Taking pictures and recording video - how do I improve the quality?

[kmacsouris]

I have had my Hero for a few days. My prior phone was the Palm Pre. The pre was a great phone and when webos 1.40 came out, video recording was great. The downside of the phone is that it felt that I was holding an egg and the overall build was horrible. Not to mention that the screen would go funky if it was used for more than 5 minutes.

I went with the Hero because I love HTC phones. I've heard so many great things about it. I have issues with taking pictures and recording videos with this phone. The picture quality is horrible and so is the video recording. I have only recorded one video...its of my 5 year old singing (25 seconds) and it looks like she is possessed! It appears that the phone cannot keep up with movement.

I know it doesn't have a flash and I know how to adjust the settings. Even in bright light everything appears washed out. Are there any fixes or 3rd party apps that could resolve this? Will the new 2.1 update improve things?

Any advice?

 

[bizarrogreg]

Try the firmware update option. Menu~Settings~About Phone. There was a minor SW release a while back that was supposed to fix image quality, and without having your phone in front of me to check the firmware version, I can only assume that you need the update. The video and picture quality is comparable to the Palm Pre. I am also assuming that you have the Sprint HTC hero

 

[Griever]

= Speculation Here =
One of the main flaws of HTC camera is the lack of a flash, less light = lower quality pictures, I remember back when I had the LG Shine it only had a 2MP camera. But the pictures I took on that phone were amazing (it did have a good quality lense). However I remember that the phone was shiny steel all round, so perhaps if you stick tin foil on the camera side of the hero, and try taking pictures with that. (might look kinda silly but it'll help). The theory is more light on the subject = better picture. Please if you try it let me know the outcome.

 

[Slug]

I am also assuming that you have the Sprint HTC hero

I hope not, as this is the GSM Hero sub-forum so OTA updates haven't been available.

I'll move the thread if the OP confirms she is using the CDMA version of the handset.

 

[bizarrogreg]

I hope not, as this is the GSM Hero sub-forum so OTA updates haven't been available.

I'll move the thread if the OP confirms she is using the CDMA version of the handset.

I just assumed that since the OP spoke of having a Pre beforehand which would be Sprint

 

[kmacsouris]

Try the firmware update option. Menu~Settings~About Phone. There was a minor SW release a while back that was supposed to fix image quality, and without having your phone in front of me to check the firmware version, I can only assume that you need the update. The video and picture quality is comparable to the Palm Pre. I am also assuming that you have the Sprint HTC hero

Hi, thanks for your response. I actually have the Telus version of the HTC Hero. It is unlocked and I am using it on Bell.

I checked the firmware version and it is 1.5. Another thing I did was disable widescreen in the camera settings and that improved things quite a bit. The picture quality is alot better and it doesn't take so long to take a picture.

 

[kmacsouris]

I hope not, as this is the GSM Hero sub-forum so OTA updates haven't been available.

I'll move the thread if the OP confirms she is using the CDMA version of the handset.

No it is not the CDMA version of the phone.

 

[kmacsouris]

I just assumed that since the OP spoke of having a Pre beforehand which would be Sprint

Actually it was a Palm Pre with Bell.

 

[bizarrogreg]

Gotcha, sorry bout that. I thought Pre was exclusive to Sprint until recently. Disregard!