Pixel 3 and Opencamera considerations regarding Android version
Camera app for Android.
Brought to you by:
mark-h
Menu
▾
▴
I ve recently got a Google Pixel 3. Coming from Samsung S series phones, I
was in for a disappointment when I used the Pixel build in camera app.
There were no 'advanced' settings at all. Hence, I looked at Opencamera
app, which offers many useful features
I use the phone mostly for 4K video shooting. Whilst photos taken with the
Pixel phone are exceptional, the same does not apply about the phone's
video capabilities. There seems to be too much noise in those MP4 files -
much more to what I would get from my 6yr old Galaxy S7!
I don't know if that's firmware related issue - specifically with the Pixel
there any feature in Open Camera that can help at least reduce the
noise/artifacts in recording files? I mean during capture (no
post-processing..)
Another question that derives from the above - is there any sense for me to
upgrade to a newer version of Android? I don't care about security/software
updates - my sole concern is better quality 4K/30fps recording. Is there
any preference in Android build as far as Open Camera is concerned?
For example, would there be any chance for them to have improved/reduced
the noise in resulting files via a firmware upgrade / later Android build?
Or is it that nothing can be done and that I have to live with noise in the
videos? (I m asking this with the assumption that although the hardware is
fixed - camera firmware can perhaps be improved and provide better
results...)
Finally, other features that I miss from Samsung 'Pro' camera app, is AF
modes (e.g. center-weighted) and exposure modes (e.g. center, matrix etc)
But those are on my wish-list for this app; mitigation of the
noise/artifacts is the major concern at this point..
Cheers!
Open Camera does expose some settings under Settings/Processing/ (if Settings/"Camera API" is set to "Camera2 API") but I'm not sure if they'd help - otherwise the video recording/encoding is done by the device.
Different focus/exposure methods is on my todo for a future version.
Cheers Mark
So from an Opencamera app point of view, moving to latest Android version does not hinder the functionality in any negative way?
Well there's the annoyance of scoped storage, which in practice for Open Camera has some implications for the video subtitles option ( https://sourceforge.net/p/opencamera/blog/2020/12/open-camera-and-scoped-storage/ ) but I'm not aware of any negative impact. Obviously I can't guarantee a new Android version won't introduce some negative camera related change for a particular device, but in general one can't live on old versions forever, so seems sensible to update where you can.
I have enabled Camera2 API and found the following options that look interesting:
a) "edge mode algorithm"
b) "noise reduction algorithm"
But my question here is - are any (or both) of those two options apply to video recording or just still image photography (because I m only interested in video recording...)
Features that affect to video, I believe, are under the [ ⠇ ] icon and there under 'Video Settings...'.
One very useful feature for video is the 'Video picture profiles' when the gamma option is available and selected. Then the next feature, 'Video gamma value' comes alive. Settings it to a value like 2.4 or 2.6 helps with the murky dark shadows. Not all camera modules support that feature, if you see the feature 'Video gamma value' there, then the camera module of your phone does support adjusting the (video) gamma.
They should affect both photo and video.
Cheers! I will experiment with the Gamma settings you mentioned
Under [⠇] however, I can see there is "a" (Focus Auto) and "c" (Continuous Video Focus)...so what's the difference between the two? (Isn't it that "a" also apply to video..?)
Is there any documentation where I can check all those different settings, as its a bit inefficient going through all those 'by trial'
Photo mode has its own focusing modes and video mode has its own focusing modes. In the automatic mode ("a") you tap the screen on image location of your choice and Open Camera does AutoFocus+AutoExposure once according to that area. In the continuous mode ("c") Open Camera constantly does, without tapping the screen, what the "a" mode does just once per tap. The "c" mode seems to work on the center(weighted) area of the image, it would be great(er) if one could tap a location that will be kept as the reference area for "c" mode (until next tap or mode change).
Documentation: https://opencamera.org.uk/help.html
center(weighted) area of the image is what I mostly need, so "c" mode is the one for me
(however I was certain that "a" mode already does AF-continuous - although not sure for which area...)
Consider that the camera is on fixed position and that a subject goes through the frame. Even in "a" mode, focus seems to be mostly kept on moving subject. That's why I found "c" mode confusing
The "a" mode does it once, you can see if it was successful or not from the change of the color of the tap-frame corner. Right after the tap the corners are white, then they turn to green (successful focus) or red (unsuccessful focus). In "c" mode, you can see a circle (a circular arch) drawn with white color, when the focus changes.
With phone cameras the f-numbers do not mean the same depth-of-field, nor the same bokeh, than what they mean in e..g. in (d)SLR systems. The f-number = focal_length / aperture_diameter (or N = f / D), so even if the phone camera has a "good" f-number, like 2.0, it has a very very small physical diameter because of the very very short focal length. Therefore most of all, in all the scenes, are in-focus, only very near subjects need (other than ∞) focusing. Also, assessing the image as it is shown in the preview does not tell much about focus because the picture is strongly scaled down for the preview, therefore areas that are out of focus in the 100% view (or 1:1 view) of the image, will appear to be quite well focused in the scaled down preview.