Using the secondary camera on OnePlus 5

[Anton]

Hello, all:

According to the FAQ:

Open Camera supports switching between all cameras that are made available to third party applications. Usually this means front and back cameras, but some devices have multiple front and/or back-facing cameras. Use the Switch multi-camera icon switch multi-camera icon to switch between multiple front or back cameras. In some cases the extra cameras aren't made available to third party applications, so it isn't possible for Open Camera to support them.

I do not see the said camera-switch icon in Open Camera installed on my brand-new dual-camera OnePlus 5, with the factory-installed Android 7, either with the standard API or with Camera2 API. My phone has two independent back cameras, and its native camera.664979/)camera application can use either. Where should this icon be located, and does its absence indicate that the secondary 20MP camera is not available to Open Camera?

If so, how do you think the following third-party applications manage to access and use that secondary camera:

1. Lenovo SnapIt
2. Google Camera port for OnePlus 5

I am aware of the previous question on this topic, and post a new one in view of the new information:

1. Dual-lens camera
2. OnePlus 5 - is OpenCamera aware of the second camera?

[Anonymous]

Same here on an Oneplus 7 pro with Lineage OS. Open Camera only recognize the main camera. However, ported GCam recognizes all three cameras.

The claim "some devices do not allow third party applications to access their multiple cameras" seems pale. Maybe correcting it to something like "the API Open Camera access only supports one main camera" makes more sense. There are definitely other ways to access other cameras as pointed out by the author of the post. It is just not the way (or the standard way) that Open Camera implements.

[Anton]

Thanks for chiming in. But can GCam shoot in raw with those other cameras on your phone?

[Mark]

"the API Open Camera access only supports one main camera" - although that isn't correct either, the Android camera API supports multiple cameras.

There are some ways I know that applications can get round this:
* In some cases the device doesn't report the extra cameras, but you can open them anyway just by guessing the names. Although this works in some cases, it carries a risk of opening buggy cameras that weren't intended to be exposed. Potentially I could do this on a device-specific basis, if it worked.
* In some cases, I've seen reports that they whitelist applications based on package names.

Try the camera2 probe (see my other comment) to see what this says first of all.

[Anonymous]

I believe so.

[Anonymous]

BTW, it is this one for my OnePlus 7 pro. You can have a try by yourself. YMMW.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/app-arnova8g2s-google-camera-port.3862448/page-144#post-84737255

[Mark]

To be sure, please try one of the various "Camera2 Probe" applications on Google Play (e.g., I've used "Camera2 Probe for Android 5.0+" by SDG Systems. This will show what is shown through the Android camera API.

If not, maybe try reporting it at https://forums.oneplus.com e.g. I see an existing report at https://forums.oneplus.com/threads/need-support-for-telephoto-lens-in-third-party-video-apps.1343847/ .

[Anonymous]

I do recall that besides checking package names, system apps are treated differently. For example, fake location apps are able to better disguise and hide by installing them as system apps. Perhaps the same is for a situation like this? I'll give it a go and report back. OP8 Pro running OxygenOS 10.

[Anton]

OK, here is the report from the SDG tool for my OnePlus 5 (brand new, but made in 2017):

BACK CAMERA (LANDSCAPE)

Hardware level

LEVEL_3 (Full Camera2 plus more features)

Capabilities:

• BACKWARD_COMPATIBLE (old API baseline)
• MANUAL_SENSOR (e.g. duration, exposure, focus)
• MANUAL_POST_PROCESSING (e.g. white balance)
• READ_SENSOR_SETTINGS (even in 3A[uto] modes)
• BURST_CAPTURE (≥20fps, with ≤4 frame latency)
• PRIVATE_REPROCESSING (Zero Shutter Lag use case)
• YUV_REPROCESSING (YUV_420_888 reprocessing)
• CONSTRAINED_HIGH_SPEED_VIDEO (recording >=120fps)
• RAW (e.g. DNG files, with metadata)


FRONT CAMERA (PORTRAIT)

Hardware level

LEVEL_3 (Full Camera2 plus more features)

Capabilities:

• BACKWARD_COMPATIBLE (old API baseline)
• MANUAL_SENSOR (e.g. duration, exposure, focus)
• MANUAL_POST_PROCESSING (e.g. white balance)
• READ_SENSOR_SETTINGS (even in 3A[uto] modes)
• BURST_CAPTURE (≥20fps, with ≤4 frame latency)
• PRIVATE_REPROCESSING (Zero Shutter Lag use case)
• YUV_REPROCESSING (YUV_420_888 reprocessing)
• RAW (e.g. DNG files, with metadata)

As you can see, two camera's are reported to be available with complete functionality, yet neither OpenCamera nor other third-party camera apps can shoot DNG with my selfie camera (it having a tolerably long focus, I tried to use it for general shooting, however inconvenient!)

Yes, I am aware about the existing issues reported and discussed at the OnePlus community, but all they say to my questions is request to update my OS to the latest available for the model (which has reached end of life), wihtout any specific comments about whether the situaion with camera control is going to improve.

What is worse (and I have not reported this to OnePlus yet), is that the standard camera application shoots fake raw—it already inclues strong noise-reduction: unwatend, unasked for, and undeclared anywhere! The designers seem know better than the user what he needs and consider it ethican even to lie to him by surreptiously runnig raw data through a pretty strong noise reducer, so that when converted to PNG, the shots from the native application may wiegh about 6 Mb, vs 30 for third-party apps that do not apply noise reduction.

[Mark]

Thanks for the info - I guess that confirms that the OnePlus 5 at least isn't advertising more than one camera to third party applications.

For RAW, this seemed to work on my old OnePlus 3T, although my notes at https://opencamera.org.uk/devices.html for the OnePlus 5 contain some old reports about RAW and links to various threads about that (though those issues seem to be more about tints rather than not working at all).