Fast Camera App

[Vlad Soare]

Hello,

I did some searching and found several camera apps, but all reviews gravitate around special features, like editing, HDR, panoramas, multi-shots, subject recognition, etc. I'm not interesting in such things. I never use the phone to take important pictures. I only use it for quick snapshots of little importance, which are going to be deleted shortly anyway. All I care about is the speed of the app itself.
The stock camera app of my Galaxy S5 works very well, but it takes ages to open and to close. And that annoys me. I'm looking for a fast app. And when I say fast I don't mean how many frames per second it can shoot, but how fast the app itself is. I want the camera to open the instant I touch the icon on my home screen, not two seconds later. It would also be nice if it had the option of turning off the shutter sound. It doesn't have to be free.

What would you recommend?

Thank you.

 

[mikedt]

Try Google camera. But then it could be speed limitations of the actual camera hardware and firmware back-end of your particular phone itself, like how long it actually takes for the hardware to start-up and close-down. And no third-party camera app can fix that.

The ability to mute the shutter sound might depend on what region you're actually in, because in some countries and jurisdictions it's a legal requirement that a digital camera makes an audible sound when taking pictures, that can't be muted. And ROMs based on AOSP, can even show a warning that you might be committing a criminal offence if you do mute the camera shutter sound.

BTW Oppo R7 Plus, yes to both. 1) the camera is very fast, 2) shutter sound can be turned off.

 

[Vlad Soare]

Thank you. I tried Google Camera, and it takes aproximately the same time to open and close. So you may be right, it might be a hardware thing. Oh well...

I don't care about legal requirements. It's my phone, my camera, I will decide what noises it must or mustn't make. The phone is now rooted, so I could enable the option of turning the sound off in the camera app (even though it was unavailable by default). Back when it wasn't rooted, I used to have a rule in AutomateIt, which muted the phone when the camera app opened, then turned the sounds back on when it closed. It worked like a charm.
Android is all about freedom. We won't let some stupid legal balooney keep us from configuring our phones to our heart's content, will we?

Anyway, the ability to turn off the sound is not really a requirement, it's just nice to have. I could live with the sound if needed. I'm more interested in the speed of the app. But if it's a hardware issue, oh well, tough luck.