Is there any way to shoot RAW files with Essential Phone camera? - Essential Phone Questions & Answers

Considering buying the Essential Phone or the OnePlus 5T. I like working on RAW files with the Lightroom Mobile app, and I know you can shoot RAW in manual mode on the 5T but I haven't seen anything one way or another about the Essential Phone. Thanks.

You can't with the stock camera app.

Use the Lightroom camera

raw quality on essential phone is terrible. blurry, muted and noisy.

I find the pics using the Essential camera app are better than the DNG files shot and edited in LR.

Related

Photo (RAW compared to Jpeg)

This is for someone with a 6p as it's a topic that interests me (and maybe some others). I haven't seen anywhere that the stock camera app on the 6P/5X can record in RAW but I know that RAW is supported. So with that would someone like to play around by comparing a stock camera JPEG against a rendered out JPEG (sourced from a RAW) from a third party camera app?
Thank you!

Nexus 6P RAW Support

Since the stock camera does not support the RAW capture yet (hopefully will), which camera app could be the best right now to capture RAW image using N6P?
Camera FV-5 supports DNG, but there is some bugs that needs fixing.
Switching between P to Shutter Priorty and back breaks the app.
But when it works its amazing.
Pro shot from rise up games
Easily the best camera app period. Being able to turn off noise reduction is the biggest feature yet. No other camera app in the play store compares simply because of that.

Couple of questions (camera fv-5, Raw, and build.prop)

I am using CM 13 build 6-26
currently camera fv-5 doesn't read the phone as capable of taking raw pics.. and reduces low light picture quality.
using OOS 3's camera i can do both of those... i just prefer the ui and option in camera fv-5.
what would trigger the app to register the phone to be able to do both of those?
build.prop tweaks or?
also.. the phone reports itself as a one.. not a two. ..
thoughts? info?
thanks
Hello,
Actually I noticed the same issue, camera FV5 recognize manual settings and can use camera 2 capabilities only on OxygenOS which is pretty disappointing.
I'm also forced to use the OxygenOS camera port which lack lot of settings and save jpegs with lot of compression...
Maybe CM lack some stuff.

Bracketing

What is the best way to make bracketing. With Huawei camera there is no function for bracketing. With camera fv-5 app it's not working probably and it is even not possible to set the shutter speed. Any suggestions?
Not sure why you need bracketing if u can see the image before shooting.
Or you can shoot in raw and edit the pictures later.
gm007 said:
Not sure why you need bracketing if u can see the image before shooting.
Or you can shoot in raw and edit the pictures later.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
HDR
scook94 said:
HDR
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The camera has hdr option,and with raw you can manipulate the image as you want.
Use the shadows and highlight in Photoshop.
I know, but it's no where near as good as taking, say, 7 images at -3eV through +3eV and combining them in an HDR program or app.
scook94 said:
I know, but it's no where near as good as taking, say, 7 images at -3eV through +3eV and combining them in an HDR program or app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
True,so he need to take them manually one by one
gm007 said:
True,so he need to take them manually one by one
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup. He'll need a tripod though...
Thanks for answering
I need it for photos spheres in HDR as I wrote in an other thread.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/p10-plus/how-to/photo-sphere-focus-t3611563
I use tripod and nodal adapter and shoot single images and stitch it in ptgui.
I would love to do it all on Huawei p10 plus but somehow the results are blurry when I use streetview app camera.
https://goo.gl/photos/Xmdi4FpsTwi22wbt7
So bracketing is not possible on Huawei p10 plus. So I tried to stitch fotos in raw but they don't have exif data. Ptgui needs this information. Huawei makes it not easy to make photo-spheres.

[PSA] RAW quality vs JPEG Tests

After google announced that they have no plans to bring RAW support to the device I was curious to see what sort of quality the DNGs would be. Unfortunately I've found that the RAW files from different apps provide different results.
Apps used
Stock Camera App JPEG
Camera NX
Camera FV-5
Test 1: Straight out of camera RAW quality
All camera applications were left on full auto with touch focus on the far buildings.
Stock
https://imgur.com/a/ae575
Camera NX
https://imgur.com/a/UlR4s
Camera FV-5
https://imgur.com/a/ANvw5
As can be seen the RAW from Camera NX though very noisy is pretty standard looking. On the other hand Camera FV-5 is just awful with a stupid amount of noise.
This is interesting as inspecting the photos shows that the ISO for FV-5 was the lowest at 400 whilst NX and Stock used ISO 875.
Test 2: JPEG vs RAW quality
For this test I tried to use Camera FV-5 but it refused to take any pictures in the low light. Based on the previous test it's pretty obvious it would have fared worst anyways.
In this test I have tried to show the dynamic range of the files. Both were brought into Adobe Camera RAW, sliders for shadows and blacks cranked to max with the brightness and whites to lowest. I have also applied some sharpening and noise reduction to both.
The edits to both are identical
Stock Edit
https://imgur.com/a/9WPSy
NX Edit
https://imgur.com/a/UDEs9
The resulting images show that the RAW file is brighter and retains more detail. This can clearly be seen in the roof where JPEG artifacts are visible and the brickwork where detail is lost.
This can more clearly be seen when I brighten the JPEG so that it matches the brightness of the RAW
Stock Edit Brighter
https://imgur.com/a/N7YFz
Conclusions
I'd grown used to shooting RAW on my S7 Edge, luckily the new Pixels fully support Camera API 2. However it is interesting to see that the RAW readout is different per app. In regards to quality I will definitely be shooting the Camera NX in the future when I want a RAW file; however the JPEG quality is very impressive and lives up to it's hype.
Edit: 26/11/17 (From reddit post https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/7fb9vu/technical_camera_test_raw_vs_jpeg/)
Test 3: LR vs Camera NX
Tried out LR in both 'Professional' and 'HDR' RAW modes. All photos have the same sharpening, noise reduction, white point applied. Blacks and shadows are maxed out with whites and highlights at minimum. LR HDR has exposure boosted to +2.65EV to match brightness.
NX Edit https://imgur.com/a/oUBhd
LR Professional Edit https://imgur.com/a/CsBa3
LR HDR Edit https://imgur.com/a/nuSNa
I was expecting LR RAWs to be significantly better. Unexpectedly the 'Professional' LR RAW looks similar to the FV-5 RAW, very blue with a whole bunch of noise.
The 'HDR' LR RAW looks much closer to the NX RAW, however there are some strange hot(white) pixels spread throughout.
Conclusions 2
I'll still be sticking with the NX RAWs for now, 'HDR' LR files are close but detail isn't any better and those white pixels are pretty noticeable.
Test 1 and 2 Full resolution and dng files: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e2_sD7D1IiOg9Ety_8IsHAfhcKAVf9Eq/view?usp=sharing
Test 3 Full resolution and dng files: https://drive.google.com/open?id=17EIhsPAX5efHXPiz_cfkov3AKaDkREvg
Anyone got suggestions for more apps for me to try?
For my aesthetically pleasing photographs please visit my Instagram
Interesting post, thanks for sharing. Have you considered doing stock v nx v LR v manual cam & compare in lightroom side by side? I know with my 5X the hdr auto was visibly worse wrt detail than hdr on, and dng was another step up to that, basically incredibly detailed.
Does nx raw use hdr with the new 8.1 update enabling the visual core? Or will say manual camera use hdr+enhanced in it's raw outputs?
randomhkkid said:
Anyone got suggestions for more apps for me to try?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting read thanks. Did you try open camera? I experimented a bit and found the dng offered more flexibility in fixing exposure and white balance but needed a lot of noise processing to be as good as the jpg. But have been shooting both just in case I wanted to post process anything. So far haven't.
It never occurred to me that raw differed by app. That seems just wrong.
Linwood.Ferguson said:
It never occurred to me that raw differed by app. That seems just wrong.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It does seem wrong. RAW data should be just that, all the data from the camera before anything like an app tweaks it out. So yeah, it makes zero sense.
Hi, good thread!
I have somehow given up on RAW on Android because the implementations are so clumsy and the results are pitiful.
Indeed, to me too, the idea of having different quality raw from different cameras is plain stupid! Though I might admit it could be true given how lame the 3rd party Android cameras are. Such a shame a huge ecosystem such as Android cannot produce a fully featured and functional camera.
Btw you could also try one of the modified GCam versions with RAW enabled. Here is a nice page where you could fetch one such. Go for the stable ones, in red.
https://www.celsoazevedo.com/files/android/google-camera/
Looking forward for your results!
You clearly don't understand what RAW is, or how ****ty phone cams are under the hood
The fact that you think that FV5 is the one giving bad results just shows that you don't understand what RAW files are supposed to be.
Phones, even our allegedly amazing DSLR killing wonders of today have ridiculously tiny sensors and take garbage photos. NO qualifications here, they take garbage photos.
Through magic, detail smearing software processing, we get some usable results.
Camera FV5 is outputting a real RAW file, complete with the stupid amount of noise captures by the tiny, crappy sensor in your phone.
Camera NX is evidently doing almost as much processing as the default engine and not outputting a real RAW file at all.
If you're wondering why Google downplays RAW support, it's because they know that for most people it will just reveal how crappy the camera really is and how much software trickery is going on.
Bingley said:
Interesting post, thanks for sharing. Have you considered doing stock v nx v LR v manual cam & compare in lightroom side by side? I know with my 5X the hdr auto was visibly worse wrt detail than hdr on, and dng was another step up to that, basically incredibly detailed.
Does nx raw use hdr with the new 8.1 update enabling the visual core? Or will say manual camera use hdr+enhanced in it's raw outputs?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't tried since the 8.1 update. A little busy at the moment with my Master's unfortunately. I will try to do more comparisons in a few weeks after finals. For now I've updated the OP with some results from Lightroom's camera.
Linwood.Ferguson said:
Interesting read thanks. Did you try open camera? I experimented a bit and found the dng offered more flexibility in fixing exposure and white balance but needed a lot of noise processing to be as good as the jpg. But have been shooting both just in case I wanted to post process anything. So far haven't.
It never occurred to me that raw differed by app. That seems just wrong.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
pixelsquish said:
It does seem wrong. RAW data should be just that, all the data from the camera before anything like an app tweaks it out. So yeah, it makes zero sense.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't shoot the messenger! The RAW files are definitely different, unsure why, likely due to API differences and when the RAW files is read in the image pipeline.
dehnhaide said:
Hi, good thread!
I have somehow given up on RAW on Android because the implementations are so clumsy and the results are pitiful.
Indeed, to me too, the idea of having different quality raw from different cameras is plain stupid! Though I might admit it could be true given how lame the 3rd party Android cameras are. Such a shame a huge ecosystem such as Android cannot produce a fully featured and functional camera.
Btw you could also try one of the modified GCam versions with RAW enabled. Here is a nice page where you could fetch one such. Go for the stable ones, in red.
https://www.celsoazevedo.com/files/android/google-camera/
Looking forward for your results!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
CameraNX is the same as the modded Google camera with RAW support.
lordfarqaud said:
The fact that you think that FV5 is the one giving bad results just shows that you don't understand what RAW files are supposed to be.
Phones, even our allegedly amazing DSLR killing wonders of today have ridiculously tiny sensors and take garbage photos. NO qualifications here, they take garbage photos.
Through magic, detail smearing software processing, we get some usable results.
Camera FV5 is outputting a real RAW file, complete with the stupid amount of noise captures by the tiny, crappy sensor in your phone.
Camera NX is evidently doing almost as much processing as the default engine and not outputting a real RAW file at all.
If you're wondering why Google downplays RAW support, it's because they know that for most people it will just reveal how crappy the camera really is and how much software trickery is going on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah this is where you're wrong. The actual RAW files you seem to be talking about are not debayered or processed in any way, the RAW files we traditionally talk about (DNG, NEF, CR2) are all already processed by the app or camera logic in some way to be as flat and neutral as possible whilst containing more info in shadows, highlights etc.
That's why we see difference in the output, the apps are processing the RAW output differently. The camera in the Pixel is still a good sensor, just that the software magic makes it the best in the industry. There is still merit to shooting in RAW compared to the jpeg output.
I am surprised that you guys don't know the difference.
Google's HDR+ captures multiple images (allegedly up to 8 or 10) in order to improve the image quality(noise, colors, dynamic range). But when you take a raw photo with a 3rd party app, you get worse image quality because usually the raw file relies on a single image.
Adobe's HDR raw automatically combines raw files (probably two or three) for a better dynamic range.
The NX app is a modified Google camera app. Therefore the app contains Google's HDR+ algorithm. Apparently Google's camera app has the option to use HDR+ for the raw files (so multiple raw files are combined for a much better image quality), but Google hasn't activated the feature yet. But apparently the developer of the NX app found a way to activate it.
I hope that Google activates this feature soon, so then we don't need a 3rd party apk anymore.
Ah this is where you're wrong. The actual RAW files you seem to be talking about are not debayered or processed in any way
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A raw file contains, or should contain raw, "undebayered" sensor data. The processing software (lightroom, camera raw, etc, does the demosaicing.
the RAW files we traditionally talk about (DNG, NEF, CR2) are all already processed by the app or camera logic in some way to be as flat and neutral as possible whilst containing more info in shadows, highlights etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's true that most camera makers probably mess with their raw data prior to some degree prior to saving the data, but it's not correct to say that the files are already processed by the app. Most apps will apply a default profile when you open the file, but nothing is processed until you, er, process it.
That's why we see difference in the output, the apps are processing the RAW output differently.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They certainly are, in that Camera NX is processing it to such a degree that it's can hardly be claimed to be a RAW file anymore, and FV5 is giving something that appears to have been barely touched, as it should.
The camera in the Pixel is still a good sensor, just that the software magic makes it the best in the industry.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's a good sensor compared to other smartphone sensors, but it's still a piece of garbage in absolute terms, which is why it only looks good with that software "magic".
There is still merit to shooting in RAW compared to the jpeg output.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed, nothing to do with the point I was making, which is that Camera NX is not giving better RAW output, it's not giving RAW output at all. And if you truly do want to see what the sensor is actually capturing, and work with that, only Camera FV5 in this comparison appears to be giving you that.
Should anyone be following this thread the new Pixel 3 camera apk is available and works on the Pixel 2 - it now has native raw support, and frankly it's great - jpegs still look ****e up close, whereas raw/dng files it produces are so clear it's amazing how Google manages to mangle the jpegs in cam!

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