I hope this is an appropriate place for these kinds of questions - the websites 'contact' section seemed to indicate so. In anycase, I was curious about how Open Camera handles things as compared to other apps. My curiosity first came about when I noticed significant differences in how the 'auto' white balance behaved in OC as compared to the native camera app on my Galaxy S5. The native app is very consistent (and the results are pretty good), but OC often radically changes the white balance while I'm composing a shot. It may, for instance, start off very cool then shift to much warmer while I'm looking at the preview. I haven't tested this enough to be certain, but it seems that I can "trigger" this recalculation sometimes by moving the camera around a bit or changing the auto-focus point. The native app never seems to make such adjustments, but does come up with equally good (often better) results. Does the native app have access to something in hardware for this? Just curious.
The inner workings of these sorts of things are well beyond me, so I hesitate to claim that one method is better than another, but the native app does seem to consistently produce a color balance closer to real life than OC does, particularly at dusk & indoors. At least on a SM-G900T to my untrained eye. On a related note, I would love to see a manual white balance option if such a thing is possible on a smartphone.
Second, the interaction between Open Camera and Samsungs digital image stabilization (labeled for instance "Picture Stabilization" on the Galaxy S5). A haphazarf set of quick test shots with Open Camera and the native camera app in low-light conditions seem to indicate that Open Camera does not/can not make use of this feature (OC's results had far greater noise and reported very high ISO used while the native app was much less noisy (if slightly blurred) and did not report ISO used. Overall the shots from the native app were better, trading a bit of sharpness for much lower noise levels. Shots using the native app with "picture stabalization" disabled were actually somewhat worse than OC's results - having similar noise levels but also another kind of artifact which noticeably mangled text compared to OC's image (which retained very legible text). Is it reasonable then to conclude that OC has a somewhat better algorithm for handling low-light shots, but cannot use the "picture stabilization" feature of the phone?
I understand that what is labeld "auto stabilization" in OC is a different feature for leveling images.
Assuming I am correct, I'd love to see this feature added. I can't think of a reason the developer would want to work on this, since it would only affect a few, older phones (I guess most folks these days have real hardware OIS). So this is a completely selfish feature request, only of any use to the few folks like me who keep their phones for years past their time.
All praise to Mr Harmon for what is clearly a well thought-out app and for providing this photography neophyte with a very interesting diversion.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
I observed similar issues with the radically changing of the colors on a Samsung Galaxy S5 too, but with the camera app UCam.
And also I'm desperately looking for a camera app which has the feature "Image stabilization". I installed Open Camera because of the misleading term "Auto-stabilise feature" and was quite disappointed. "Auto-stabilise" is a nice idea but should be renamed, e.g. "Auto-horizont".
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Couple of other thoughts. The native camera has a sport shot mode to prioritize shutter speed. FV-5 also has a speed priority mode. I haven't been able to figure out a way to reliably handle action shots with OC. Any advice?
Also, how does the metering work, is it center weighted or something like the native matrix mode?
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
I have a galaxy a5 2017
sport mode in native application use higher speed but still far that the need, about twice the value used in normal mode (e.g. 1/50 instead of 1/20 with ISO 200 instead of ISO 100)
I remarked that I see no difference of quality up to ISO 1000.
So I select ISO 800 in Opencamera (1000 is not selectable), and I have an ISO priority adjusting shutting time which select much higher speed than sport mode.
This work in not Camera 2 API.
In Camera 2 API mode, when ISO manual is selected, shutter speed is not automatically adjusted and must be selected manually too
ISO priority is my way to have a speed priority
Image stabilization require hardware support, I don't think than you can have it if it is not supported
it is my case too
Last edit: danielfr40 2017-04-21
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
I hope this is an appropriate place for these kinds of questions - the websites 'contact' section seemed to indicate so. In anycase, I was curious about how Open Camera handles things as compared to other apps. My curiosity first came about when I noticed significant differences in how the 'auto' white balance behaved in OC as compared to the native camera app on my Galaxy S5. The native app is very consistent (and the results are pretty good), but OC often radically changes the white balance while I'm composing a shot. It may, for instance, start off very cool then shift to much warmer while I'm looking at the preview. I haven't tested this enough to be certain, but it seems that I can "trigger" this recalculation sometimes by moving the camera around a bit or changing the auto-focus point. The native app never seems to make such adjustments, but does come up with equally good (often better) results. Does the native app have access to something in hardware for this? Just curious.
The inner workings of these sorts of things are well beyond me, so I hesitate to claim that one method is better than another, but the native app does seem to consistently produce a color balance closer to real life than OC does, particularly at dusk & indoors. At least on a SM-G900T to my untrained eye. On a related note, I would love to see a manual white balance option if such a thing is possible on a smartphone.
Second, the interaction between Open Camera and Samsungs digital image stabilization (labeled for instance "Picture Stabilization" on the Galaxy S5). A haphazarf set of quick test shots with Open Camera and the native camera app in low-light conditions seem to indicate that Open Camera does not/can not make use of this feature (OC's results had far greater noise and reported very high ISO used while the native app was much less noisy (if slightly blurred) and did not report ISO used. Overall the shots from the native app were better, trading a bit of sharpness for much lower noise levels. Shots using the native app with "picture stabalization" disabled were actually somewhat worse than OC's results - having similar noise levels but also another kind of artifact which noticeably mangled text compared to OC's image (which retained very legible text). Is it reasonable then to conclude that OC has a somewhat better algorithm for handling low-light shots, but cannot use the "picture stabilization" feature of the phone?
I understand that what is labeld "auto stabilization" in OC is a different feature for leveling images.
Assuming I am correct, I'd love to see this feature added. I can't think of a reason the developer would want to work on this, since it would only affect a few, older phones (I guess most folks these days have real hardware OIS). So this is a completely selfish feature request, only of any use to the few folks like me who keep their phones for years past their time.
All praise to Mr Harmon for what is clearly a well thought-out app and for providing this photography neophyte with a very interesting diversion.
I observed similar issues with the radically changing of the colors on a Samsung Galaxy S5 too, but with the camera app UCam.
And also I'm desperately looking for a camera app which has the feature "Image stabilization". I installed Open Camera because of the misleading term "Auto-stabilise feature" and was quite disappointed. "Auto-stabilise" is a nice idea but should be renamed, e.g. "Auto-horizont".
Couple of other thoughts. The native camera has a sport shot mode to prioritize shutter speed. FV-5 also has a speed priority mode. I haven't been able to figure out a way to reliably handle action shots with OC. Any advice?
Also, how does the metering work, is it center weighted or something like the native matrix mode?
I have a galaxy a5 2017
sport mode in native application use higher speed but still far that the need, about twice the value used in normal mode (e.g. 1/50 instead of 1/20 with ISO 200 instead of ISO 100)
I remarked that I see no difference of quality up to ISO 1000.
So I select ISO 800 in Opencamera (1000 is not selectable), and I have an ISO priority adjusting shutting time which select much higher speed than sport mode.
This work in not Camera 2 API.
In Camera 2 API mode, when ISO manual is selected, shutter speed is not automatically adjusted and must be selected manually too
ISO priority is my way to have a speed priority
Image stabilization require hardware support, I don't think than you can have it if it is not supported
it is my case too
Last edit: danielfr40 2017-04-21
View and moderate all "General Discussion" comments posted by this user
Mark all as spam, and block user from posting to "Discussion"
I'd like to see a sport, action mode