Portrait mode ruined by new camera update? - Google Pixel 4 XL Questions & Answers

Just wanted to see if anyone else has noticed this. I was noticing how Portrait Mode on my new Pixel 4XL seems way worse than my Pixel 3XL was. Specifically, edge detection is awful. I’m seeing the same thing MKBHD talked about in his review when he showed how the cutout around Portrait Mode pictures he took of his dog were just awful. I’m getting that constantly. But I did some experimenting and found something interesting. If I go into the Google store and “uninstall” the camera app, it reverts back to version 7.0.019.X, and then Portrait Mode works like a champ again. But as soon as I update to 7.2.011.X, edge detection falls off a cliff.
I’ve attached two quick portrait shots I did of my hand. One was with the app at 7.0 and the other was moments later after updating to 7.2.
Anyone else noticing this? Any thoughts?

I'm on 7.2.011.276470382, and I did a hand test similar to yours and it came out perfect.

Kevin-DC said:
Just wanted to see if anyone else has noticed this. I was noticing how Portrait Mode on my new Pixel 4XL seems way worse than my Pixel 3XL was. Specifically, edge detection is awful. I’m seeing the same thing MKBHD talked about in his review when he showed how the cutout around Portrait Mode pictures he took of his dog were just awful. I’m getting that constantly. But I did some experimenting and found something interesting. If I go into the Google store and “uninstall” the camera app, it reverts back to version 7.0.019.X, and then Portrait Mode works like a champ again. But as soon as I update to 7.2.011.X, edge detection falls off a cliff.
I’ve attached two quick portrait shots I did of my hand. One was with the app at 7.0 and the other was moments later after updating to 7.2.
Anyone else noticing this? Any thoughts?
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I have noticed the same issues, but it's been a little more inconsistent for me... Some shots come out great, and some are just useless! I also don't like how we can't use the standard lens for portrait, I'd like to have the option. I've also noticed how crappy 2x zoom looks in the viewfinder and it's only after the shot is taken + processed it looks normal.

Demolition49 said:
I have noticed the same issues, but it's been a little more inconsistent for me... Some shots come out great, and some are just useless! I also don't like how we can't use the standard lens for portrait, I'd like to have the option. I've also noticed how crappy 2x zoom looks in the viewfinder and it's only after the shot is taken + processed it looks normal.
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I should have clarified in my original post - it doesn't fail at portrait mode all the time with the latest app update. It's been inconsistent for me too. But I'd say for me, it only nails a portrait shot about one time in four, and even then, it doesn't seem any better than my Pixel 3's portrait shots were.
There's another weird bug I've been experiencing. Pretty often, I'll take a portrait shot and after it processes, no effect will be applied. But it will still save as a portrait shot. I'll go into the photos app, and I'll have two pictures saved. And when I edit the portrait shot, and select the blur effect and retap to focus on the same point I tapped on in the view finder, suddenly the effect is applied (and looks pretty good too, when it works). All in all I'm pretty disappointed so far. When it works, the Pixel 4 takes amazing portrait shots, better than my iPhone 11 Pro Max. But my iPhone is far more consistent - it gives me very good portraits every single time, whereas my Pixel is giving me portraits that are either great, or garbage.
Also, just a few more fun facts - contrary to what a lot of people are saying, the Pixel 4 does not use the telephoto lens to take portraits. You can check this yourself. Cover up the telephoto lens with your finger, and go into portrait mode - you'll see that the viewfinder is still clear. It's also not a 2x zoom. If you rewatch the presentation when the Pixel was announced, the guy on stage referred to it as "approximately" 2x. But it's actually about 1.85x. When you go into portrait the mode, the main lens crops in about 1.85 times, so it and the telephoto lens have the same frame but with different focal lengths and slightly different angles, to provide additional depth data. But the picture is being taken with the main sensor, not the telephoto.

Kevin-DC said:
Also, just a few more fun facts - contrary to what a lot of people are saying, the Pixel 4 does not use the telephoto lens to take portraits. You can check this yourself. Cover up the telephoto lens with your finger, and go into portrait mode - you'll see that the viewfinder is still clear. It's also not a 2x zoom. If you rewatch the presentation when the Pixel was announced, the guy on stage referred to it as "approximately" 2x. But it's actually about 1.85x. When you go into portrait the mode, the main lens crops in about 1.85 times, so it and the telephoto lens have the same frame but with different focal lengths and slightly different angles, to provide additional depth data. But the picture is being taken with the main sensor, not the telephoto.
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It's no different than what used to happen on my Pixel 2 XL. I guess everyone is all crazy about it because the Pixel 3 doesn't do that at all?
Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk

Related

Camera Focusing Problems??

There seems to be issues with focusing on objects on the 13MP camera of this new X.
I was trying to take some snaps in really good lighting of my old Moto X so I could throw it on eBay but I just couldn't get it to focus at all. In the end, I had to enable the object mode.
I agree. I have the same problem takes forever to focus. That is really the one big let down of this phone. The camera sucks. My friends new Iphone 6 which is only 8 mega pixel takes way better photos..
falcon26 said:
I agree. I have the same problem takes forever to focus. That is really the one big let down of this phone. The camera sucks. My friends new Iphone 6 which is only 8 mega pixel takes way better photos..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it is sad, because the LG G2 has the same problem, after a while with an update to kitkat they improved focusing speeds, but still not close to being fast.
ANd new motoX uses the same camera chip that is in the G2.... allthough with some modification to camera software through custom roms and camera firmware, it gets better.
When and if someone will mod this camera is a question... so sad to hear this as I was planning on getting new motox, as i own the old one now and its an amazing smooth phone with bad camera...
It really is a shame other than the camera I love the phone. Switched from nexus 5 cause I wanted an amoled display
I'll download the Google camera app to see if it's any better.
If not, I might get in contact with Motorola about it being a defect to see if they help.
Y'all know there's a setting to manually focus right? It puts out a crosshair that you drag around to adjust focus wherever you want in the viewfinder. Very handy, the entire experience makes more sense now.
borxnx said:
Y'all know there's a setting to manually focus right? It puts out a crosshair that you drag around to adjust focus wherever you want in the viewfinder. Very handy, the entire experience makes more sense now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes this is the only way to get any focus. The normal camera mode doesn't really focus properly which is more my concern.
Camera Zoom FX
So first thing I did upon getting this phone was tried take a bunch of pictures. I am a heavy phone camera user (I have cats), but I realize the drawbacks of using a camera on a phone. The stock camera is just terrible, even with the focus cross hairs. It just takes pictures whenever you tap the screen and I am not cool with that, especially when I am trying to take a close up shot. I messed with lighting etc. no luck.
I tried google camera. Still eh. Google camera is better though.
I decided to try Camera Zoom FX and it works really well. Pictures are amazing in comparison to stock camera.
Overall, If you are just taking landscape/scenery shots then stock camera is good. For anything close up, try Camera Zoom FX.
With focus control activated it works good for me.

[Quest] Best camera settings?

Hello, today is my first day with xz1c. I noticed that photos are really bads.
My settings are on 19 mpx. Maybe I have to set other? And what about best manual settings?
P.s.: album app take lot of time on loading completely pictures, why?
Thanks in advice
This topic has been mentioned before in the discussion thread
I've read that thread, but no found answers to my questions
The best pictures I have achieved have been in manual mode. You're right to set it to 19mp as this uses all the available pixels on the sensor.
Take the ISO down to 80 or 100, then adjust the shutter speed down to 15th of a second or the slowest possible for the picture. For best results hold the phone still for two or three seconds to get the correct focus, I know in the PR blurb it mentions superfast laser focus, but of all the Sony compacts I've owned, this is the slowest to focus.
The phone takes its best pictures on a tripod, strange but true. There are several phone tripods that come with bluetooth shutter release, play with 1 second shutter speed at dawn or twilight for some amazing colours.
HDR is supposed to work in Auto mode, but rarely does. You can turn it on in manual mode, but this will disable any manual settings you have set up, so remember to renable them once you've finished taking the HDR pic.
HDR doesn't always take the best picture, playing with shutter speed and ISO will give you the best results.
Shooting in macro seems to be problematic, I found it actually focuses a lot closer if you switch to using the Sony Bokeh app, which is excellent.
The super wide angle lens is pretty useless at catching nice vistas or landscapes, everything comes out a long way away and blurry, but it is good at portraits and medium distance 5 -10 ft objects.
The wide angle selfie camera is superb and catches so much of what's happening around you.
Don’t forget to turn off object tracking.
Edit: get a case for the phone that protects the lens. Although the lens is gorilla glass, it still scratches easily. So find a case that prevents anything from touching it when it's placed face down on a surface. Don't put the phone in a pocket with keys/coins. It also benefits from a wipe with a clean cloth every now and then, although it looks clean, the very nature of a phone is that you're handling it all the time and the lens gets covered in grimy prints, a quick wipe can make a huge difference.

Camera Problems

Hi,
Currently in the .153 firmware and have noticed a couple of camera problems and just wanted to see does anyone else have the same problems or know a solution.
First problem I noticed is sometimes when I take a picture and go to view it using the gallery button in the camera it will say "loading" and it will stay like that and then I'll either get a could not connect to camera error or the camera will crash and the picture won't be saved. This seems to be solved with a reboot.
Secondly I noticed that when using the 5x zoom it appears to not use the dedicated zoom lens and instead using digital zoom from the main lens. Clearing the data and cache fixes this issue for a period until I comes back.
HOLOYOLO said:
Hi,
Currently in the .153 firmware and have noticed a couple of camera problems and just wanted to see does anyone else have the same problems or know a solution.
First problem I noticed is sometimes when I take a picture and go to view it using the gallery button in the camera it will say "loading" and it will stay like that and then I'll either get a could not connect to camera error or the camera will crash and the picture won't be saved. This seems to be solved with a reboot.
Secondly I noticed that when using the 5x zoom it appears to not use the dedicated zoom lens and instead using digital zoom from the main lens. Clearing the data and cache fixes this issue for a period until I comes back.
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I have also noticed the zooming not using the main zoom lens you could hear it before but you cant hear the lens anymore since the update so they have bust the camera in the update ?
Mine seems to zoom okay
When there's not enough light for the tele lens to expose correctly the phone will switch to the main lens and then apply digital zoom. This is because the main lens has higher aperture (lower f/number) and therefore it will let pass more light to the sensor than the tele lens
Stolz said:
When there's not enough light for the tele lens to expose correctly the phone will switch to the main lens and then apply digital zoom. This is because the main lens has higher aperture (lower f/number) and therefore it will let pass more light to the sensor than the tele lens
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I don't think this is the problem for me because I noticed this happening outdoors in nice sunny areas.
The latest updates has many camera bugs even using light painting mode. Silky water feature does not work very well even in other light painting modes which produces around 700kb file only instead of more than 2mb.
SO how does that 5x optical zoom work? Everything beneath 5x is not optical, is that right? Or does it depends on the light conditions?
drcldrcl said:
SO how does that 5x optical zoom work? Everything beneath 5x is not optical, is that right? Or does it depends on the light conditions?
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Most of the time, 0.6x, 1x and 5x zooms are purely optical, any other zoom is not. But as stated before in certain light conditions 5x can be non purely optical
I've noticed the same issue with the camera lenses and was surprised, that the quality of the results differs a lot even with the same focal lenght!
The phone does not always chose the lens you actually want to use. I did a few tests on that by covering each lens when changing from wide to 1x to 5x (that 10x is digitally zoomed is obvious). Everything in between is digitally zoomed (or cropped?) as well of course.
Please see attached pictures. Both on "5x" - 135mm focal lenght, but of course with different aperture (F3.4 vs. F1.6), exposure (1/30s vs. 1/120s) and ISO (200 vs. 80). This indicates quite accurate, that the phone uses the main lens (1x) with digital zoom in some situations, which is a mess! You cannot force the phone to use one lens, that's the issue, even in pro mode. It seems the phone decides which lens to pick on the available light (of course the main lens has the larger aperture), but digital zoom is a really bad solution!
As you guys mentioned, this issue is the same with videos!
I have not found any solution or how to chose one explicit lens. Hope an update will make that possible...
I'm on 153 also but didn't have any problems with lenses so far..altough I can tell it sometimes takes some time to switch the lens between the main and tele lens..you can tell because picture sudennly "clears out" while composing a shot.
I noticed different problem. When using slow motion video above 120fps resolution is horrible and focus is extremely slow.
I did experience some camera crashes while doing macro photography but continued to use the camera and phone normally without rebooting.
Same Problems, maybe even worse...
Hi,
I'm having the same problems but after the picture does not load in my gallery, it becomes just a green picture... My phone is been to the store 5 times now, i've had a new one, but i'm experiencing the same issues.
Is there a solution yet?
I have exactly the same issue with regular P30
Telephoto lens was working fine with EMUI 9.1, but since EMUI 10 any zoomed pictures results in a blurry mess, in order to use telephoto you have to switch to Pro mode AND enable RAW output, otherwise it won't work
This surely looks like a bug in the camera software

Telephoto lens not being used after update

HI all
I'm using a Samsung Galaxy S10, and I've noticed that a recent update changed the default camera app behaviour.; it now shows three zoom levels whereas previously it showed leaves indicating the lens it was using. This in itself isn't an issue, however what is an issue is that I can't get the camera app to use the telephoto lens.
I'd initially assumed that the three zoom numbers correlated with the three different leaf icons that we used to have. However, now that I've looked further that's not the case for the telephoto.
I tested this by covering the wide angle lens, and switching to it - sure enough, just my finger. Moved my finger across to the middle lens, switched to "x1", sure enough, finger. Moved my finger to the telephoto lens, press the "x2" button, and I still see the picture, indicating that the phone didn't switch to the telephoto lens, but it's just digitally zoomed in the standard lens picture (which explains why photos taken this way look poor). The same happens whichever zoom level I choose - none of them seem to use the telephoto lens.
Is anyone else experiencing the same thing, or does anyone know how to get the phone to use the telephoto lens correctly like it used to?
Thanks in advance!
I'm seeing the same behavior... so I agree this seems odd. I do have the 3 leaf icons (I thought they were trees, but either way). I'm testing on the S10+ in case that matters, but it may not. Android 11, December 2021 patch level.
A quick search showed me this thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/galaxys10/comments/bqvd1e
There it says the phone won't use the telephoto lens if there isn't enough light. My test now is at night, with interior lighting... which may not be enough. We'll have to try on a sunny day outside (tomorrow won't be sunny here, so maybe you can get to test more quickly than I will).
schwinn8 said:
I'm seeing the same behavior... so I agree this seems odd. I do have the 3 leaf icons (I thought they were trees, but either way). I'm testing on the S10+ in case that matters, but it may not. Android 11, December 2021 patch level.
A quick search showed me this thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/galaxys10/comments/bqvd1e
There it says the phone won't use the telephoto lens if there isn't enough light. My test now is at night, with interior lighting... which may not be enough. We'll have to try on a sunny day outside (tomorrow won't be sunny here, so maybe you can get to test more quickly than I will).
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Yep, I just figured out the same thing - covering the lens with my finger makes the phone use the normal lens. Holding my finger further away I can see it shift to the tele lens, so it does seem like it's using it. Perhaps it's just a bit more picky about when it uses that lens.
Agreed, I just tested this too, as there's enough light right now. The telephoto does engage, and then when I go to cover it, it senses the low light and you can hear a click as it shifts over to normal cam with digital zoom... and my finger then disappears from the image.
Smart, but confusing. I wish you could just force the lens you want, and handle the light yourself (ie, if you're in pro-mode, for example) but there doesn't appear to be a way to do that...

Question Camera - Black vertical lines

Observing black vertical lines on the screen when using back or front camera. These lines are also imprinted on the photos. I am attaching screenshot and a video of the issue
Anybody else running into the issue?
Pixel version - TD1A.221105.001
Camera version - 8.7.165.479933554.19
mohan_168 said:
Observing black vertical lines on the screen when using back or front camera. These lines are also imprinted on the photos. I am attaching screenshot and a video of the issue
Anybody else running into the issue?
Pixel version - TD1A.221105.001
Camera version - 8.7.165.479933554.19
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, dude,
This is a normal physical effect, which is called 'Antbamding' (50 or 60Hz).
in previous versions there was an option in camera settings "Antbanding" to minimize that effect.
for more Info 'google' it!
I do not see any option in Gcam for anti-banding
I am also experiencing this, vertical bars for BOTH front and back camera. Was at restaurants in low light environment and took these, using portrait mode, night mode and normal mode.
Yes, this is the same issue I have experienced on both front and back camera in artificial lights.
Seen this during day time, indoor shoot as well as night time indoor shoot
Ok. That's 2 of us... Is this normal/expected camera processor behavior or do we have defective units??
A couple others have reported this as well. Even in few of the youtube videos comparing Pixel 7 with other smartphones, I was able to catch this on pixel 7/pro display.
I do not believe this is affecting just vanilla 7, but 7 pro as well.
I hope others chime in with their experience by shooting under different light conditions.
I had such a problem when I put on a cover. It turns out that there is a sensor between the two cameras, and my cover did not have a hole for this sensor. I had to make a hole myself. Everything is fine now. My pixel 7.
madgit said:
I had such a problem when I put on a cover. It turns out that there is a sensor between the two cameras, and my cover did not have a hole for this sensor. I had to make a hole myself. Everything is fine now. My pixel 7.
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Click to collapse
What case/cover it is?
I have the same issue...
Issue is seen even without any case/cover in my case
Workaround - Start the camera in selfie mode and after 1 second switch to back camera.
Update; i exchanged phone as it was new and replacement phone does same thing, so it is a " bad behavior". Work around is to play with the lightness bar when taking pic. Banding stops at a certain point, but what a pain..
This isn't a defect per se, it's image banding.
Likely from LED lighting.
Try decreasing the shutter speed under a 100th of a second while keeping the exposure like in pro mode.
blackhawk said:
This isn't a defect per se, it's image banding.
Likely from LED lighting.
Try decreasing the shutter speed under a 100th of a second while keeping the exposure like in pro mode.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are no such options in Google Camera app. I see the same response being posted all over the internet for such problems (reported on Pixel 6, Pixel 6 pro etc.)
mohan_168 said:
There are no such options in Google Camera app. I see the same response being posted all over the internet for such problems (reported on Pixel 6, Pixel 6 pro etc.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's a normal digital camera phenomenon, not a defect. That said I can't get my N10+ to do it with LED lighting. These ones probably aren't pulse modulated though.
Use the phone's led, another led light source or incandescent lighting to back fill the shot. You need to slow the shutter speed otherwise or shoot at a higher ISO.

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