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Droid 3 camera

T

The Real Deal

Lurker
Recently read a lot of posts on here and various sites about the quality of the pics with the Droid 3. Bunch of people complaining about a bluish tint and the image resolution when viewing on a computer.Looking to pick one up and the camera is a major selling point for me. I know a ton of you guys have the D3 so let's see some pics!
 
Close up, indoor, no flash:

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I do believe it was rather dark out for this one too. And no, this wasn't from a crazy drinking night. Just a good import for a family dinner :P
 
This picture was taking multiple times right in front of this plant and each time it would come out blurry with bad lighting.
 

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tankgurl said:
This picture was taking multiple times right in front of this plant and each time it would come out blurry with bad lighting.
Click to expand...

Looks to me like it came out blurry because it focused on the black pot in the top right. That part is in focus. I think the bare stick in front of the main plant might have thrown off the focus.

Overall, the camera is definitely a major disappointment for me. One of the few things I'm disappointed in with the phone.
 
This review sums it up really well, and does a good job of showing you the problems. Just want to note that not all the pictures come out with a blue tint like the people posting in the thread have shown. And when you see those pictures in your phone/computer you might think nothing of it, perhaps a good picture. The problem I find is that if you take that same picture with another comparable camera phone and look at it side by side, you realize you didn't know what you were missing. Other phones make this one look washed out, faded and old. An example being that if the Thunderbolt looks like it took a picture today, the Droid 3 looks like it took the picture in 1970.

Anyway check out the review

Motorola DROID 3 vs HTC ThunderBolt - Camera, Multimedia and Software - Phone Arena

Despite the camera issues I really enjoy this phone, but if the camera is a main selling point for you, I think you should look elsewhere.
 
On another forum we seem to have determined that the blue issues with the pics are due to a driver or firmware issue with the white balance in the camera. The only workaround I know of is with a 3rd party camera app, manually setting the white balance. Leaving the white balance set to auto results in blue pictures, especially with the flash.
 
Here goes....

I will say this. Its not 1080p, in the true sense that its crisp. It might be that format, but by no means does it perfom like a simple 200 dollar camera. IMO...phone cameras really really need to be paid attention too...but are usually neglected with quality. Selling points are high mega pixels and HD...which is all fine an dandy...but a camera on a 500 dollar phone should...well...act like a camera on an expensive phone...this one dosent.

Seeing as how my last smart phone was a htc tilt, this is quite an improvement...but not the best.

well since this sites attachment feature is acting special, I cant show my pick of a beer. annoying as hell but whatever.
 
speaking of 3rd party camera apps...lets hear a few good ones...


mlgodwinjr said:
On another forum we seem to have determined that the blue issues with the pics are due to a driver or firmware issue with the white balance in the camera. The only workaround I know of is with a 3rd party camera app, manually setting the white balance. Leaving the white balance set to auto results in blue pictures, especially with the flash.
Click to expand...
 
I don't think i'd call it good, but i have been playing around with sleek camera. It at least resolves the blue tinted pics. Just make sure not to use the auto wb setting. If there is a good free camera app i would like to hear of it myself
 
My opinion: Pictures are better than the D1. There is a blue cast with the flash on. That can be corrected after the fact with a free picture editor. Close ups are fantastic! Video is very good but I don't have much to compare it to. I think it looks great.
 
mlgodwinjr said:
On another forum we seem to have determined that the blue issues with the pics are due to a driver or firmware issue with the white balance in the camera. The only workaround I know of is with a 3rd party camera app, manually setting the white balance. Leaving the white balance set to auto results in blue pictures, especially with the flash.
Click to expand...

If this is true, then it should be a somewhat easy fix with an update, correct?
 
Not sure. Those i've chatted with called the find not good. I'm not a dev, just used to debugging software. If it's camera firmware, no one knows if that memory is flashable. The reason we ruled out motos cam app is that the wb issue could be repeated with any camera app that used the auto wb. That is controlled either in the camera firmware or driver. Need a dev to find out more. I suspect it should be easy to come up with a software patch for this, but its anybodies guess whether moto will patch it or try to fix the root problem.
 
I'm not noticing the blue tint in my pictures really. The pictures with the flash could be slightly better, but it's a phone :) I'm also not experiencing any of the camera performance issues that people are reporting.
 
The place where I noticed the blue tint the most was actually in my office, under fluorescent lights after reading the first thread about the blue tint.:D Outside, I don't notice it at all. At home, I don't notice it either. Eventually, if it bothers me enough, I'll edit the photos to remove the blue. The pictures are sharp and crisp, though, so if a slight tint is the only problem, I have photo editing software that can fix that. I don't find the pictures horrible, but on the other hand, I shouldn't have to alter the tint to get the colors right, either.

I had the original Droid, and made the jump to the 3 when it came out. It's a FAR superior phone, and so far, I'm loving it.
 
They are not as good as pictures from a dedicated camera, and they won't ever be. The resolution is good, but there's a very small lens assembly--it cannot compete with the larger lens assemblies of even many $100 point-and-shoot cameras because of the lens.

Given that, though, I find the pictures to be fine. I can see what people are talking about when they say there's a blue tint, but it doesn't jump out at me. When I take pictures with a phone, I expect them to look like pictures taken with a phone. This camera meets that expectation and does it well.

-boster
 
boster said:
They are not as good as pictures from a dedicated camera, and they won't ever be. The resolution is good, but there's a very small lens assembly--it cannot compete with the larger lens assemblies of even many $100 point-and-shoot cameras because of the lens.

Given that, though, I find the pictures to be fine. I can see what people are talking about when they say there's a blue tint, but it doesn't jump out at me. When I take pictures with a phone, I expect them to look like pictures taken with a phone. This camera meets that expectation and does it well.

-boster
Click to expand...

Agreed. When it comes to a camera on a -phone- it excells, it does great. It eliminates the need for a point and shoot camera (if you wanted) but by no means is it DSLR. (also keep in mind that even the 1080p videos have some quality degradation through upload and youtube stream)
 
The only thing that drives me crazy about the camera is that it seems to have like a 2-3 second lag from when you tap the icon to when the program opens... Htc phones don't seem to have that.. Anybody else have that issue?
 
TWiZZy said:
The only thing that drives me crazy about the camera is that it seems to have like a 2-3 second lag from when you tap the icon to when the program opens... Htc phones don't seem to have that.. Anybody else have that issue?
Click to expand...

That's the norm.. the camera app is one thing that Motorola wrote very poorly.
 
last week, i was so excited to get the Droid 3 and have been having the worst problems with it. I almost suspect my phone is just a lemon..

anyone else have these problems??

google maps navigation: all addresses i try to navigate to the GPS consistently fails and will not register where I am or registers me within a 5 mile zone of where i actually am. My GPS signal is turned on and i have reinstalled the application to see if it was buggy.. i was traveling to san diego and got severely lost and had to rely on the actual map view to figure out how to get to where i was going.. the directions were consistently inaccurate. My Droid 1 (or the first droid on the market) never had any navigation problems and was excellent

speed: the speed of the phone opening apps is slower than my droid 1. its a 3-5 sec delay before the app opens such as facebook or calendar

camera: its a bummer the only button you can take a picture with is the touch sensor button, taking photos at night are beyond poor, fuzzy and unusable with the flash.. many of my friends cameras were taken decent night photos and i was all excited to try out my new droid 3 and horrible unusable results. i double checked, triple checked settings and it was all set

actual phone dialing: took 3-5 seconds to pull up contacts and when i dialed someone, sometimes it would not respond to the end call button and i couldnt disconnect

speaker phone: sucks on my droid 3.. i normally use speaker phone when im driving and i am unable to use this feature with my driod 3 bc i've received consistent complaints that my caller can not hear me... (compared to me always using speaker phone on my droid 1 and there was never a problem)

does anyone have these problems?
 
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