses are great pictures? It seems many judge pictures by the scenery but not the quality of the image.
Sure the subject matter and location are stunning, but the quality of the image is not really that good. My old sgs2 would have taken a better picture with more clarity and less noise. That phone is over two years old!
If I took a grainy, noisy picture of Kim karsashian in bed with Cheryl Cole people,would still be saying wow! Great image! What a great camera! The One sure has a good sensor!
No offence, I have the One, like the one, keeping the one, but I sure hope some image improvements are on the way.
I think it's certainly possible to find fault with the images.
But we have lots of other threads for stuff like that.
I'm willing to just accept this thread at face value: a guy took this phone to the top of a very high mountain and the phone's camera performed ably in this unusual environment. Nothing more nothing less.
I commend him for the report (as well as the journey itself!).
Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app
NxNW said:
I think it's certainly possible to find fault with the images.
But we have lots of other threads for stuff like that.
I'm willing to just accept this thread at face value: a guy took this phone to the top of a very high mountain and the phone's camera performed ably in this unusual environment. Nothing more nothing less.
I commend him for the report (as well as the journey itself!).
Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app
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Exactly.... I've taken a number on top of mountains myself and whilst the One shoots ably, the fact is the photos once you actually zoom in lack detail. The grave stone in first pictures for example lacks detail, the text can not be read. Everything beyond normal focal range is overly soft and lacking details and suffer noise and artefacts. Or the fact in one of the photos of your climbing partners, if you zoom in you can't even make out details on their clothing or faces sadly.
As much as I love my One, the reality is for landscapes where much of clarity is in distant objects the 4mp on the one just isn't enough to capture the fine details.
Yes they look great on Facebook, twitter and posted on forums when viewed quickly, but when you load up the full image and actually examine it the faults are all to easy find.
In the scenario the OP took the picture, blue clear day - ultrapixel actually provided NO benefit as there was always enough light for the image to capture, but the lack of megapixels does hurt because with greater MP we would have been able to see so much more clarity in the photo, a clarity that would have done so much more justice to the breathtaking view on the summit than sadly the camera does capture.
Congrats OP on your climb / achievement - its great. But I think some folks are mixing up your 'great' achievement with 'great' photo. Sadly the photos are just fine.
g2525 said:
Hi guys, I would like to share some photos I took with my HTC One from the summit of Mount Elbrus.
Just a note tho, i was wearing ski goggles and the sun was extreme bright. So i couldn't really see the screen. It was mostly 'point and shoot' without the focusing part.
It was roughly -20 degrees at the summit, I was genuinely surprised when my beloved One was still functioning (my brother's iPhone died at the summit).
I did experience some difficulties taking some pictures while near the peak, I don't know if its from the cold (the battery was around 3 degrees Celsius) or everything was too white for the autofocus to work properly. sometimes it took roughly 10 seconds (from pressing the shutter to picture being saved) for the picture to be taken.
I would love to hear your guys opinion regarding the photos!
Another thing, The battery on the One is EXTREMELY resilient, I was able to run the GPS chip to do Geo-logging for over 12 hours and the battery was only down the 30% even in the extreme temperature!
General information about Mount Elbrus:
Highest mountain in the continental Europe, standing at 5642m above sea level.
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Click to collapse
Awesome pics buddy! Beautiful view! Congrats on the climb
Sent from my HTC One using xda premium
nookcoloruser said:
Exactly.... I've taken a number on top of mountains myself and whilst the One shoots ably, the fact is the photos once you actually zoom in lack detail. The grave stone in first pictures for example lacks detail, the text can not be read. Everything beyond normal focal range is overly soft and lacking details and suffer noise and artefacts. Or the fact in one of the photos of your climbing partners, if you zoom in you can't even make out details on their clothing or faces sadly.
As much as I love my One, the reality is for landscapes where much of clarity is in distant objects the 4mp on the one just isn't enough to capture the fine details.
Yes they look great on Facebook, twitter and posted on forums when viewed quickly, but when you load up the full image and actually examine it the faults are all to easy find.
In the scenario the OP took the picture, blue clear day - ultrapixel actually provided NO benefit as there was always enough light for the image to capture, but the lack of megapixels does hurt because with greater MP we would have been able to see so much more clarity in the photo, a clarity that would have done so much more justice to the breathtaking view on the summit than sadly the camera does capture.
Congrats OP on your climb / achievement - its great. But I think some folks are mixing up your 'great' achievement with 'great' photo. Sadly the photos are just fine.
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Click to collapse
yes it's a basic fact the ultrapixel camera will never be useful if zoomed, for that get another device
otherwise its one of the best all rounder phone cameras, especially in low light
the only thing weird in these photos, considering how much sun is that the images are little under exposed, guess the phone was trying to counter the extreme light in auto mode
as for the battery looks like heat is a good contributor to drain in ordinary use
hamdir said:
the only thing weird in these photos, considering how much sun is that the images are little under exposed, guess the phone was trying to counter the extreme light in auto mode
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Click to collapse
Was actually thinking the same thing. Setting must have been changed in camera for contrast / exposure because I've shot in similar circumstances and the HTC One will tend to over expose. It could also explain 'additional' noise in the image if settings like that have been changed in image adjustments.
I think HDR would have likely done a better job at balancing it out (which is what I tend to do myself) rather than leaving it on standard setting albeit with image settings adjusted....
Absolutely amazing! First of all congratulations on your milestone...a fantastic achievement!
Secondly...I would like to propose your post + pics for HTC One's top-achievement...ever (so far). Ridiculous really for a mobile phone to function at all at nearly 6 km height...plus taking some real quailty pics to boot :highfive:
mwatson said:
I was about to say, am I the only one that doesn't agree that theses are great pictures? It seems many judge pictures by the scenery but not the quality of the image.
Sure the subject matter and location are stunning, but the quality of the image is not really that good. My old sgs2 would have taken a better picture with more clarity and less noise. That phone is over two years old!
If I took a grainy, noisy picture of Kim karsashian in bed with Cheryl Cole people,would still be saying wow! Great image! What a great camera! The One sure has a good sensor!
No offence, I have the One, like the one, keeping the one, but I sure hope some image improvements are on the way.
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Would the SGS2 have taken better pictures in that extreme environment though?
Yes they are a bit noisy, yes the scenery is great, there is a tradeoff there but the real issue is the environment.
These topics have been widely discussed, I just find this funny. I do professional photography, and I thought this phone would be great for me. Not only could I show off my photos on a glorious 2k screen, but it was supposed to have a great off-duty camera as well. Ironically, it's instead hitting some photographer pet peeves real bad.
1) The screen sharpening is bad. I see amateur photographers get over enthusiastic on sharpening, cause the sharper the better, right? No, you make ugly artifacts like halos. Now my entire phone does it nonstop. It hurts! This goes beyond the font issue that's widely been talked about. I love viewing photos through my Nexus 7 or HTC M7 because it's like looking through a window. Photos on the G3 just look artifical.
2) Another is the camera noise reduction. Noise is bad, so let's crank the noise reduction. No, some grain and more detail is much preferable to pics that look like watercolors.
3) I knew this one going in, but as the Andantech review pointed out, the color accuracy is bad. I can spend time editing a photo on my phone and paste it to Facebook, just to realize once I'm viewing on a pc that the pic looks nothing like my meticulous edit. Great.
I know I'm hypersensitive to these issues because of my profession. My wife didn't notice the sharpening. But it's funny that what I thought would be my ideal phone is such the opposite.
supposedmonster said:
3) I knew this one going in, but as the Andantech review pointed out, the color accuracy is bad. I can spend time editing a photo on my phone and paste it to Facebook, just to realize once I'm viewing on a pc that the pic looks nothing like my meticulously edit. Great.
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How long ago was last time you calibrated your PC monitor? Does your monitor have sRGB mode? And, BTW, maybe you even use some notebook with cheap junky TN panel in the first place? :laugh:
I use an ASUS PA246 wide gamut monitor regularly calibrated with a Colormunki Display, so yes, I have a good benchmark.
Sent from my LG-D851 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
supposedmonster said:
so yes, I have a good benchmark.
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Glad for you, well then did you try to compare pix from the net to view both on monitor and on G3 and compare colors? Like I did
Check that topic also, maybe you bought G3 with blueish panel
Man this was not an easy shot to pull off. It's hard to tell from the pic, but LG is on the left and Nexus 7 is on the bottom. The LG would equate to quite a few notches of saturation boost in Lightroom.
This photo doesn't quite show it well, but the Nexus is actually slightly less saturated than the calibrated monitor.
The colors aren't that bad in either devices (I mean you can only expect so much, I get these aren't meant to be crazy calibrated panels), but I'd rather edit on the Nexus and find them slightly more vibrant on other devices than on the LG and find it decidedly dull.
Sent from my LG-D851 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
supposedmonster said:
These topics have been widely discussed, I just find this funny. I do professional photography, and I thought this phone would be great for me. Not only could I show off my photos on a glorious 2k screen, but it was supposed to have a great off-duty camera as well. Ironically, it's instead hitting some photographer pet peeves real bad.
1) The screen sharpening is bad. I see amateur photographers get over enthusiastic on sharpening, cause the sharper the better, right? No, you make ugly artifacts like halos. Now my entire phone does it nonstop. It hurts! This goes beyond the font issue that's widely been talked about. I love viewing photos through my Nexus 7 or HTC M7 because it's like looking through a window. Photos on the G3 just look artifical.
2) Another is the camera noise reduction. Noise is bad, so let's crank the noise reduction. No, some grain and more detail is much preferable to pics that look like watercolors.
3) I knew this one going in, but as the Andantech review pointed out, the color accuracy is bad. I can spend time editing a photo on my phone and paste it to Facebook, just to realize once I'm viewing on a pc that the pic looks nothing like my meticulous edit. Great.
I know I'm hypersensitive to these issues because of my profession. My wife didn't notice the sharpening. But it's funny that what I thought would be my ideal phone is such the opposite.
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Click to collapse
I'm just curious about number 3 up there, and I'm not trying to be an ass, but why would any professional photographer spend time editing a photo on a phone meticulously, instead of putting the photo on the PC and editing it with PS? I mean, if you edit it with the PC, its a lot easier, and you also get a WYSIWYG.
Haha, well my camera has WiFi. When in on vacation it's fun being able to post professional quality pics to social media from my phone.
Sent from my LG-D851 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
The G3 display can be somewhat manually adjusted in color contrast, did you tweak it a bit? Maybe it'll improve.
Thanks, I have read about that. Without being able to use a preview image to calibrate I think it'd drive me crazy. Plus I doubt it'll help because it seems to only adjust color and contrast, not saturation, which is the bigger issue.
What bugs me more though is the sharpening, but I have faith that'll be fixed either by LG or the community since enough people have raised a hallaboo.
Sent from my LG-D851 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
I can live with the screen sharpening (since it's all software and don't affect the photos themselves). I can also live with so-so color reproduction. But gawd, that NR pisses me off. What's the point of having a good sensor when you're gonna mess up the photos with mediocre processing. That being said... photos still look pretty decent in good lighting ;P
supposedmonster said:
These topics have been widely discussed, I just find this funny. I do professional photography, and I thought this phone would be great for me. Not only could I show off my photos on a glorious 2k screen, but it was supposed to have a great off-duty camera as well. Ironically, it's instead hitting some photographer pet peeves real bad.
1) The screen sharpening is bad. I see amateur photographers get over enthusiastic on sharpening, cause the sharper the better, right? No, you make ugly artifacts like halos. Now my entire phone does it nonstop. It hurts! This goes beyond the font issue that's widely been talked about. I love viewing photos through my Nexus 7 or HTC M7 because it's like looking through a window. Photos on the G3 just look artifical.
2) Another is the camera noise reduction. Noise is bad, so let's crank the noise reduction. No, some grain and more detail is much preferable to pics that look like watercolors.
3) I knew this one going in, but as the Andantech review pointed out, the color accuracy is bad. I can spend time editing a photo on my phone and paste it to Facebook, just to realize once I'm viewing on a pc that the pic looks nothing like my meticulous edit. Great.
I know I'm hypersensitive to these issues because of my profession. My wife didn't notice the sharpening. But it's funny that what I thought would be my ideal phone is such the opposite.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am sorry but you have me totally confused.......
I agree the G3 does have over sharpening which depending on how and what you shoot can have detrimental effects on the scene shot.
However, why on earth are you getting so annoyed with what is in effect simply a smartphone camera sensor?
Although I do not take photos as a profession I have however owned a camera since... Hang on a second......1963. Throughout time I learned many various methods and art in photography, travelling the world shooting all manner of photos with compacts and SLR's to the more recent DSLR and smartphone.
Yet, there is no way on earth would I take a professional shot with a smartphone nor would I expect it to achieve something which could be of use in a professional manner.
I do apologies but it does annoy me when I hear from someone first stating they are a 'professional' and use this word as their basis for a debate.
If you have an issue with the G3, fine I can live with that as you are very much correct, certain aspects of the software could be improved but let us not forget.
1. It is a smartphone.
2. It is software which means if you do not like the camera app that controls the shooting then use a different camera app.
I personally use the app 'A Better Camera' which is excellent.
I am sure as a professional photographer you must have heard of this app and learned the author is not just another coder but does have an understanding of photography.
With 'A Better Camera' as your tool you will find first it gives you back the manual controls and second it then allows you to be as creative as a smartphone will allow you.
Having said all this I have never ever ever been happy letting the camera dictate the shot but the G3 is the first type of camera that I am happy shooting 'casual photography' in auto mode.
Beards said:
I am sorry but you have me totally confused.......
I agree the G3 does have over sharpening which depending on how and what you shoot can have detrimental effects on the scene shot.
However, why on earth are you getting so annoyed with what is in effect simply a smartphone camera sensor?
Although I do not take photos as a profession I have however owned a camera since... Hang on a second......1963. Throughout time I learned many various methods and art in photography, travelling the world shooting all manner of photos with compacts and SLR's to the more recent DSLR and smartphone.
Yet, there is no way on earth would I take a professional shot with a smartphone nor would I expect it to achieve something which could be of use in a professional manner.
I do apologies but it does annoy me when I hear from someone first stating they are a 'professional' and use this word as their basis for a debate.
If you have an issue with the G3, fine I can live with that as you are very much correct, certain aspects of the software could be improved but let us not forget.
1. It is a smartphone.
2. It is software which means if you do not like the camera app that controls the shooting then use a different camera app.
I personally use the app 'A Better Camera' which is excellent.
I am sure as a professional photographer you must have heard of this app and learned the author is not just another coder but does have an understanding of photography.
With 'A Better Camera' as your tool you will find first it gives you back the manual controls and second it then allows you to be as creative as a smartphone will allow you.
Having said all this I have never ever ever been happy letting the camera dictate the shot but the G3 is the first type of camera that I am happy shooting 'casual photography' in auto mode.
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Click to collapse
Speaking of which, is it possible to set long exposure (for night shots with a tripod, for example) with A Better Camera? Other than the automatic "Night Shot"...
fabripav said:
Speaking of which, is it possible to set long exposure (for night shots with a tripod, for example) with A Better Camera? Other than the automatic "Night Shot"...
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Not presently...... But note, this is not the problem with the G3 or A Better Camera.
It is Android or should I say Google who limited the speed to just under 1sec.
However, under Android L all will change as among the 400+ camera api's introduced camera speed is one of them. So 'hopefully' developers will raise to the challenge and add this vital missing setting.
Beards said:
Not presently...... But note, this is not the problem with the G3 or A Better Camera.
It is Android or should I say Google who limited the speed to just under 1sec.
However, under Android L all will change as among the 400+ camera api's introduced camera speed is one of them. So 'hopefully' developers will raise to the challenge and add this vital missing setting.
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Click to collapse
Yeah, can't wait for that update for many reasons, camera included.
It's weird though that the Oppo Find 7 camera (for example) has a shutter speed that goes up to 32 seconds. How did they manage to make it avalaible? The sensor is a simple Sony IMX214.
I wonder if all the features of Camera FV-5 work on the G3, anyone tried it yet? (my G3 has yet to arrive)
fabripav said:
Yeah, can't wait for that update for many reasons, camera included.
It's weird though that the Oppo Find 7 camera (for example) has a shutter speed that goes up to 32 seconds. How did they manage to make it avalaible? The sensor is a simple Sony IMX214.
I wonder if all the features of Camera FV-5 work on the G3, anyone tried it yet? (my G3 has yet to arrive)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Oppo Find 7's camera doesn't actually keep the lens open for 32 seconds, it does a trick similar to what Camera FV-5 does in that it takes a series of shots from a thumbnail (hence why it's small and lacks any detail).
Re your query on Camera FV-5 ~ everything with the exception of ISO works. With ISO the dials say it has altered ISO but when you take the shot you find it has altered nothing.
A Better Camera on the other hand does alter the settings and does apply them to the shot.
It's the only app out there which utilises all the manual controls that are open to write permission, this also includes AE and WB Lock which again no other camera app uses.
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fabripav said:
Yeah, can't wait for that update for many reasons, camera included.
It's weird though that the Oppo Find 7 camera (for example) has a shutter speed that goes up to 32 seconds. How did they manage to make it avalaible? The sensor is a simple Sony IMX214.
I wonder if all the features of Camera FV-5 work on the G3, anyone tried it yet? (my G3 has yet to arrive)
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Click to collapse
Yes it does. I haven't tried the long exposure in FV-5 though.
Beards said:
Re your query on Camera FV-5 ~ everything with the exception of ISO works. With ISO the dials say it has altered ISO but when you take the shot you find it has altered nothing.
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Camera FV-5's ISO setting works fine for me.
ISO 100 1/60 F/2.4
http://i1.minus.com/iMbhMmPuhI3Es.JPG
ISO 1600 1/680 F/2.4
http://i7.minus.com/iNJO0u9CN5xvf.JPG
I'm a photographer (;P). I know what I'm talking about.
You have the D851 which is Tmob.. which doesnt have the sharpening effect.. at least anecdotally. same model i have and theres zero sharpening going on. the colors mind you are off, but its no galaxy S4 or G2.. but as was stated dont plan to edit on your phone and you wont be frustrated by using the wrong tool for the job.
dont bring a 400mm telephoto zoom to a job that requires a 35mm prime or vice versa.
Itaintrite said:
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Yes it does. I haven't tried the long exposure in FV-5 though.
Camera FV-5's ISO setting works fine for me.
ISO 100 1/60 F/2.4
http://i1.minus.com/iMbhMmPuhI3Es.JPG
ISO 1600 1/680 F/2.4
http://i7.minus.com/iNJO0u9CN5xvf.JPG
I'm a photographer (;P). I know what I'm talking about.
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Really...... Thank you.
When was the App last updated?
Beards said:
Really...... Thank you.
When was the App last updated?
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I'm using v1.7.3. Updated June 27th.
Itaintrite said:
I'm using v1.7.3. Updated June 27th.
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Great... I'll give it another go against A Better Camera; although ABC does have many more controls.
No matter what I do I can't seem to get a clear picture. Everything is blurry. I can't figure out if my expectations are just too high.....I came from an LG G4 but still. How are you guys getting good pictures? I'm talking 5% of the pictures I take are passable. Maybe I have a faulty camera? Anyone else find the camera to be garbage? I've looked through the camera threads and people seem happy overall. It can't just be me.
Sent from my XT1575 using XDA Free mobile app
Moto camera app sucks...did you try a different app?
Sent from my XT1572 using XDA Free mobile app
I tried Open Camera and am using Google camera currently. And I'm no Ansel Adams but I takes lot of pictures and have always been able to figure out how to take a decent shot on every device I've owned until this one.
Sent from my XT1575 using XDA Free mobile app
Are the pictures blurry or noisy?
They're blurry. That the thing, that's new to me. Good lighting with as steady a hand as I can muster still results in a blurry shot. I'll take one now and post if I can.
Sent from my XT1575 using XDA Free mobile app
This is probably a stupid suggestion, but have you tried just wiping the lens and making sure it's clean and clear? Honestly I've had that problem before where it's been smudged without my noticing and it obviously makes every picture screwed up. I know it's not likely, but something that's worth a shot I've found! Other than that I know nothing about cameras and coming from an HTC One I know nothing of a quality photo...
No, I agree with @jiggyb21, I just bought the Moxo X and came from the Galaxy S6. The camera on the Moto seems like pure garbage to me, and I think it's because we are coming from phones with superior cameras. People who came from phones with worse cameras will obviously think the Moto X camera is great right?
I don't have the steadiest of hands, but I haven't run into a problem like what you are describing. Have you given some thought that you might have a faulty device? It uses phase detection for focus, so if every picture is blurry you may have an issue with the actual camera module.
I've tried a few camera apps, and though pics come out good, man do I really have to keep a steady hand. Move it a hair and any text blurs. Why not lean it up against something to take your handling out of equation and voice command take pic and see what comes up.
Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk 2
It would be nice if you could post some samples. I'm not in love with the camera but I have consistently been able to snap photos that are good enough quickly
I don't even know if I uploaded the pics correctly and if not I'll fix it later while I'm watching the Giants beat on the Eagles. Something interesting happened while taking these pictures. I am in 100% optimal lighting conditions and these are basically the best 4 shots I could possibly get out of this camera. I asked around to the people here on the jobsite with me and everyone thought the pictures were just fine. Yes, they aren't blurry to the point of being unreadable by any means but they are quite blurry. I guess it could just be me but I would still argue it's not. Before anyone says anything about how this is just a smartphone and it's only a $400 smartphone at that and it's good enough, I know that and maybe people who haven't used a good smartphone camera don't know what they're missing. If that's the case, fine, and that's why I started this thread was to find out. My last 4 phones were Xperia ZL, Z2, Z3 and LG G4. We all know the G4 and S6, to name two, have incredible cameras and have OIS. The first 3 I named weren't and don't. They were all rated as average cameras and they don't have OIS. I have hundreds of pictures taken in similar conditions with the Sonys and they didn't suffer from blur. Like I said these 4 pictures were surprisingly good IMO. Most I take are MUCH more blurred and most of the pictures I take aren't in this perfect a light. So I'll have to post more pictures from my collection at home to really show off the bad ones.
If you zoom in a little on the pics its almost a 3D art poster kind of eye strain. Again, I'm not talking about level of detail, just the blurriness.
I think part of the pictures of blurry because of shallow depth of field due to lower aperture setting in the software algorithm. It seems the software is trying to compress too much noise. Although I have not personally used it, try the following link for the alternative camera and report back the results. Hope this works out for you:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/moto-g/themes-apps/app-camera-galery-t3216944
trace1er said:
No, I agree with @jiggyb21, I just bought the Moxo X and came from the Galaxy S6. The camera on the Moto seems like pure garbage to me, and I think it's because we are coming from phones with superior cameras. People who came from phones with worse cameras will obviously think the Moto X camera is great right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not really. I have a DSLR so that's my standard on PQ. In daylight, nothing should be blurry at 100% zoom on even a $200 phone. You don't need flagship to take a good photo at 1/125 second shutter speed. It's either defective camera unit or something is wrong with the setting. Just look at all the photos people have posted on this forum.
---------- Post added at 10:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:25 PM ----------
jiggyb21 said:
I don't even know if I uploaded the pics correctly and if not I'll fix it later while I'm watching the Giants beat on the Eagles. Something interesting happened while taking these pictures. I am in 100% optimal lighting conditions and these are basically the best 4 shots I could possibly get out of this camera. I asked around to the people here on the jobsite with me and everyone thought the pictures were just fine. Yes, they aren't blurry to the point of being unreadable by any means but they are quite blurry. I guess it could just be me but I would still argue it's not. Before anyone says anything about how this is just a smartphone and it's only a $400 smartphone at that and it's good enough, I know that and maybe people who haven't used a good smartphone camera don't know what they're missing. If that's the case, fine, and that's why I started this thread was to find out. My last 4 phones were Xperia ZL, Z2, Z3 and LG G4. We all know the G4 and S6, to name two, have incredible cameras and have OIS. The first 3 I named weren't and don't. They were all rated as average cameras and they don't have OIS. I have hundreds of pictures taken in similar conditions with the Sonys and they didn't suffer from blur. Like I said these 4 pictures were surprisingly good IMO. Most I take are MUCH more blurred and most of the pictures I take aren't in this perfect a light. So I'll have to post more pictures from my collection at home to really show off the bad ones.
If you zoom in a little on the pics its almost a 3D art poster kind of eye strain. Again, I'm not talking about level of detail, just the blurriness.
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It's a f 2.0 lens. You gonna have blurriness around the edge of photo if you are taking it that close. It has nothing to do with OIS.
In any case, you can read the professional review of the XPE here.
http://www.dxomark.com/Mobiles/Moto-X-Style-Mobile-review-Style-and-Substance
If you're in good light, this is arguably one of the best phone cameras out there. Your pictures should be nice and crisp. Try this: take your camera outside during the day and take a few shots of the horizon or something. Then post the pictures here and we'll tell you (hopefully) if you've got a faulty unit. It sounds like your phone is not performing as mine is. I'm even satisfied with some indoor shots with this camera. I have done professional photography, so I am well-versed in cameras (color, WB, ISO, exposure, f-stop, etc.).
Even from reading reviews and comparisons from the web and tech reviewers, this camera performs with, and sometimes beats the other current flagship models out there. I happen to agree with them. From reading this thread though, maybe your camera isn't the only one with this problem.
Anyway, try to post a couple of pictures up. A link to an external host like photobucket or something like that would probably be better than uploading straight to XDA, due to compression and size limits.
---------- Post added at 04:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:42 PM ----------
Edit: looks like I missed a page
Those photos don't look that bad. What sort of blurriness are you talking about? The bokeh from taking close up pictures? Bokeh is a natural blurring effect you get from a larger aperature lens not being able to capture the entire depth of field. That's normal. The focused part of those pictures don't look blurry to me.
As an aside, any indoor shot will not be optimal lighting, unless you have a lighting kit or something to really brighten up the scene. Optimal lighting would be outside, and when the sun is not directly overhead. This is a very quick summation of optimal light, but you get the point.
Gr8man001 said:
I think part of the pictures of blurry because of shallow depth of field due to lower aperture setting in the software algorithm. It seems the software is trying to compress too much noise. Although I have not personally used it, try the following link for the alternative camera and report back the results. Hope this works out for you:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/moto-g/themes-apps/app-camera-galery-t3216944
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow, thanks, that camera works great, I always enjoy having the face detection feature it makes focusing on faces much faster.
Gr8man001 said:
I think part of the pictures of blurry because of shallow depth of field due to lower aperture setting in the software algorithm. It seems the software is trying to compress too much noise. Although I have not personally used it, try the following link for the alternative camera and report back the results. Hope this works out for you:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/moto-g/themes-apps/app-camera-galery-t3216944
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your tip. After turning off NR in advanced setting, I tried a couple of indoor shots of some writings on my note book. Please excuse the terrible lighting and my bad handwriting, but it's very easy to tell which shot had the NR off. Yes the one with NR off has a dirtier background, but the pen strokes has much better contrast from the paper. That's probably one of the reasons why the default setting produces blurry photos.
Yea when taking photos of dogs in low light I only managed to have 1 or 2 come out bad and that was from me moving the phone. But then again I am used to shooting 50asa film freehand.
lack of optical image stabilization rearing it's ugly head.. who knows why the hell they couldn't use a sensor with it, but it's quite disappointing. but turning off nr helps a lot.. we need a dev to come in and work on a true camera mod for this phone only. I tried to get my bud xdabbeb to make a mod (as anyone who had the g2 knows his xcam mod was killer!) but he isn't planning on buying this phone. ugh.
Sent from my Moto X Pure Edition
jonathanbailie said:
If you're in good light, this is arguably one of the best phone cameras out there. Your pictures should be nice and crisp. Try this: take your camera outside during the day and take a few shots of the horizon or something. Then post the pictures here and we'll tell you (hopefully) if you've got a faulty unit. It sounds like your phone is not performing as mine is. I'm even satisfied with some indoor shots with this camera. I have done professional photography, so I am well-versed in cameras (color, WB, ISO, exposure, f-stop, etc.).
Even from reading reviews and comparisons from the web and tech reviewers, this camera performs with, and sometimes beats the other current flagship models out there. I happen to agree with them. From reading this thread though, maybe your camera isn't the only one with this problem.
Anyway, try to post a couple of pictures up. A link to an external host like photobucket or something like that would probably be better than uploading straight to XDA, due to compression and size limits.
---------- Post added at 04:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:42 PM ----------
Edit: looks like I missed a page
Those photos don't look that bad. What sort of blurriness are you talking about? The bokeh from taking close up pictures? Bokeh is a natural blurring effect you get from a larger aperature lens not being able to capture the entire depth of field. That's normal. The focused part of those pictures don't look blurry to me.
As an aside, any indoor shot will not be optimal lighting, unless you have a lighting kit or something to really brighten up the scene. Optimal lighting would be outside, and when the sun is not directly overhead. This is a very quick summation of optimal light, but you get the point.
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Thank you and this is why I wanted feedback. I posted the pictures I did (close-up), because, to me, they were the most objectifiable shots I could take while at work. The text just isn't as clear as other shots I've taken with other phones. I called it optimal lighting because I was in a 6x6 room with three windows and a skylight on a sunny day with no direct sunlight. The lighting felt like the kind any decent camera would take advantage of. To me, that's optimal..but I understand that's a strong word and not scientific. The fact that it scores so highly in professional reviews is what has me frustrated. The only thing I can deduce is that a professional, lab environment is more controlled and repeatable than my layman's point and shoot approach. They must be using a tripod, right? This phone has everything else I want and I just want to like the camera. So believe me, I want to figure out how to enjoy the camera. I will take more shots tomorrow and post them and I hope you and others with knowledge will chime in. I just know that with the other smartphone cameras I mentioned earlier, 8 out of 10 shots were keepers and with this one it's more like 1 out of 10 and that's not jiving with everyone else. Thanks again.
Sent from my XT1575 using XDA Free mobile app
looking at the pictures, they seem just fine to me. the blurred part (glue) at the bottom of the bottle is just from it using a wide aperture. the images are not tack sharp but this is a cellphone camera and small dof. I dont see motion blur.
problem with auto cameras is that you dont know what priority it has. to use a wide aperture to get a decent shutter speed and not have to use high iso or the opposite.
for proper exposure you have to adjust and juggle the 3 parameters (iso/aperture/shutter) to get a proper image.
wish the phone had controls like the LG G4 which has aperture iso shutter WB and EC.