Photo Pro: Am I missing something? - Sony Xperia 1 II Questions & Answers

Hey guys,
Just got mine in and was super excited to test out the camera. First off, I preface this with: I am not a pro photographer. I came from a Note 10+ and normally just point & shoot. However I was constantly disappointed with how the Note 10+ took photos of my puppy (blurry, etc). So, I was very excited to try and learn with this camera.
However, after every photo I have taken with the photo pro app, all the photos seem the same. I change ISO as a test, the photo is the same. Every setting I change in the photo pro app, nothing changes in the viewfinder. Is this normal?
Thanks.

Whelp, I am dumb. I didn't realize there was a button to click at the top right... How do I remove this thread? XD

Related

[Q] Camera pictures sharp then soft

I've posted http://forum.xda-developers.com/z3-compact/help/z3-compact-camera-z1-compact-t2899172 but having spent a couple of days I wanted to see if other are having the same issue.
Basically.. when I take a photo in any mode, the initial capture looks great, but then 0.5-1 second later Sony 'processes' the image and it looks worse 9 times out of 10. Example is if you take a picture of your hand, the initial capture shows all the skins imperfections and looks really good on the screen, a second later, it looks softer... I am not using 'face soften' or anything like that either.
Why is this the case? Can you disable the processing? I can't believe this got through Quality Control, surely people in the product testing group would have noticed this? Seems a weird flaw in the software...
rcbmulder said:
I've posted http://forum.xda-developers.com/z3-compact/help/z3-compact-camera-z1-compact-t2899172 but having spent a couple of days I wanted to see if other are having the same issue.
Basically.. when I take a photo in any mode, the initial capture looks great, but then 0.5-1 second later Sony 'processes' the image and it looks worse 9 times out of 10. Example is if you take a picture of your hand, the initial capture shows all the skins imperfections and looks really good on the screen, a second later, it looks softer... I am not using 'face soften' or anything like that either.
Why is this the case? Can you disable the processing? I can't believe this got through Quality Control, surely people in the product testing group would have noticed this? Seems a weird flaw in the software...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I totally get what you mean. It's as though when the shutter is half pressed, everything is in focus. Then when you snap, all goes blur.
I was attributing this maybe to my shaky hands, but apparently I'm not the only one having this problem.
More often I experience what you said in Manual mode. My photos are better in SA mode.
Sony Soft skin effect ruins all pictures of people
You are 100% correct. Sony has put a soft skin effect (some asian girls love it) on all pictures of faces. It automatically ruins your picture and makes it look fake.
I'm a professional photographer, but the new Xperia phones are so "smart" that they are useless on portrait pictures. Sony MUST fix this.
You can not take a normal picture of any face with the Xperia Z3 or Z3 Compact. Nobody should buy this phone before Sony fixes the issue with "Soft skin".
rcbmulder said:
I've posted http://forum.xda-developers.com/z3-compact/help/z3-compact-camera-z1-compact-t2899172 but having spent a couple of days I wanted to see if other are having the same issue.
Basically.. when I take a photo in any mode, the initial capture looks great, but then 0.5-1 second later Sony 'processes' the image and it looks worse 9 times out of 10. Example is if you take a picture of your hand, the initial capture shows all the skins imperfections and looks really good on the screen, a second later, it looks softer... I am not using 'face soften' or anything like that either.
Why is this the case? Can you disable the processing? I can't believe this got through Quality Control, surely people in the product testing group would have noticed this? Seems a weird flaw in the software...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've experienced the same thing as the OP on occasion. Sony has always had rubbish jpeg processing that destroys details, even in its high-end cameras. I really wish it would offer the option of switching noise reduction and other processing algorithms off. The Z3c camera is capable of very good quality, but the software makes taking any photo a hit-or-miss experience (janky white balance, incorrect shutter speed/ISO for scene, over processing of jpegs, etc.).
I renamed the iAuto mode to uAuto (aka Unintelligent Auto)
Does this processing still happen if you use the Google Camera app instead? My understanding is that these processing algorithms are sony-app specific and if you unlock the BL and lose your DRM keys (thanks a lot sony), you no longer get sony's denoisification/etc processing, at which point the sony camera app will behave just like any other camera app that doesn't have access to sony's processing.
This is a terrible "workaround" as sony doesn't give us a way to set google camera is default - and we can't disable these features in the sony camera app.
I've got the same problem even if I use the google's camera instead of the default one. I don't understand why we're allowed to turn off this soft skin effect even if we "turn off" with the button on option. I really hope Sony is going to fix this because it's so annoying.
Lets wait for the new android L as it will come with raw image support, so hopefully this will be a fix .
http://www.androidauthority.com/nexus-5-lollipop-camera-api-samples-540858/
And have hdr mode on 20meg pics with a toggle option. In fact the whole hdr function needs work. Its currently pathetic.
I also hate this softening. I was wondering if it would be deactivated by loosing drmkeys.
2mal16 said:
Lets wait for the new android L as it will come with raw image support, so hopefully this will be a fix .
http://www.androidauthority.com/nexus-5-lollipop-camera-api-samples-540858/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It would be preferable if Sony had software that took decent auto-mode photos in the first place. RAW support would be nice, but half the time I don't want to be editing photos, I just want to take a quick photo and post it online. Preferably an photo that's sharp, with decent white balance, some detail left at high-ISO, and no pink spot in the middle -- four major things that are not guaranteed with the camera now. Not to mention the fact that the file size for a RAW 20MP image (often over 30MB) will lead to storage space filling up fast.
pipspeak said:
It would be preferable if Sony had software that took decent auto-mode photos in the first place. RAW support would be nice, but half the time I don't want to be editing photos, I just want to take a quick photo and post it online. Preferably an photo that's sharp, with decent white balance, some detail left at high-ISO, and no pink spot in the middle -- four major things that are not guaranteed with the camera now. Not to mention the fact that the file size for a RAW 20MP image (often over 30MB) will lead to storage space filling up fast.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Storage should not be that much of a problem as you always can expand with the SD card if you need to.
Nevertheless i agree with you, but since this softening effect can also be observed on Sony cameras i doubt that your wish will come true.
What RAW Image support will hopefully bring is better camera apps which process and compress exactly in the way you want without further modification on a computer (as we are basically already running around with a small computer). This of course will still take some time and effort but is very likely to happen.
So i guess we still have to live with this a couple of months .

Galaxy S5 camera versus iphone camera

I really like my S5 but when it comes to using the camera it looses personal every comparisson with the iPhone. Not only versios iPhone 6 but also older ones.
Either the Camera lags when I launch it and is not ready fast enough to catch the scene
Or from picture to picture I have to wait (I do have a fast sd card)
And ultimately (and this is my major complaint) all point and shoot pics are vivid and sharp on my friend's apple devices but not on mine. I can make pleasing pictures but I do have to make sure I hold my phone dead steady and bother about whether to use flash or not since relying on auto doesn't always do the trick. And focussing seems to be really slow in comparisson.
I have tried alternative apps but my shap shots are rearly as crisp as I would like to have them.
What is your experience? Or how can I improve this?
Buy an iPhone?
But seriously, it sounds like a problem with your S5, I have none of those problems, and get great pics without having to hold the phone perfectly still
Camera launches quick, photos switch perfectly smooth and fast too
*Detection* said:
Buy an iPhone?
But seriously, it sounds like a problem with your S5, I have none of those problems, and get great pics without having to hold the phone perfectly still
Camera launches quick, photos switch perfectly smooth and fast too
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cheeky
No .. actually I really dig the freedom Android gives me and since there are so few complaints I thought this thread could bring some insight. I know that my phone is quite packed with stuff and that having a ligthweight system could probably improve things a lot.
So hopefully there will be another entry or two that may enlighten me
I find the S5 camera captures pretty amazing shots in good lighting., especially outdoors in the day. At night and indoors with poor lighting, I am not that impressed with the camera. But overall it's an impressive phone, and I will never trade an android for an iphone, due to android's freedom to customize in way too many aspects.
I now found out that automatic night mode may be what's diturbing me. It is said to be degrading the overall app performance. Will see how it goes without.
daniello8 said:
I really like my S5 but when it comes to using the camera it looses personal every comparisson with the iPhone. Not only versios iPhone 6 but also older ones.
Either the Camera lags when I launch it and is not ready fast enough to catch the scene
Or from picture to picture I have to wait (I do have a fast sd card)
And ultimately (and this is my major complaint) all point and shoot pics are vivid and sharp on my friend's apple devices but not on mine. I can make pleasing pictures but I do have to make sure I hold my phone dead steady and bother about whether to use flash or not since relying on auto doesn't always do the trick. And focussing seems to be really slow in comparisson.
I have tried alternative apps but my shap shots are rearly as crisp as I would like to have them.
What is your experience? Or how can I improve this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I find the stock camera app fast and shot to shot (with auto night mode disabled) is fast.
However, I don't use it at all. Here's why, Samsung has a very aggressive noise reduction and sharpness that makes things look really ugly. In day light it isn't too bad but still noticeable.
If you want to unleash the capability of the camera, download Snap Camera and go to "Other" in camera settings and enable "Show advanced settings" and "Use OpenGLES 2.0" (don't enable camera2 api). Go back to "Photo" and put a checkmark on Denoise and remove the checkmark. It doesn't have a checkmark originally but it doesn't seem to disable it until you check and uncheck it. You want it to be unchecked so that it removes noise reduction. Also, check zero shutter lag and check Samsung camera mode.
Next, put the sharpness to 2 for balanced sharpness, or choose the one you want, note that after 3 images will be over sharpened.
This camera app has many features and settings, even the ability to choose what quick buttons you want. It's also fast!
Images look realistic. You will have noise all over but that's fine, at least all the details are visible.
Let me know what you think after you do the above.
Thanks for the instructions. I did first steps with Snap Camera but I cannot decide yet wheather I like denoise more than not to denoise .. I will have to do some real life tests. I do notice though that some features of that app need straightening out. It cannot write to my SD card directly and "touch to capture" is also not working. And I must admit that I miss the small preview pic I have in the stock app. Please don't get me wrong .. I have tested several camera apps so I will also gladly look deeper into this one. For a while A Better Camera has been my favorite and I also tried Googles Camera etc. Regardless of what I tried out in the end I always returned to stock.
daniello8 said:
Thanks for the instructions. I did first steps with Snap Camera but I cannot decide yet wheather I like denoise more than not to denoise .. I will have to do some real life tests. I do notice though that some features of that app need straightening out. It cannot write to my SD card directly and "touch to capture" is also not working. And I must admit that I miss the small preview pic I have in the stock app. Please don't get me wrong .. I have tested several camera apps so I will also gladly look deeper into this one. For a while A Better Camera has been my favorite and I also tried Googles Camera etc. Regardless of what I tried out in the end I always returned to stock.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Stock ones are always my favorites as well. I tried to find a way to remove the noise reduction using build.prop but I couldn't figure out how. For the HTC M9 that I have I can do that and use the stock app, which is awesome.
Did you try shooting to internal storage vs sd card using stock Samsung camera? Maybe it will be faster than SD card. On my M9 when I shot a raw it took 2 seconds to save in internal storage (38MB each) but when I tried saving to my Sony 40 mb/s class 10 micro sd card it took longer so I only use internal storage now, even on my S5 (though I don't have as much space on it). How fast is your SD card?
i feel like the iphone camera isnt that great plus smooth video on galaxy s5 is a win
Ramsey said:
How fast is your SD card?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a Samsung Evo+ 128MB ExtSD and and it doesn't seem to be a bottle neck. Plus I use FolderMount anyway so in fact it doesn't really matter which device I set up in the cam app since it is a link to ExtSD anyway.

Note 8 Camera vs S8 Camera with standard settings

I am trying to decide between the S8 and the Note 8. Basically I prefer the size of the S8 but like the extra RAM and better camera of the Note.
My main question is about the camera with standard settings. If I just pick up the phone and take a picture without adjusting the settings first, can I set it to automatically take pictures like with both lenses so that I can adjust later or do I have to manually set that up each time I use it. Basically if I am on a walk with my daughter and she does something super cute and I want to snap a picture, do I need to do anything right that moment to get the benefit of 2 lenses or can it benefit from it with auto settings? This is basically the deciding factor. If I have to manually adjust settings to benefit from the 2 camera setup then it isn't really worth it for my usage. What about zoom, I know that reviews mention being able to zoom without losing quality by switching to the other lens...is this automatic when I zoom in or do I have to manually zoom in?
Thanks in advance for any answers.
chmcke01 said:
I am trying to decide between the S8 and the Note 8. Basically I prefer the size of the S8 but like the extra RAM and better camera of the Note.
My main question is about the camera with standard settings. If I just pick up the phone and take a picture without adjusting the settings first, can I set it to automatically take pictures like with both lenses so that I can adjust later or do I have to manually set that up each time I use it. Basically if I am on a walk with my daughter and she does something super cute and I want to snap a picture, do I need to do anything right that moment to get the benefit of 2 lenses or can it benefit from it with auto settings? This is basically the deciding factor. If I have to manually adjust settings to benefit from the 2 camera setup then it isn't really worth it for my usage. What about zoom, I know that reviews mention being able to zoom without losing quality by switching to the other lens...is this automatic when I zoom in or do I have to manually zoom in?
Thanks in advance for any answers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You should be on the Note 8 or S8 threads asking such questions. We are tablet owners so what ever you may ask outside of the Note 8.0 discussion will end up confusing you and note 8 peeps, along with the peeps who are answering question here.

Various phone problems (P20 Pro)

Hi all,
I did make a thread as a guest user but unfortunately I can't find it anymore so I've made an account and I'll repost/better explain the issues I've come across.
1) RAM Management
Whenever I close all active apps it says it has around 3GB of memory available, the phone comes with 6GB of memory so I'm wondering why it's only giving me 3GB available, surely the OS can't be using the other 3GB to run.
2) The camera
Right so this one comes down to the low light photography, I've upgraded to the P20 Pro from the Samsung S7 Edge. The S7 Edge did low light photography pretty damn well, and in the release conference Huawei state that the device can reach an ISO of 102400 however when in the Pro mode I can only set the slider to be 3200, yet the automatic mode takes it up to 6400. I find it very odd that an automatic setting can go higher than a manual one.
On my S7 Edge I can take a photo in an unlit room and still have it turn out reasonably well, I am expecting the P20 Pro with it's alleged high ISO to provide a better image, yet when I try this with the same settings as the S7 Edge I get a black image. I'm willing to put this down to user incompetence as I'm not a photographer... so if anyone can explain this to me then I'd be greatly appreciative.
3) Game resolutions
I copied all apps from my old phone to the P20 Pro, but half of them don't work. When the apps first launch I get the option to keep them at their native resolution or to force a fullscreen mode, no matter which option I select the menus for the games are all skewed and off screen. It renders most of my games unplayable (pun not intended). Could this be a resolution problem with the phone?
4) The Camera (again)
When taking portrait shots, the background is blurry. This is actually a pretty nice feature but sometimes I want to get a picture of me WITH something decorative on a wall behind me. I can't find a setting to turn the blur off.
5) Phone Management (the in built app)
This one is pretty straight forward to explain, IT NEVER REACHES 100%. The highest it's ever been is 96%, right now my phone is fully charged, has no apps open, is not performing any background tasks and is at 90% efficiency. I don't understand what it takes to get to 100%.
I'm sure there will be fixes for things as apps update and patches are released but if anyone could provide any assistance on the issues mentioned above then that'd be awesome.
I'll answer the following
2) Same iso settings on mine, switch to pro and change the settings
3) Either clear the data/cache or uninstall and reinstall the games from play store, remember this is a different phone and the defined settings could be wrong
4) click on the icon in bottom left (highlighted orange) to turn it off/on
Where did you get the phone from, which sim you using, which firmware you on.
Regarding the portrait question, when in portrait mode there are 3 settings above the shoot option, press the one on the left to turn bokeh off.
walkerx said:
I'll answer the following
2) Same iso settings on mine, switch to pro and change the settings
3) Either clear the data/cache or uninstall and reinstall the games from play store, remember this is a different phone and the defined settings could be wrong
4) click on the icon in bottom left (highlighted orange) to turn it off/on
Where did you get the phone from, which sim you using, which firmware you on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've just reinstalled the apps from the Playstore, unfortunately they have the same issue still.
Thanks for clearing up the bokeh problem!
I got my phone from O2, it's an O2 SIM and the firmware is CLT-L09 8.1.0.103
QuantumNetworks said:
I've just reinstalled the apps from the Playstore, unfortunately they have the same issue still.
Thanks for clearing up the bokeh problem!
I got my phone from O2, it's an O2 SIM and the firmware is CLT-L09 8.1.0.103
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yours is single sim and different firmware to mine is dual sim and firmware CLT-L29 8.1.0.102(C782)
I did miss off on the iso info that the high iso is only selected automatically by the phone when it's needed, ideally it would be good if could set the iso manually as well to the full range
Regarding 3: I could imagine its a programming issue. Depending on what method the games use to obtain information about screen sizes they could bypass options like fullscreen mode or so. This could be a problem on the phone software side that the fullscreen or native option is not overriding all access methods or the games not using the android API correctly.
I hope thet they will get us ISO 102400 and shutter speed 60 seconds for Pro Mod in updates. If you look at P20 Pro lunch day you will see that they shoot photo with 58 seconds of shutter speed. Now P20 Pro can just shoot maximum 30 seconds of shutter speed.
This thread has had a number of the containing posts cleaned from it. If you don't like a particular phone, don't post hatred for that phone or the OEM who makes it in a thread about said phone. It's really unnecessary.
daveyannihilation said:
This thread has had a number of the containing posts cleaned from it. If you don't like a particular phone, don't post hatred for that phone or the OEM who makes it in a thread about said phone. It's really unnecessary.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nobody said they don't like the phone? I actually quite like it. I've come to this forum because this is literally the only place where some people could have answers to some questions I have about it, whether they be a fault with the phone or my misunderstanding of the functions.
Your comment posed no benefit to any of the questions raised, you don't need to comment. It's really unnecessary.
QuantumNetworks said:
Nobody said they don't like the phone? I actually quite like it. I've come to this forum because this is literally the only place where some people could have answers to some questions I have about it, whether they be a fault with the phone or my misunderstanding of the functions.
Your comment posed no benefit to any of the questions raised, you don't need to comment. It's really unnecessary.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, the first person who's comment I deleted said multiple things about not liking the phone. The reason you can't see it is because, as I said in the post that you felt necessary to reply to, I have cleaned the thread of said messages.
Your reply to a moderator's post posed no benefit to the way that the forum is run and maintained, you don't need to comment. It's really unnecessary. Do it again and you'll find that you'll be reprimanded. Have a wonderful day. :victory:

Burst edits

Hey
I found a bit of a frustrating bug...
I took quite a few burst shots back in July and meanwhile had many other photos done, the problem I have is when I edit the bursts to select which frames to keep and which to ditch, after saving the selection the Gallery app freezes a bit and then it loads the most recent photo I've taken, which means that in order to move on and edit the rest of the bursts I need to rescroll back to them after each save and this makes the whole triage process exhausting to say the least.
Is anybody else experiencing this?
In other words, wouldn't a bursts classification be nice to have in the Discover section of the Gallery? ?
Cheers! ?

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