[Q] Can't focus farther than 3 feet. Defective camera? - T-Mobile Galaxy Note 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I've been enjoying my Note 4 for a day now, until I tried to take photos tonight. I can get sharp focus on objects closer than 3 feet consistently, even in low light. All camera apps are behaving the same, so I'm testing in the Instagram app since it has a red/green focus confirmation indicator. Anything farther away and it's out of focus. In bright light, you can't tell, since the lens is stopped down (increasing depth of field), but in dim light, focus is obviously blurry on distant objects. Has anyone experienced this? Most likely I have a defective camera, no?

Lucent said:
I've been enjoying my Note 4 for a day now, until I tried to take photos tonight. I can get sharp focus on objects closer than 3 feet consistently, even in low light. All camera apps are behaving the same, so I'm testing in the Instagram app since it has a red/green focus confirmation indicator. Anything farther away and it's out of focus. In bright light, you can't tell, since the lens is stopped down (increasing depth of field), but in dim light, focus is obviously blurry on distant objects. Has anyone experienced this? Most likely I have a defective camera, no?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You did peel the plastic off the lens right?. Post a pic .
NOTE 4

experiencing this aswell, anyone got a fix?

dcuell12 said:
experiencing this aswell, anyone got a fix?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm almost certain it was defective. I returned it and got another and it does not have this problem at all.

Taking mine back too. Doesn't focus even when I tap on screen.

Related

[Q] Rear camera blur problem. Anyone?

This is my first post here, so first of all, hello everyone and greetings from Finland!
I bought the IS about two weeks ago. Today I took my first outdoor pics and noticed a strange phenomenon. If I focus on a distant object (typical for outdoor shots), the extreme right-hand side of the photo is quite mushy and blurred. The affected area is only about 200 pixels wide (starting from the edge) and goes all the way from top to bottom. Everything else, including the left side, is tack sharp (well, as sharp as it can be with this camera anyway). This happens with every photo, if the focusing distance is relatively long. Close-range shots (indoor pics, for example) are just fine, also the right-hand sides of the photos turn out sharp. This is very strange.
I'm a very experienced photographer, so it's not my technique. Something is wrong with the optics alignment, sensor or it could be a software issue. With optical problems the close-range shots are usually more problematic because of short depth-of-field, which makes the alignment errors much more visible.
Anyone else having similar experiences? Take an outdoor shot using a focusing distance of, let's say, 20-50 meters (or yards) and see if the right side of the image is as sharp as the left side. Make sure there's something with lots of detail near the edges of the image. I would be much less worried, if both sides of the photos were softish. After all, that would be quite typical for less-than-stellar optics found in camera phones. It's the asymmetry that bothers me.
This is actually my only gripe with this phone. Apart from this unpleasant surprise I really like the IS.
Pete
P.S. No fingerprints on the lens, it's clean!
There's an ongoing thread about the camera quality issue.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1021940
chobie said:
There's an ongoing thread about the camera quality issue.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1021940
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the tip!
I did a bit more controlled experimenting and sadly it seems that also close-distance shots suffer from the same right-hand side blurriness. If I take a photo of a completely flat surface, focusing on the center part of the viewing area, the extreme right-hand side of the photo is soft. There's nothing wrong with the left-hand side. Also, the affected area is almost 400 pixels wide (wide angle setting, no zooming). I also rotated the phone 180 degrees and took comparison shots. And...the left-hand side was blurry.
Maybe I have a bad sample. I can't exchange it for a new one, so I guess I have to live with it or have the local HTC service take a look at it. I'm not too keen on doing that.
Pete
Nothing like this in mine. Photos are good. No blur at the right.
cooljais said:
Nothing like this in mine. Photos are good. No blur at the right.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your comment, good to know your camera is working fine!
I'm suspecting there's dirt inside the lens assembly or on the sensor. My IS is now being serviced at the local HTC service center. I'll let you know how this turns out.
Guess caused by auto focusing

Camera Tint? Blue?

Anyone else notice their stock camera taking more blueish photos in various lighting?
I primarily use Camera 360, and that seems to compensate for the blue stock camera tint?
But, I must say the stock camera app is quite nice.
I am not seeing that on my camera, but I have only snapped a couple of pics in bright light and have not checked on the computer.
Are you sure your camera is not set to "Blue Tint"? On the bottom of the camera is a bar you can slide to open, the second item has options for different camera modes.
yes, I did notice this. Seems to depend on the lighting.
I've noticed a blue tint with the flash on in lower light indoor pictures. I think the camera will take some adjustments to work well. Outside it took pictures just fine. I had to have the flash off the for almost all indoor pictures.
It's definitely blue-ish/whited out with the flash and I use Vignette.
Hopefully a software update will help correct this a little bit.
pekosROB said:
It's definitely blue-ish/whited out with the flash and I use Vignette.
Hopefully a software update will help correct this a little bit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Noticed this right away as well, mainly in fluorescent light. This is definitely correctable via software and from what I understand is a known issue on a very long list of known issues for this device.
Another thing I thought of - when a friend of mine got the OG Droid back in the day when it came out, I was very impressed with the camera and camcorder.
With the DX2 and D3 I'm a bit disappointed, it's almost like they took a step back. I feel like the OG Droid is better at video and photos than my Xoom as well.
Does anyone else feel like their cameras have gotten a little worse over time? I remember the Razr had some of the sharpest 1.3 MP photos (as well as Samsung and of course Nokia has always kicked ass in the photo department).
Wow, 1.3 MP... that's like the standard for a lot of front facing cameras that aren't VGA. Oh, and the 2 MP FF camera on the Xoom is grainy as **** in artificial lighting.
Other than the camera and battery issues, I LOOOOVEEE this D3. I miss a keyboard too much. And I feel like this screen is less grainy than the DX2 (but from what I gather the screen resolution would look denser on a smaller screen, right, since it's not spread out as much with the same pixels?).

Performance difference between Omnivision, ST, and Sharp camera modules mic quality.

So I might be getting another replacement One, and I'm wondering if the new Omnivision modules that they've started using are any good.. I was reading the specs on the website (model: OV4688) and it seems that it doesn't offer OIS, it says Electronic Image Stabilization on their website. Also, I read somewhere that they're very poor in low light.. Anyone got proof to back these up? Any pictures to show the differences between these? Also, any difference in the mic audio quality between the old and new batches?
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk
BumP!!
Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk
n1234d said:
BumP!!
Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So I wrote about this in one of the purple camera fix threads. First I'll see I haven't noticed any puple/pink hues in any pics in lowlight. It seems to be performing well in that area. I also don't have a pink spot in the middle.
Occasionally in the outer edges I might notice some green tint in low light - particularly in rooms that have a shade of green in them already. It doesn't however grow and get worse. Its just the outer fringes. When I switch the camera from wide to regular crop it pretty much goes away. If not, its easily fixed with a quick touchup by adjusting the saturation with a custom effect in the gallery or just using aviary and the one click color fix. Also you can avoid it all together by adjusting saturation down a notch in the camera settings before taking a pic.
However.....what I have noticed is that in indoor lighting, even good lighting, the video recording frames per second maxes out at like 19-20. This is kind of a bummer. I mean I've turned on a all the lights in a really well lit room and could not achieve what I could in fps compared to the old sensor. I've tried different camera apps and they all max out at 19-20 in these light conditions, which tells me that its most likely set in the kernel. I wonder if this sensor has not been optimized fully by HTC yet. I think they've worked with three different sensors so far: ST electronics, Sharp, and Omnivision. Perhaps its hard to accomidate them all in the kernel - but I'm just speculating. there.
My compromise is to shoot indoor video at the 60fps mode, because that caps out indoors at 40fps.
I've fully tested video outdoors and even this morning indoors when there was no artificial light source and it recorded at a full 30 fps.
If what I think is true - that its not fully optimized at the kernel level it could be something HTC can push out in an update. Perhaps its hard for them to try to support 3 different sensors and find a balance...But this is just speculation on my part. Now I've lived in the same house and conditions for the past year and the old sensor had an edge up on fps than the Omni. I looked at some old videos shot indoors last night and fps was hovering around 29-30. So far this is my only gripe.
A note about the Sensor:
Early on Brian at AnandTech when he reviewed the One talked a bit about the Sensor HTC used when building the first Ones, and he also compared the ST sensor to the Omnivision sensor, because that Omni made its debut at the 2013 CES. Here is his review:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6747/htc-one-review/5
I find it interesting that 2 companies made identical sensors, ST and Omnivision according to Brian.
Overall I'm happy I sent my device in and had the sensor replaced, because in the end, no amount of quick photo tools or photoshop would help the purple tint issue.
Hope this helps.
gustav30 said:
So I wrote about this in one of the purple camera fix threads. First I'll see I haven't noticed any puple/pink hues in any pics in lowlight. It seems to be performing well in that area. I also don't have a pink spot in the middle.
Occasionally in the outer edges I might notice some green tint in low light - particularly in rooms that have a shade of green in them already. It doesn't however grow and get worse. Its just the outer fringes. When I switch the camera from wide to regular crop it pretty much goes away. If not, its easily fixed with a quick touchup by adjusting the saturation with a custom effect in the gallery or just using aviary and the one click color fix. Also you can avoid it all together by adjusting saturation down a notch in the camera settings before taking a pic.
However.....what I have noticed is that in indoor lighting, even good lighting, the video recording frames per second maxes out at like 19-20. This is kind of a bummer. I mean I've turned on a all the lights in a really well lit room and could not achieve what I could in fps compared to the old sensor. I've tried different camera apps and they all max out at 19-20 in these light conditions, which tells me that its most likely set in the kernel. I wonder if this sensor has not been optimized fully by HTC yet. I think they've worked with three different sensors so far: ST electronics, Sharp, and Omnivision. Perhaps its hard to accomidate them all in the kernel - but I'm just speculating. there.
My compromise is to shoot indoor video at the 60fps mode, because that caps out indoors at 40fps.
I've fully tested video outdoors and even this morning indoors when there was no artificial light source and it recorded at a full 30 fps.
If what I think is true - that its not fully optimized at the kernel level it could be something HTC can push out in an update. Perhaps its hard for them to try to support 3 different sensors and find a balance...But this is just speculation on my part. Now I've lived in the same house and conditions for the past year and the old sensor had an edge up on fps than the Omni. I looked at some old videos shot indoors last night and fps was hovering around 29-30. So far this is my only gripe.
A note about the Sensor:
Early on Brian at AnandTech when he reviewed the One talked a bit about the Sensor HTC used when building the first Ones, and he also compared the ST sensor to the Omnivision sensor, because that Omni made its debut at the 2013 CES. Here is his review:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6747/htc-one-review/5
I find it interesting that 2 companies made identical sensors, ST and Omnivision according to Brian.
Overall I'm happy I sent my device in and had the sensor replaced, because in the end, no amount of quick photo tools or photoshop would help the purple tint issue.
Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the info!

Spots on camera

Hi
I have a camera issue on my note 8. At night time I get these bright spots near any bright light source. I've attached a picture to show this. The spots move position on the screen as I move the phone around. Anyone else got this? My camera lens in clean.
I believe it is from the refraction of the light thru the glass over the lens. Happens all the time with a bright light source going through a filter or other glass materials.
bobafx said:
I believe it is from the refraction of the light thru the glass over the lens. Happens all the time with a bright light source going through a filter or other glass materials.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks but I've never seen this before. Can anyone else replicate this?
try wiping the camera
I tried wiping the lens - it is clean and clear.
Here is a video of the problem - the movement of the spots tells me this is not a hot pixel on the CCD but something else bobafx is likely right about refraction, but I have never had this issue with a camera before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4gUL6ab_Bk
I tried wiping the lens - it is clean and clear.
Here is a video of the problem - the movement of the spots tells me this is not a hot pixel on the CCD but something else bobafx is likely right about refraction, but I have never had this issue with a camera before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4gUL6ab_Bk
guys (and gals) this may be a common problem with this phone, see here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p99ZbHlKhLA
at various points (55s - 1:08s) you can see the dot I've talked about
and also see here:
https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/Galaxy-Note-Phones/NOTE-8-CAMERA-PROBLEM/td-p/162640
im currently talking to samsung on chat about this...
I have the same issue with my note 8. So i checked other Samsung phones, 3 different galaxy s7, galaxy s7 edge and galaxy s8+. All of the phones have the exact same dots when in low light near a light source.
Sent from my SM-N950F using Tapatalk
Is this issue on USA models only that use Sony sensors? Just took this video.
https://youtu.be/THUk5AY6r0s
Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk
I'm still not seeing this on my cameras. I've been going out in front of my house at night and shooting inside my house and at the gas station and other spots during the night and I'm not seeing it.
Got the same problem, strangely enough I've never noticed something like this in my Note 5 so I think this is specific to either my unit (or a batch) or the entire Note 8 model.
Now I can't test my note 5's camera as the glass is cracked.
Attached are some sample photos from me - I must admit this is a pretty annoying issue.
I need to find someone at work with a Note 8 and do a direct comparison. If I succeed, I'll update you guys with my findings.
@msx999 Let me know the result of your contact with Samsung (if you ever have any) please.
Are you talking about the light from the street light reflecting from glass back of the phone and hitting the street? Maybe because back is like mirror and reflects light back, like a mirror? It would be easy fix, put the cover on, or tape something non reflective on the back as a temporary fix. Either that or I'm not seeing what you see.
pete4k said:
Are you talking about the light from the street light reflecting from glass back of the phone and hitting the street? Maybe because back is like mirror and reflects light back, like a mirror? It would be easy fix, put the cover on, or tape something non reflective on the back as a temporary fix. Either that or I'm not seeing what you see.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi pete4k, I'm talking about the light reflections from the car's lights and the street lights as highlighted on the photos.
You can move the location of those reflections just by tilting the phone - it's happening within the lens or between the len's glass and the image sensor.
mateuszd said:
Hi pete4k, I'm talking about the light reflections from the car's lights and the street lights as highlighted on the photos.
You can move the location of those reflections just by tilting the phone - it's happening within the lens or between the len's glass and the image sensor.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi Maciekd
I still think at least some of the pics show reflection of the street light off the back of the phone, acting like a mirror. The angle and shape of the the reflection seem to be right. But maybe I'm wrong, maybe it is something reflecting inside the cam, but I have not seen it on my pics to investigate more, however I did see the light reflections off the back, so was thinking maybe it's the same, but if it's not, it's not.
I think this is indeed reflection. But I don't think eveyone is having the same issue.
I think this might be an issue limited to my unit or maybe some batch.
Dot defect reflection problem on note 8
I have the same problem exactly.
Been replaced the camera part and the result is still the same but minimize the dot's size only. But still annoying to have this problem at the note 8 compare to its price.
Even before clicking take shoot or recording, I can see there are dots in display.
just wondering. Not all unit have this issue. I've seen a post that no dot defect at all from other forum.
So it maybe only some unit have the problem.
Will going back to Samsung service center and ask a replacement unit. See if approve or not.
The same problem, note 8, Europe, bright moving spots, never seen before on older models...
Same
Yes..Same thing for me. Only when you are shooting something that is directly flaring like lights or something blindly at night but once you out focus them. The camera is just fine
everytme i take a night time video with lights near by I get these tiny dots... look at link below for more.
https://youtu.be/iwINYSt__oE
guys is this a physical defect? I need to know asap..

Please help with lens flares, glare, light dots I dunno what it is

Can someone please check out my pictures and video and tell me why Everytime I use.my galaxy s10+ at night I get these lens glare or flares . I was on 15 story roof top the other night and still and these light dots. Doesn't matter if I'm above or below a light source I get them. It's basically impossible to take a pic at night and not have them. I never had this issue on my 9+ or iPhone.
https://www.reddit.com/r/galaxys10/...lens/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
joeynox said:
Can someone please check out my pictures and video and tell me why Everytime I use.my galaxy s10+ at night I get these lens glare or flares . I was on 15 story roof top the other night and still and these light dots. Doesn't matter if I'm above or below a light source I get them. It's basically impossible to take a pic at night and not have them. I never had this issue on my 9+ or iPhone.
https://www.reddit.com/r/galaxys10/...lens/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Other than keeping your lens clean and changing the camera angle there isn't much you can do. It's the light reflecting off the lens. I've seen them on every phone I've owned including the Pixel 3X, Note 9, Note 8, S8+, Moto G6 and more.
I get the there's lens flares or light bouncing off the lens but this badly? I haven't seen any pictures or anything from anyone else on Reddit with what happens in my pictures. Literally any light source will do it. I could see if I was right under a lamp post but I was 15 stories above the lights and trying to take a pic of the NYC skyline from a roof top and it still happened
joeynox said:
I get the there's lens flares or light bouncing off the lens but this badly? I haven't seen any pictures or anything from anyone else on Reddit with what happens in my pictures. Literally any light source will do it. I could see if I was right under a lamp post but I was 15 stories above the lights and trying to take a pic of the NYC skyline from a roof top and it still happened
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure what else to tell you other than contact Samsung and get their explanation. Maybe they will say there is a defect in the glass but I'm sure they will come to a solution of some kind.
Misterxtc said:
Other than keeping your lens clean and changing the camera angle there isn't much you can do. It's the light reflecting off the lens. I've seen them on every phone I've owned including the Pixel 3X, Note 9, Note 8, S8+, Moto G6 and more.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I contacted them on Twitter and the support guy basically said the same thing but did say it shouldn't be as present like in this photo I took on the roof top
https://imgur.com/Sin9nXL
https://imgur.com/rbaL2Fl
There's a starburst option in the scene optimizer....try to disable that.
Sent from my SM-G975U1 using Tapatalk

Categories

Resources