Still Camera Capabilities

[toord]

I took several shots of the same inanimate subject (Crayons) at different ISOs under "perfect" light conditions. I also took several shots of a different inanimate object (baby chew toy) under slightly less "perfect" light conditions (namelly I moved about 6 feet deeper into my house). All 100% crops. No retouching of any kind. The shots can be found here:

HTC Incredible Shot Comparison - Imgur

regretfully imgur removed the file names. But to give you an idea, the shots taken of crayons taken @ ISO 100, 200 and even 800 were nothing to write home about, but photographically acceptable. Noise is visible at all ISOs and @ ISO1250 things fall apart at the 100% scale (chromatic aberration, destructive noise, etc.). The chew toy shots were very telling. Light conditions were good and yet the camera had a hell of a time focusing. Took me several tries to get an acceptably in-focus shot at each ISO. And then I tried photographing my kids. In short, the came failed miserably, in every setting, to get a decent picture: this due to the fact that shutter speed cannot be changed (but this is a HUGE, HUGE, HUGE drawback as it this pretty much puts taking pictures of moving subjects out of the question). Even though children portraiture is a challenge even with pro equipment, my piss-poor point-and-shoot can get a few remarkable pictures of the kids (posing) and yet the Incredible built-in camera could not get a correct focus reading to save its life.

IVMHO, it's a nice add-on camera but with severe photographic drawbacks when photographing moving objects (or even inanimate objects under less than perfect conditions).

P.S.: Please forgive the uneven 100% crops. I don't have any of my photo testing equip and did those by eye/hand

 

[cooksalot]

I took several shots of the same inanimate subject (Crayons) at different ISOs under "perfect" light conditions. I also took several shots of a different inanimate object (baby chew toy) under slightly less "perfect" light conditions (namelly I moved about 6 feet deeper into my house). All 100% crops. No retouching of any kind. The shots can be found here:

HTC Incredible Shot Comparison - Imgur

regretfully imgur removed the file names. But to give you an idea, the shots taken of crayons taken @ ISO 100, 200 and even 800 were nothing to write home about, but photographically acceptable. Noise is visible at all ISOs and @ ISO1250 things fall apart at the 100% scale (chromatic aberration, destructive noise, etc.). The chew toy shots were very telling. Light conditions were good and yet the camera had a hell of a time focusing. Took me several tries to get an acceptably in-focus shot at each ISO. And then I tried photographing my kids. In short, the came failed miserably, in every setting, to get a decent picture: this due to the fact that shutter speed cannot be changed (but this is a HUGE, HUGE, HUGE drawback as it this pretty much puts taking pictures of moving subjects out of the question). Even though children portraiture is a challenge even with pro equipment, my piss-poor point-and-shoot can get a few remarkable pictures of the kids (posing) and yet the Incredible built-in camera could not get a correct focus reading to save its life.

IVMHO, it's a nice add-on camera but with severe photographic drawbacks when photographing moving objects (or even inanimate objects under less than perfect conditions).

P.S.: Please forgive the uneven 100% crops. I don't have any of my photo testing equip and did those by eye/hand

I like the camera, It's not my Nikon DSLR but for a phone camera it beat's lugging my camera around with me all the time. Hands down puts my Moto Q piece of junk to shame. I have it set so I hold my finger down on the screen over what I want focused and the camera takes the picture. Seems to work better than using the shutter button.

 

[tsrdrum]

Are you using 2.1 or 2.2?
I've found that I'm getting much better photo results after the update. It's still not excellent quality (compared to many modern digital cameras), but it's probably on par with older point-and shoots.

Few point-and-shoots, even modern ones, allow you to control the shutter speed. Keep in mind that this is not a DSLR replacement. It's a point-and-shoot camera replacement, and considering the amount of space they had to work with for an image sensor, I think it's a pretty damn good one.

 

[Mr. Boom]

I have really noticed that it works much like my regular digital camera. Indoors, picture quality can vary greatly, but outdoors, takes stunning pictures. Digital cams seem to struggle sometimes with artificial light.

 

[Musky]

I like the camera, It's not my Nikon DSLR but for a phone camera it beat's lugging my camera around with me all the time. Hands down puts my Moto Q piece of junk to shame. I have it set so I hold my finger down on the screen over what I want focused and the camera takes the picture. Seems to work better than using the shutter button.

I use the shutter button and after your post, I'm thinking that might account for the problem I'm having. I will take a picture that, viewing it through the camera, is clear and sharp, but as soon as I "snap" the picture using the optical button, the pictures are always "soft", not near as sharp. I'll try to tap the screen to take the picture instead of the button and see if that helps.

Any other suggestions as to what may be causing the "softness" problem?

 

[cooksalot]

I use the shutter button and after your post, I'm thinking that might account for the problem I'm having. I will take a picture that, viewing it through the camera, is clear and sharp, but as soon as I "snap" the picture using the optical button, the pictures are always "soft", not near as sharp. I'll try to tap the screen to take the picture instead of the button and see if that helps.

Any other suggestions as to what may be causing the "softness" problem?

Don't just tap I found that if you hold it there until the camera takes the picture works better. Other than that I say it does great for a point and shoot phone camera. Better than my Nikon Coolpix point and shoot.

 

[hakr100]

I've never met a cell phone camera I like. It is nearly impossible to buy a cell phone without one these days. I wish the cell phone manufacturers would concentrate on the phone aspects of cell phones.

 

[cooksalot]

I've never met a cell phone camera I like. It is nearly impossible to buy a cell phone without one these days. I wish the cell phone manufacturers would concentrate on the phone aspects of cell phones.

Yeah, but it's great when you live in a different state than your niece and she can send you pictures of the kids. If not she wouldn't even bother with the camera much less getting a copy to me.