This phone's camera would be amazing if:
1. Samsung didn't employ such aggressive noise reduction - especially in low light.
2. It was better in lower light:
A. Worthless without Smart Stabilization of Flash
B. Flash will completely wash out anything close to the camera (Objects, People), it's so powerful. No True Tone flash (iPhone 5S, HTC One M8, LG G3).
C. If using Smart Stabilization, ANY movement will destroy the photo (don't even bother on moving subjects) and the Noise Reduction employed is completely overpowering. It will destroy fine details, especially in distance shots.
3. Without good lighting the FFC is as good as worthless.
During the Daytime/Good Lighting there's nothing to complain about. That's wher eI take 98% of my photos, so not big deal. However I've been taking a few more selfies and bar shots lately, so the poor low light performance is starting to bug me. During daylight there is some noise, but nothing worth mentioning. It performs as good as most other High MP smartphone cameras. Better than many due to the resolution (which can be exploited to crowd out noise and still deliver stills that are the same dimensions that lower megapixel phones crank out).
The camera is the only area where this phone wasn't close to flawless, hardware-wise, IMO. The Note 4's OIS Module with better Light Sensitivity is going to be a huge upgrade, and the FFC will be far superior as well.
Some of the issues are software (Smart Stabilization Algorithms can be improved), but they cannot patch the physics of the camera sensor or lens. Still they can improve it and it will be interesting to see if they do that with the Android L update.
One benefit of L is the RAW capabilities coming to the platform. Even if Samsung doesn't allow use of this in their camera software, Google probably will in Google Camera so you may be able to shoot RAW and then adjust photos better in editing software like Lightroom or even Google Photos (if they introduce RAW support).
Using that method, it may be possible to shoot photos and end up coming out with better end-result than the Samsung Algorithms/JPEG Editing does currently.
I wish Samsung would release Lens profiles for their flagships for Lightroom and other software/services (like Flickr), the way Apple does. It would be nice to have the device show up as "Samsung Galaxy Note 3" instead of Samsung SVwhatever in the image details there. It's like free marketing, IMO. I always notice that stuff when I see good smartphone shots on these services.
Samsung also needs to:
1. Allow Burst Photography on Shutter Long-Press (Option between Burst and Focus Lock would be fine).
2. Allow us to just record the 720p at 120 FPS instead of making us select (up front) a specific speed. We can play it back or edit it to slow it down later in a video editing software or the video player (if they'd work a little more on their Video Editor, that would be helpful
).
3. Don't default the FFC to Beauty Mode. Really, this has become a thorn in my side.
4. Allow Editing Story Albums to Rearrange Pictures, Add/Remote Text Captions, Add/Remove Photos, etc. Not sure if it allows this yet, but sharing via PDF would be useful for people who don't have a Samsung Phone and don't want to install the viewer.