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Droid vs Eris Pics & Video

bruceo

Android Enthusiast
Oct 20, 2009
295
1
Seems pretty embarrassing to me..

All taken in exactly the same conditions with all functions on auto in a relatively decently lit room, but what would be considered low light for a small chip camera or slow speed lens.

Seems like wheter the flash is auto on or off that for some reason when the light gets to the point where it thinks it needs to use flash it then closes down on the iris to prepare for the flash, but ruins any natural light or lower light video in the process.

Eris Video
YouTube - Eris low light video

Droid Video
YouTube - Droid low light video

Eris Pic
Picasa Web Albums - Bruce

Droid pic without flash (like Eris)
Picasa Web Albums - Bruce

Droid Pic with flash
Picasa Web Albums - Bruce
 
I can confirm that in low light my wife's Eris definetly has the edge on the Droid in video. I don't think it is nearly as dramatic as that video suggests tho, and in a well lit enviroment (outside and sunny) the Droid walks all over the Eris with the beta Qik app recording at 720x480.

Perhaps the update that is coming to address the focus issues will also correct some of the low light issues as well.
 
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I can confirm that in low light my wife's Eris definetly has the edge on the Droid in video. I don't think it is nearly as dramatic as that video suggests tho, and in a well lit enviroment (outside and sunny) the Droid walks all over the Eris with the beta Qik app recording at 720x480.

Perhaps the update that is coming to address the focus issues will also correct some of the low light issues as well.

Definitely another inexcusable bug in the camera app. Hope the update resolves it but it doesn't look too good that it will be fixed and i wouldnt want to be stuck with a droid that takes worse pics than inferior phones.

i noticed even taking a few videos and pics and then sharing right from the camera app or even the gallery is easier and more intuitive with the eris. In the camera app the droid only lets you share the current image/video if you want to share the one just before you have to separately launch the gallery and then share is not in the menu it is actually in the press and hold menu. Whereas you can do it all easily through the superior HTC camera app. The settings on the HTC camera app are more robust and you can even manually click on an area to focus.....
 
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Excellent post Bruce, I've been looking for just this type of comparison. Really makes you wonder why Moto didn't do more with the options they had.

I wouldn't count on the Dec 11 update fixing these issues, all that will most likely do is correct that auto focus bug. I will say though, given good light the Droid does take some sharp videos.
 
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Excellent post Bruce, I've been looking for just this type of comparison. Really makes you wonder why Moto didn't do more with the options they had.

I wouldn't count on the Dec 11 update fixing these issues, all that will most likely do is correct that auto focus bug. I will say though, given good light the Droid does take some sharp videos.


Yes I would agree the videos in sunlight are pretty good and look really good on the phone display, but half of the videos people take are inside and the droid doesnt even give you half the image of even a crappy touch pro. I also had 2 spontaneous reboots in the past 2 days, so rather than possibly being stuck with a lemon product with so many shortcomings for 2 years it will unfortunately have to be returned for good.
 
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i just discovered this exact same issue. the video in the original post DOES NOT exaggerate the issue; it really is that bad!

i made another thread about it because i didn't see this one, and i posted a long description there:
http://androidforums.com/motorola-droid/23814-video-recording-issue.html

but the thing that seems really weird to me, and can be seen in bruce's video, is that the camera does dynamically adjust the brightness of the video while recording, but it seems to adjust it the wrong way in low light situations! notice how bruce's video gets brighter when he pans to the light (typically you would think it would get dimmer to compensate for the extra light), and then when he pans back to low light, it is briefly visible for a moment before it adjusts to a dimmer setting. this has got to be a software bug, but who knows if/when it will be fixed.

good thing i don't use the video recording capabilities very much....
 
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Dang, bruceo, you just don't stop do you? You're almost like a troll. You sure you don't work for HTC or something? It's like your life's mission to point out every flaw. Bro, the DROID has flaws and it ain't the perfect phone, but guess what? The Eris has flaws too. And guess what, the next phone you decide to get, yup, will be flawed too!

The only difference is, for the phone you finally decide to keep (if you do actually keep a phone), you will just choose ignore those flaws. But really, do you need to troll around and bash the phones that perhaps people actually enjoy owning?
 
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Dang, bruceo, you just don't stop do you? You're almost like a troll. You sure you don't work for HTC or something? It's like your life's mission to point out every flaw. Bro, the DROID has flaws and it ain't the perfect phone, but guess what? The Eris has flaws too. And guess what, the next phone you decide to get, yup, will be flawed too!

The only difference is, for the phone you finally decide to keep (if you do actually keep a phone), you will just choose ignore those flaws. But really, do you need to troll around and bash the phones that perhaps people actually enjoy owning?

sooper, i don't know about what bruce has posted in the past, but i can confirm that this is a real issue. i really don't think he's trolling about this. this seems like a pretty major software bug that should be talked about so we can figure out what's going on and try to file the right bug reports and get it fixed. i find this thread and comparison video very clear and enlightening.

just because you can be aware that a product isn't perfect doesn't mean that you hate it or are bashing it. i'm well aware of many flaws in the droid, but so far it's my favorite cell phone i've ever had.
 
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Dang, bruceo, you just don't stop do you? You're almost like a troll. You sure you don't work for HTC or something? It's like your life's mission to point out every flaw. Bro, the DROID has flaws and it ain't the perfect phone, but guess what? The Eris has flaws too. And guess what, the next phone you decide to get, yup, will be flawed too!

The only difference is, for the phone you finally decide to keep (if you do actually keep a phone), you will just choose ignore those flaws. But really, do you need to troll around and bash the phones that perhaps people actually enjoy owning?

Couldn't agree more! I was going to respond last night to this thread after he had posted again but then thought better of it. Clearly nothing that anyone says at this point matters anyway, he's on a quest to nitpick the shortcomings to death while simultaneously downplaying anything and everything the Droid does right.

Anyone that's spent any amount of time with the Eris will tell you there are plenty of issues below it's "pretty face" as well.
 
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sooper, i don't know about what bruce has posted in the past, but i can confirm that this is a real issue. i really don't think he's trolling about this. this seems like a pretty major software bug that should be talked about so we can figure out what's going on and try to file the right bug reports and get it fixed. i find this thread and comparison video very clear and enlightening.

just because you can be aware that a product isn't perfect doesn't mean that you hate it or are bashing it. i'm well aware of many flaws in the droid, but so far it's my favorite cell phone i've ever had.

Read some of his other posts and I think you'll start to understand where he is coming from. Is there an issue? Obviously, I don't think for a minute anyone is saying other wise. But if you are going to repeatedly knock the camera for what it gets wrong at least be fair and point out what it gets right as well.
 
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The issue is purely software and a decision that the manufactures made. My $1000 DSLR makes the same mistake if I choose different metering options on the camera. Since the DROID doesn't have the ability change its metering options, it appears to do its best with what it was set at. Regarding the Eris, it is likely that the camera software has picked a different metering option than the DROID. Without actually having used both in an extensive test, I'm sure that their separate and distinct manufacturing decisions have their compromises. Just like the iPhone camera has its own compromises and output options.
 
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Read some of his other posts and I think you'll start to understand where he is coming from. Is there an issue? Obviously, I don't think for a minute anyone is saying other wise. But if you are going to repeatedly knock the camera for what it gets wrong at least be fair and point out what it gets right as well.

At the end of the day, I think more people would be amenable to hearing what bruceo has to say if he weren't so consistently biased. That's why it seems like trolling. His video proves nothing other than the company made a conscious decision about how the on-board camera will meter light and that since the Eris doesn't come with a flash, their metering and default ISO is likely set for better low-light conditions.
 
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The issue is purely software and a decision that the manufactures made. My $1000 DSLR makes the same mistake if I choose different metering options on the camera. Since the DROID doesn't have the ability change its metering options, it appears to do its best with what it was set at. Regarding the Eris, it is likely that the camera software has picked a different metering option than the DROID. Without actually having used both in an extensive test, I'm sure that their separate and distinct manufacturing decisions have their compromises. Just like the iPhone camera has its own compromises and output options.


My wife has the Eris, what he is failing to mention repeatedly is. While the Droid definetly has issues in low light situations, it produces some very good video in well lit ones taking into account it is a cell phone after all. The video on my wife's Eris pretty much sucks regardless of the enviroment, it just looks really good when you compare it's low light performance to that of the Droid's.
 
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Exactly and that's because the Eris camera made a compromise, based on its sensor to have a particular measure of light metering and likely has a static ISO setting. Would I appreciate the ability to alter some of the camera options? Sure. My Samsung Alias allowed me to change the ISO settings. But I'm getting SO MUCH MORE from my DROID than my POC Samsung. There are trade-offs. Bruceo just wants everything in the world in his phone. The problem is: it won't happen! iPhone has compromises. DROID has compromises. HTC Next-best-thing will have compromises. But what does it do to nit-pick? He thinks by bashing the DROID on this forum will somehow push Motorola to push out much needed updates. It's not going to do anything but anger people who love their DROID as he's bashing on them, in the meanwhile, make him look like a prick.
 
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i guess it's disappointing for me because the first time i used the video it came out like in the video in the OP (and this was in a normally-lit room). also, it seems to me like most of the time that i use the video will be indoors, so i will be subject to this a lot. i understand that for others it's not as big a deal, but i really hope some option or fix comes along.
 
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Exactly and that's because the Eris camera made a compromise, based on its sensor to have a particular measure of light metering and likely has a static ISO setting. Would I appreciate the ability to alter some of the camera options? Sure. My Samsung Alias allowed me to change the ISO settings. But I'm getting SO MUCH MORE from my DROID than my POC Samsung. There are trade-offs. Bruceo just wants everything in the world in his phone. The problem is: it won't happen! iPhone has compromises. DROID has compromises. HTC Next-best-thing will have compromises. But what does it do to nit-pick? He thinks by bashing the DROID on this forum will somehow push Motorola to push out much needed updates. It's not going to do anything but anger people who love their DROID as he's bashing on them, in the meanwhile, make him look like a prick.

People can click on my name and read all my posts and decide for themselves.

As it stands I would most certainly take the Droid's video/photo hardware over the Eris. Its the software with the major flaws. Eris camera just has much better camera software which was created by HTC to make up for the terrible native Android camera software. HTC is well known for creating these improved apps for crappy winmo. Its just my opinion that Android shouldn't also be as bad. I wish HTC would port their apps to sell to the android community, but that wont happen till Rooting/Jailbreaking.
 
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Definitely another inexcusable bug in the camera app. Hope the update resolves it but it doesn't look too good that it will be fixed and i wouldnt want to be stuck with a droid that takes worse pics than inferior phones.


Did you mean to actually say, "A QIK "beta" processed video?"?

I think you did. I do a lot of photography (and videography) as 1 of my 3 professions. The droid is not that bad at all! You will get noise at low light levels, but you can PP these out. The data is there for crisp pics and video, it just needs a little PP as of now.

Sure it's not a 5DMKII or a high end canon or sony video camera, but what did you really expect?
 
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People can click on my name and read all my posts and decide for themselves.

As it stands I would most certainly take the Droid's video/photo hardware over the Eris. Its the software with the major flaws. Eris camera just has much better camera software which was created by HTC to make up for the terrible native Android camera software. HTC is well known for creating these improved apps for crappy winmo. Its just my opinion that Android shouldn't also be as bad. I wish HTC would port their apps to sell to the android community, but that wont happen till Rooting/Jailbreaking.

Right, if you have a DSLR, try posting a RAW file online so people can see it.

Ain't gonna happen in a browser, and people won't know how to interpret a RAW file.

If you capture, you may have to post process (like a raw camera file), and part of that might be cleaning up images/videos.

I love the capability of this device, it's working out great! I just edited some 3GP and there's plenty of detail there.... just needs a little love.
 
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That's the problem, bruceo. Your posts are becoming more and more biased and subjective. You don't provide any objectivity in your reviews. That's where I come in. I swoop in after your damaging posts and explain the situation. It is a software situation, but you have to understand and state to the general public that those software decisions are product-specific. For these tiny, tiny, on-board camera sensors, you have to make certain decisions on which to cover the majority of consumers. Can they guess wrong? Sure. While software can improve this, until these on-board cameras have a wider array of options to select from, the "auto" selection will always introduce compromise due to the limitations of the hardware. For example, people are complaining about the noise on some photos. Well, what do you expect for a 5MP camera where its shoved into such a small sensor? Honestly, for these phones, 3.2MP is the sweet spot. But even then, it's a lot of noise. What's the offset? Add noise-reducing software to the phone? Well, that chews up a lot of memory space.

There's a reason why HTC's software takes up almost 100mb of memory. If you want to lose that memory space for better usability, then get an HTC phone. If you'd rather use your smartphone for other applications, then you'll likely want those 100mb back. Compromises. All phones will have them. The DROID excels in other areas and again, all best guess decisions.
 
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Please explain why this needs to be a trade off?



What does it say when this page loads?

Droid from Verizon Wireless

There are ALWAYS trade-offs because of the memory capacity of these Smartphones and what they can offer at certain price points. Hey, if people wanted to pay $500 for a phone with a contract, I'm sure they'd pack a whole lot more in them.

As for what that page says when it loads: DROID does (everything in that circular wheel).

And let me state a fact: DROID indeed does EVERYTHING in that circular wheel with extraordinary efficiency.
 
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Did you mean to actually say, "A QIK "beta" processed video?"?

I think you did. I do a lot of photography (and videography) as 1 of my 3 professions. The droid is not that bad at all! You will get noise at low light levels, but you can PP these out. The data is there for crisp pics and video, it just needs a little PP as of now.

Sure it's not a 5DMKII or a high end canon or sony video camera, but what did you really expect?

That's his problem. He wants a 7D video capabilities in his DROID. Ain't going to happen.
 
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That's his problem. He wants a 7D video capabilities in his DROID. Ain't going to happen.

i hate to keep harping and i know you guys are pissed at bruce, but please don't use that to diminish the problem. the fact is, the video on the droid (for the most part a great device) in low light situations is not up to par with what is expected of equivalent devices in the industry.
 
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