Blurry photos on Samsung Galaxy S6 + overheat issue
Camera app for Android.
Brought to you by:
mark-h
Menu
▾
▴
Hello,
I'm having some issues with Open Camera on my Samsung Galaxy S6.
I noticed that photos taken using Open Camera get pretty blurry compared to using the default Samsung camera app. I did some testing by mounting my phone on a tripod, and took photos of the text on the back of a Pepsi bottle. With the Samsung app the text is sharp and can be easily read, but with Open Camera the text is actually blurry and difficult to read.
After some experimenting, I discovered that if I disable the Camera2 API in Open Camera, the photos get much sharper! And there is no longer any difference between the apps. So it seems to be caused by the Camera2 API. However, by disabling the Camera2 API I ofcourse lose all the manual controls and other great features in Open Camera...
I did some searching on Google and found an interesting discussion here: https://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s6/general/camera-api-2-broken-android-m-t3345491
However, this was 3 years ago and the discussion seems to be about Android 5. I'm on Android 7 Nougat. Is there still an issue with Camera2 API on Samsung Galaxy S6?
Also, this only seems to happen with JPEG images. RAW images taken with Open Camera will still be sharp and there is no difference between the apps. However, I would prefer to be able to use the JPEG images since I actually think they look better in terms of colour, contrast, etc...
Also, another issue I'm having is that my phone gets very hot when Open Camera is running. It will start to get warm in just a couple of minutes, and a few minutes later it will get very hot. The preview screen in Open Camera starts to "jump" around and glitch like crazy, and the screen randomly flashes green.
I realize that my phone model is probably considered ancient already, so maybe there isn't much support for it these days. But I really like Open Camera and would love to use it for my photo projects, so I'm hoping these issues can be fixed in a future version (if possible!).
Thank you!
The following is a possible fix to the blurry jpegs when using some phones. e.g. Samsung.
I have developed my own security cameara software for personal use and have recently changed to the camera2 API hoping to take advanatges of new features . I use open camera to check what results I might encounter saving me time when developing and have downloaded the app so I can check what coding techniques are used.
For security cameras I buy second hand damged phones from the web and the Samsung S6 is a great work horse. I have a camera that has been running for 3 years constanly filming running at 35c to 40c+ and the only problem is the battery expanding needing it to be replaced.
When I migrated to Camera2 API I also noted that the jpeg quaility was very poor. I've tried lots of methods to work around it, even using raw (perhaps that's fixed on S7 seeing your note above but not on s6) but to no avail.
However, I would like to propose a workaround which seems to work for me. It gets very close to the qulaity of the bultin camera.
The solution is to request the picture in YUV_420_888 and then convert to jpeg in code. When I did this in my app it significanly improved the quality of the image. Whilst there may be a small performance hit and converting to jpeg seems to be Yuv->NV1 ->jpeg, for normal camera operation, I dont think anyone would notice.
I thought I had tested Yuv using opencamera as I assumed the png format offered in opencamera would use Yuv until I read the description in more detail which indicates it uses jpeg 100% before converting to png. Seems a strange option. As an aside I think on some phones the jpeg compression dosen't work either so this would also fix that issue.
So the workaround could be offered by simply adding a new option to the file formats indicating this might get round the blurry jpeg image quality issue on certain models, sumsung being one. The advanatge of this workaround is that the amount of code needed to be added is very small.
If anyone can test this techniue on other models like S7 that would be useful.
Hopefully I haven't missed the post if someone has already mentioned it.
Great app.
Mike
Thanks for the tip! It's on my TODO to use YUV_420_888 at least for formats like PNG.
Another thing to experiment with may be the edge mode and noise reduction modes (for Open Camera, see Settings/Processing settings/ ). It was reported that setting these both to OFF improved things for the Galaxy S7 with Camera2 API (see https://sourceforge.net/p/opencamera/discussion/general/thread/48bd836b and https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36028273/android-camera-api-glossy-effect-on-galaxy-s7 ), possibly a similar thing applies to the Galaxy S6 too.
Tried using different options like edge (now I know what it is) but made no decernable difference unlike YUV_420_888. A number plate that is easily readable (once zommed in) with the builtin camera is just a blur using the camera2 api jpeg. Using YUV_420_888 makes it readable but still not as crisp as the builtin camera but usable.
I'm going to have ago at amneding the opencamera app so it has an altneratvive jpeg option as I need the practice.
any update on this? having same issue...