Help HTC EVO poor picture and poor sound quality

[Nayogod]

I use to own a palm pre before I switched to HTC EVO. I think the evo is a great phone but the two things I missed so much about my palm pre is the camera and the sound qualities.
The EVO is said to use 8MP for its camera but honestly the camera quality is nothing compare to the palm pre. Simply put, the camera and the sound output on the evo sucks.
You can clearly notice the difference between the pictures I took using the pre and the evo. The pre gives far better picture quality and also better sound output. I always enjoy plays my sounds or using pandora on my pre, but with the evo the different is the case. The sound quality with the evo is horrible even when plugged to good speakers.
I bearly take picture with the evo because I am used to good picture quality with my pre.
I have had the evo for less than two weeks and i am seriously thinking of returning it because of these two issues.
I really want to know, is this poor picture and poor sound qualities a thing with the evo in general or is it just with the particular evo that I got.

 

[hendodo]

Sound quality can be worked on, but this things takes Awesome pics! I had a pre also and yes it took ok pictures but it can't compare to evo

 

[HTCeasar]

Camera could be better but what camera phone couldn't. Not really a deal beaker at all. And I love the sound quality.

 

[uniquenameEVO]

Try tapping the screen on the part of the picture you want the best focus. That might help.

I've had amazing pictures come out (you have to realize it is not a DSLR).

 

[ExSaint]

Are you nuts?!? make sure you have 8MP enabled pull down the options menu and go to settings. Sound is much better in my opionion.

 

[BenChase7]

I also came from the Pre, I transfered many pictures from my Pre to my EVO. When comparing them side by side, there is no comparison. The EVO pictures blow the Pre away. I think the same goes for sound. When I listen to Pandora through the phones speaker, the EVO has deeper, higher quality sound as well as more volume.

 

[cooper1010]

evo > pre for pics. not debatable.

 

[Super Noob]

Try tapping the screen on the part of the picture you want the best focus. That might help.

I've had amazing pictures come out (you have to realize it is not a DSLR).

That's probably why my pics were grainy. I tapped the screen to snap the pics, but that made it focus in an area too far in the background. That explains why my pics were grainy and had unknown artifacts in them.

The following are from our local Twin Peaks restaurant car wash (taken at lunch today):

 

[karong]

I had the Pre for a about a week when it first came out. It took decent pics but the Evo is much better. Didnt really test the sound but all I know is the Evo volume is too low IMO. I still have to use my ipod for movies when im on the train cuz I cant hear with the Evo

 

[airdog]

That's probably why my pics were grainy. I tapped the screen to snap the pics, but that made it focus in an area too far in the background. That explains why my pics were grainy and had unknown artifacts in them.

The following are from our local Twin Peaks restaurant car wash (taken at lunch today):

EVO....Pre.... Who cares! I wanna know where I can get my truck washed like that!!!!

 

[pwnst*r]

Are you nuts?!? make sure you have 8MP enabled pull down the options menu and go to settings. Sound is much better in my opionion.

Lol? The camera is "OK", but certainly falls shy of expectations of a 8MP camera.

 

[zcarman]

The biggest complaint I have with the camera is the AWB. The White balance on this is terrible - which is where that lovely blue tint came from in the images above...

If you set it up manually (usually sunny works best outdoors for me - and either flourescent or incandescent depending on lighting - works best indoors...) it works like a charm!

 

[Super Noob]

EVO....Pre.... Who cares! I wanna know where I can get my truck washed like that!!!!

The pics are from the Twin Peaks restaurant in Mesquite, TX. That's how they suckered us into going twice a week for lunch instead of only Fridays .

 

[Mr. Ed]

Ok first I love my camera for what it is...second I play music through my bt car connection and bt headphones and quality far superior to the girlies iPhone and my previous instinct...... but most importantly.....does twin peaks do this every week? Cause I will totally drive to Mosquito from mckinney one a wwek if they do!

The pics are from the Twin Peaks restaurant in Mesquite, TX. That's how they suckered us into going twice a week for lunch instead of only Fridays .

 

[Super Noob]

Ok first I love my camera for what it is...second I play music through my bt car connection and bt headphones and quality far superior to the girlies iPhone and my previous instinct...... but most importantly.....does twin peaks do this every week? Cause I will totally drive to Mosquito from mckinney one a wwek if they do!

They're doing car washes Wednesday-Friday for the summer.

If you're logged in at Facebook, go to the following links and you can see more of their photos: Twin Peaks Mesquite | Facebook

 

[Caloy]

Posted these pics already, but figured to re-post them again. For a camera phone, they looked pretty good to me.

Some pictures using settings standard screen size (4:3) and some were shot using wide screen settings (5:3)

 

[cmanbrazil]

yep the camera sucks unless it is in perfect conditions, so does the video camera. THe new iphone is better. And this comes from a person who wouldn't buy a new iphone. This phone, like any other has its strengths and weaknesses. I love the operating system, the large screen, froyo, etc. I love the camera IN PERFECT LIGHTING.

 

[wwsvs]

The sound quality is outstanding with GOOD source material such as .wav files and NOT .mpg or .mp3s. I've played the original source and the same .wav copied into and played out of the evo in to my 24 channel mixer into broadcast quality speakers..it's exactly the same. Still, all mp3s are compressed and drop detail the things is the EVO plays the file exactly as it is so you are hearing the missing/compressed data.. I love the photos too.. it does not compate to the Canon 5D Mark II I own and use for work, but it's a great/excellent camera for many uses. best wishes, wws

 

[Caloy]

yep the camera sucks unless it is in perfect conditions, so does the video camera. THe new iphone is better. And this comes from a person who wouldn't buy a new iphone. This phone, like any other has its strengths and weaknesses. I love the operating system, the large screen, froyo, etc. I love the camera IN PERFECT LIGHTING.

I disagree, if you know how to set your camera, you can take good pictures even in less than perfect conditions, if conditions degrade even more, the evo will outshine the iPhone.

On the camcorder however, the evo sucks! and the iPhone's camcorder is a clear winner, especially with iPhone's better sound encoding.

 

[EarlyMon]

Well, the door to improvement opened with 2.2 - they did finally give us H.264 video recording for SD - sound still sucks.

PS - WOW Caloy, great photos!

 

[Caloy]

Thanks mate. The first part the ones with (5:3) were taken at Kemah boardwalk, TX and the other half (4:3) were taken in Mill Basin in NY.

At around noon (sun directly above), I changed the ISO setting to 100. The whites somehow shines or overpower the pictures if you put the ISO at auto.

 

[novox77]

ok, evo camera pics can look decent if you shrink them down to 800px width. If you look at the image quality at full resolution, you'll see it's really grainy and noisy. All those 8mpx is just magnifying the crappy image. If only manufacturers would quit boosting megapixels (and if only consumers would learn that megapixels don't mean shit), we might be able to focus our efforts in improving the OPTICS of the camera.

Canon 300D on the left (6mpx sensor). Evo on the right (8mpx sensor). See why megapixels don't matter?

 

[Caloy]

You are correct, the optics both lens and sensor are inferior to your SLR camera. But with a little tweaking at the settings, you should be able to get much better saturation with the Evo. You cannot compare a dedicated camera (SLR no less) to a camera phone. I don't know how much light you had when you took the picture, my suggestions to get better saturation is play with the settings.

You have Contrast, Saturation, sharpness, Brightness, ISO, White Balance, Metering.

Take multiple pictures of one subject and play with all those. If you continually take pictures with every lighting condition, you can avoid those washed out pic you showed.

I can't be sure, but try using ISO 200 brightness at 0, saturation +1, contrast +2, metering = center as a starting point. If the pictures comes out too dark, play with the settings again.

Just a note, I'm sure that the Canon 300D's sensor is at least 4 times bigger than the Evo's.... Totally no contest.... Just my 2 cents.

EDIT: Just took a second look at your photos, I noticed that the leaves on the Evo is much more detailed than the leaves on your SLR. Probably the Evo wasn't focused right?

 

[novox77]

You are correct, the optics both lens and sensor are inferior to your SLR camera. But with a little tweaking at the settings, you should be able to get much better saturation with the Evo. You cannot compare a dedicated camera (SLR no less) to a camera phone. I don't know how much light you had when you took the picture, my suggestions to get better saturation is play with the settings.

You have Contrast, Saturation, sharpness, Brightness, ISO, White Balance, Metering.

Take multiple pictures of one subject and play with all those. If you continually take pictures with every lighting condition, you can avoid those washed out pic you showed.

I can't be sure, but try using ISO 200 brightness at 0, saturation +1, contrast +2, metering = center as a starting point. If the pictures comes out too dark, play with the settings again.

Just a note, I'm sure that the Canon 300D's sensor is at least 4 times bigger than the Evo's.... Totally no contest.... Just my 2 cents.

EDIT: Just took a second look at your photos, I noticed that the leaves on the Evo is much more detailed than the leaves on your SLR. Probably the Evo wasn't focused right?

My main point is that the Evo's 8mpx is really wasted because by nature of the small cell phone camera, the optics just aren't good enough to justify 8mpx. People here are complaining about a kernel that potentially caps the mpx to 3, and to that, I say, so what? You aren't sacrificing any image quality at 3mpx, and I'd wager that even at 1mpx, the weak link is still the optics.

Comparison of sensor size between the dSLR and the Evo is irrelevant because the focal lengths are not the same. The Evo's lens is extremely close to the sensor, so the cone of light is extremely small. In fact, this is exactly the reason why small (thin) cameras will always struggle to produce a sharp image. Chromatic aberration, glows, and other optical distortion artifacts will be more prominent. Again, my point is that given the properties of the small focal length cameras, there's no justification for that many pixels on the sensor. If they put in a 1mpx sensor with high quality pixels (low noise), it'd cost less and the pictures would be much better. But nooooo, consumers are drawn toward megapixels.

Your showcase above is pretty impressive, but I'd say that if you had set your camera to 1mpx, you would still have the same quality shot, especially since you are resizing for display on the web, which is what most people do with cell-phone cameras. I doubt anyone will be printing any 8x10s from cell phone shots.

Thanks for the manual settings. I'll give them a shot. I typically don't have the camera do any post-processing work (like saturation, contrast, etc) since I think Photoshop gives you more control, but since I'm never planning to use the Evo for high-quality shots, it'd be nice to optimize the camera so I can point, shoot, and get the best possible image without any post processing.

Regarding the sharp leaves on the Evo, actually this happens because of the nature of the Evo's pinhole camera. The aperture is small, so the depth-of-field is huge. If you look at the inset image, you can see that the bird feeder is in focus (or as focused as the camera can possibly do). Probably a better comparison would be for me to shoot my SLR at a small aperture, so the background leaves become sharp as well. But if you just compare the insets, which is the native resolution for both cameras, you can see exactly why you don't need 8mpx for the Evo. You're just magnifying the noise.

 

[Caloy]

I agree on your main point. 8MP is 99.9% marketing. The most important factor is the image sensor and lens. I don't see why HTC cannot produce a phone with a better image sensor and lens. But that would make the phone bigger to make space for better hardware, as well as making the camera significantly more expensive. Thus making the demand for the phone not worth the cost of manufacturing.

The HTC Evo is a Jack of all trades, master of none. Well, maybe as a communications device (Navigation can also hold it's on against a stand-alone). If you want great quality pics, get a device that is made for such purpose.

As for your statement that the Pre takes far better pictures, I would disagree.

BTW, there are several threads regarding the term 8MP on the evo. You might want to check them out. Everyone agree, the Evo is not the best camera, but for a phone, it's a damn good one.

Oh yeah, there is one good thing on real estate (8MP). The bigger the photo (pixel wise), the less noise you're gonna get on night shots when you resize it. It's not significant, but it is at least sometihng... LOL