Nexus picture quality...software or hardware problem?

You don't buy a camera to make phone calls, so don't buy a phone to take pictures. It is as simple as that.

Phones do not have the real estate to fit a true camera sensor to take good pictures. There are far too many settings required in order to take a good picture: aperture, ISO, WB, EV, speed, lens quality, sensor, and many others. These simply do not fit in a phone.

Accept it for what it is. If you want quality photos, get a camera that can do it, take the necessary courses, and learn. The best component of quality pictures is the person behind the camera. Unfortunately, there is no phone that is a camera.

I font tbink thats what he was getting at...I think he was comparing it to other phones. I don't say go buy.a computer because the browser isn't as up to snuff as they would like. I agree the camera is a bit of a second thoight for a phone, but its still a nearly madatory option on smart phones nowadays and he has a right to complain.


Generally the quality of the photo can be fixed SLIGHTLY in a patch or update...but for the most part, you get what you get. From what I've seen the camera isn't half bad. It's not ahead of its game but its average to slightly above for a phone. It's possibly a setting or focus problem within the application itself.

msjohnson2868 said:

Thanks for the reply, but its totally not the point.

The point is that there are other phones that have the capability to take better photos than this, and the question is why. Not can I use my phone to take a professional quality photo shoot and ditch my EOS or whatever.

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+1.

Not to mention that the ads and hype for many of these devices include specs and positive implications about the quality of the camera. They make those points as another reason to buy the "phone."

Not trying to be snarky here, but it was written in several places that the camera on this phone was lacking when compared to others. If the camera was that vital to your enjoyment of the phone it have played a higher role in deciding whether to get it.

Unfortunately, she got exactly what I was getting at. The fact of the matter is phones will never take good pictures. There are technologies involved in photography that physically cannot fit within the real estate of a phone.

#1 The image sensor has to match the MP of the photo. A 1MP camera with a 1MP sensor will take a much better picture than a 5MP camera with a 1MP sensor.

#2 Comes to having the ability to adjust all necessary settings and have a good lens. Most, if not all, settings do not exist in a phone. The lens definitely does not exist.

If you are buying a phone primarily for the camera, then the decision would be based on the phone that takes the best pictures. Since I never look at those specs on a phone, I will go with the general opinion that the iPhone takes some of the best pictures. For me, I will whip out my Canon, snap a picture in RAW with the settings as I believe they should be, then pp to get the picture as it should be. I would not use my phone for that.

Frisco said:

+1.

Not to mention that the ads and hype for many of these devices include specs and positive implications about the quality of the camera. They make those points as another reason to buy the "phone."

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And the same people that believe this walk into a camera store and ask for a 10GP camera because it has 10 billion pixels and has to be the best.

This same reasoning goes to people that bought the iPhone 4(4S). It has a 4, so it must be 4G LTE.

msjohnson2868 said:

So I've had the nexus since launch day, and have been less than impressed with the camera. That's my only gripe. The pictures, at least the comes I've taken indoors under indoor lighting, are horrible. Grainy and unfocused. Even with manually focusing the thing.

Pics taken outside in sunlight seem to be better. The question I have is, could this simply be an issue with the software for the camera, or is it hardware (i.e. 5mp vs the 8 for other high end devices)?

I'm going to try out some other camera apps to see. Thoughts? Tips?

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cams seems great for a cell phone. much better than my og droid and seem the same as my wifes iphone 4. for good pics I would suggest a dslr, the pics are 100x better than any cell.

I'm underwhelmed with the picture quality coming from the rezound which took great pictures for a camera but I would say the Nexus is not bad definitely better then my thunderbolt

Honestly I think this camera isn't going to get much better if any. I knew coming in that the camera on this phone wasn't the best I actually expected worse but so far its good enough for me to take quick pictures and the 720 recording is actually very good IMO . Haven't messed with 1080 seems overkill for a phone recorded video

BigRedNole said:

And the same people that believe this walk into a camera store and ask for a 10GP camera because it has 10 billion pixels and has to be the best.

This same reasoning goes to people that bought the iPhone 4(4S). It has a 4, so it must be 4G LTE.

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Well, what people "believe" about ads and hype varies from person to person. We all make assumptions, and some of us look into the specs and read reviews prior to purchase.

But again, the camera is supposed to be useful, it is not an irrelevant add-on but an important portion of the device's multi-use engineering these days.

Camera, camcorder, music player, messaging utility, GPS, etc. Oh, and telephone.

That stuff is all supposed to work. ^

msjohnson2868 said:

Please don't hijack this thread ... The intent of this thread is to get other's input on whether the low quality of the phones pictures is software or hardware related.

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It is hardware related. It is a tiny lens with no camera sensor, pumping out 5MP to who knows what the sensor is rated for.

Lens: I am being generous here on the measurement. It is at most 2mm in diameter.

msjohnson2868 said:

The point is that there are other phones that have the capability to take better photos than this, and the question is why. Not can I use my phone to take a professional quality photo shoot and ditch my EOS or whatever.

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I think that component-wise the camera sourced was just a cheaper version... why is it cheaper quality than samsung galaxy sII or iphone4s?

-cheaper price more profitable unit price per production
-supplier sourcing (specifications were generic) and what was specified for camera was just must meet 'these' general requirements; must be at least 5MP, must be able to shutter fast; must meet this price point, etc.
-design issues with LTE implementation; it could be this type of camera was the only one to work in conjunction with the other components (some components of g nexus is the same as sg2).
-design issues with the given dimensions; maybe this camera was the only one that fit
-only cam to allow such a fast shutter speed

i think it's a money thing and they just cheapied out on it cus they know they could, and it would give them more hype for the next gen phone that would obviously have a better camera (makes for better future marketing, right now it's all about OOO the only phone with ICS!)

BigRedNole said:

You don't buy a camera to make phone calls, so don't buy a phone to take pictures. It is as simple as that.

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I see with an extreme example of where you are going but the Galaxy II Samsung's take very good pictures (for a phone, compared to the GNex) , the Rezound makes for nice pictures with little ease, I'm not even going to bring up phones on other platforms...

So while def , I don't expect my phone to replace my digital camera (especially for events which we know we will take pictures and for the need to zoom <optical>) - but we take quite a bit of pictures and don't carry around our dedicated camera very often - having a WiFi only Epic Touch since Sept that has a great camera - it's tough to go down to the GNex pic quality after using a much older phone (GS2 - released in April 2010 in Europe) - the GNex should have a much better camera.

From the results I received testing the GNex , the pics indoors were so poor , I couldn't see being stuck for 2 years with such low quality pictures.

Maybe it's a software issue that can be corrected via an update. I doubt it though as if the sensor was more capable, I'm sure Google wouldn't have released the device with such poor performance.

There is one person around here though (user "fam;3679567") that seems to be able to take pretty good GNex pics. Would like to know how go get pics at that level - easily. Then it may just do well enough to purchase / keep.

P M said:

I think that component-wise the camera sourced was just a cheaper version... why is it cheaper quality than samsung galaxy sII or iphone4s?

-cheaper price more profitable unit price per production
-supplier sourcing (specifications were generic) and what was specified for camera was just must meet 'these' general requirements; must be at least 5MP, must be able to shutter fast; must meet this price point, etc.
-design issues with LTE implementation; it could be this type of camera was the only one to work in conjunction with the other components (some components of g nexus is the same as sg2).
-design issues with the given dimensions; maybe this camera was the only one that fit
-only cam to allow such a fast shutter speed

i think it's a money thing and they just cheapied out on it cus they know they could, and it would give them more hype for the next gen phone that would obviously have a better camera (makes for better future marketing, right now it's all about OOO the only phone with ICS!)

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From your list, the only one that makes sense is the one I bolded: that to meet the speeds Google requested, a smaller MP count was needed. The higher the megapixel count, the bigger the resulting file, the greater the system overhead becomes to read, compress and write the file to memory. Nobody is getting rich off a relatively inexpensive camera module, and it certainly wasn't a size/space issue when you look at what's available.

redraptor said:

Generally the quality of the photo can be fixed SLIGHTLY in a patch or update...but for the most part, you get what you get. From what I've seen the camera isn't half bad. It's not ahead of its game but its average to slightly above for a phone. It's possibly a setting or focus problem within the application itself.

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The "SLIGHTLY" depends on what is trying to be tweaked. Yeah, the lens and the sensor are locked down, so obviously there are limits to what can be accomplished. But a lot of code goes into determining how colors will be boosted and how exposure will be set, and we see these kinds of firmware updates to dedicated cameras frequently, with very noticeable changes in auto focus, exposure, and output. There's nothing magic about the hardware in the much loved iP4 camera, but there was clearly a TON of attention to detail paid in how the final product looks.

speede541 said:

From your list, the only one that makes sense is the one I bolded: that to meet the speeds Google requested, a smaller MP count was needed. The higher the megapixel count, the bigger the resulting file, the greater the system overhead becomes to read, compress and write the file to memory. Nobody is getting rich off a relatively inexpensive camera module, and it certainly wasn't a size/space issue when you look at what's available.

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Good point! haha prices for these cameras prolly differ in the pennies so not much to throw around here.