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S7 - something wrong with camera API?

P

peterh337

Android Enthusiast
The stock app has no config for saturation etc. The pics are way over-saturated - as per my other post here.

I am also using Camera-FV5. That has the settings for saturation and sharpness. The saturation control works, and -1 drops it down just right. But the sharpness setting doesn't work. In the neutral position there is way too much unsharp mask sharpening. But going down -1 produces massive jpeg compression artefacts. I have reported this to the app developer. It may be the app or it may be a bug in the API.

Neither app can generate RAW files. The stock app records nothing. FV5 records DNGs but with zero size. Definitely another bug! I cannot believe Samsung can launch a product which is buggy in such an obvious place.
 
Are you in Pro mode? it only generates RAW files using the default camera in that mode. Works fine on mine.
 
OK... this is spooky!

I was not using the Pro mode before, so many thanks for the tip.

However, if you config the stock camera app in Pro mode and for "SD card" it saves the stuff to /sdcard/DCIM/Camera which is in internal storage! And I have verified that the amount of space remaining in internal storage reduces as I take more pics.

So the destination setting in the stock camera app is defective.

However if you set the stock camera app to Auto mode then with the "SD card" setting it saves the pics to /storage/160B-3542/DCIM/Camera which is obviously on the external SD card and I have verified this too!!!!! (160B-3542 is the volume ID of the external SD card; I cannot change this, even though the volume label is S7-SDCARD.

SO ANOTHER S7 BUG!

BTW is there any config in the stock app for colour saturation? I cannot find it.
 
Its not defective it tells you its going to save the RAW pics to the internal storage beforehand, i dunno why it does that (probably some stupid permissions issue), but it does. You can always move the RAW pics to the sd card afterwards in the file manager or gallery to save space anyway.

As for saturation you can do an edit/tone/saturation on any pic after the shot is taken to alter it.
 
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The SD card is selected in the camera app as the destination but it saves them (both jpeg and raw) to Internal. That is a bug, no question.

Also with Raw you are far more likely to want to save to SD card...

It doesn't say anything; it just does it. Saves them to the wrong place.

The code obviously has a bug in that if Pro mode is selected, the destination setting is ignored.

Anyway, this proves that Camera-FV5 also has a bug in writing zero-size DNG files.
 
It bloody does lol! when you select PRO mode, it says on screen "Both RAW and jpg images will be saved in device storage"
 
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OK; I see what you mean. A brief popup message. What is the point of this "feature" however?

Throughout, in the Pro mode, it shows the SD card symbol in top right. I can send you a screenshot.
 
I have no idea, maybe its been done for performance reasons if you have a slow SD Card, due to the RAW images being larger in size.
 
OK; the "user experience politburo" job again. Still wrong to show the SD card symbol on-screen and to show the SD card as the destination in the Settings.
 
Well misleading if you don't see the popup message, or read the manual, yes i agree.

But the message is still shown regardless.
 
I need to find another camera app anyway, because the stock app over-saturates the colours.

Camera-FV5 doesn't work properly on the S7. The sharpening control (to reduce the over-done sharpening) doesn't work. I was going to look at Proshot... but someone posted a recent comment that it doesn't work on the S7. I have just confirmed it - horribly grainy shots.
 
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I have 2 issues that I see are wrong - it clearly shows images saved location as SDcard - yet stored RAW+jpeg on device - clear bug ..... either allow storage on SDcard or display correctly where images will be stored.

Second issue is if you set Pro-mode .. it should stay in Pro-mode until you change it - if you exit out, it returns to default, should be able to save as 'new' default.

I have raised these as official support tkt with Samsung - 'maybe' we can get it resolved in a s/w release.
Suggest anyone else who wants to use raw direct to SD card does the same
 
What is the contact address for Samsung?

My hope is for a 3rd party app because they have lots better features. What they may always miss however are

- launching via the button double click (really nice)
- very fast operation

But to be honest if you want a quick picture, you are probably not bothered about quality that much so the stock app is OK, and not getting RAW out of it is "ok".
 
The best quality app right now for jpeg output is Camera-FV5, with saturation turned down one step. It even places the files in the right place.

Proshot looked promising but is confirmed by a few people as not working on the S7. The pics come out with a low resolution and a massive amount of unsharp mask - useless.
 
i don't know why you are so hung up about the saturation, it's really not that bad imo, simply edit the pic afterwards either in the gallery app, photoshop or others. To be honest all smartphone cams tend to oversaturate slightly to a certain extent and that has always been the case in Samsung phones.
 
I have done some shots just now.

Overall scene:
2016-04-19_142621.jpg


Now with 100% zoom:

Stock app:
2016-04-19_142819.jpg


Camera-FV5 with saturation down 1 step:
2016-04-19_143221.jpg


The above two show a similar level of unsharp-mask sharpening. I'd say this is excessive, but much more to the point if you want sharpening then you *have to* do it at the final display size (on a website, print size, etc). Sharpening at the original size is completely pointless and just jacks up the file size because all the bits where the brightness changes have had the changes made steeper, so the jpeg file gets bigger for a given quality level.

The lower of the two pics above has more realistic colours. I've just been there...

Now another photo...
2016-04-19_143608.jpg


100% zoomed:

Stock app:
2016-04-19_143408.jpg


Stock app, DNG (opened successfully in Photoshop CS3 so thankfully not some silly very recent DNG variant):
2016-04-19_143515.jpg


Of the above two, you see again lots of sharpening, over saturation, in the upper one. The lower (DNG) image has no sharpening (would be worrying if it had ;)) but is still over-saturated but then DNGs can't be used directly and one would always have the opportunity to process them (e.g. Lightroom).

This is from the DNG file, desaturated a bit and sharpened at the final (on this website) size of 699 pixels wide

2016-04-19_145219.jpg


"simply edit the pic afterwards either in the gallery app, photoshop or others. "

That is extra work which is nice to avoid if you have a decent camera. I do a lot of this stuff - www.peter2000.co.uk/aviation and spend *days* in ACDSEE7, Lightroom, Photoshop, etc.

"To be honest all smartphone cams tend to oversaturate slightly to a certain extent and that has always been the case in Samsung phones."

Mostly true, and I guess people like it. But the sort of people who like grossly over-saturated colours don't need a 12MP/16MP camera :) It is grossly patronising to be offered a £600 camera phone and not be given the option to turn off this facebook-grade "enhancement".

It will come, but probably only in 3rd party apps.

BTW the Nokia 808's 2011-year camera has not yet been beaten. It does 40MP images, downsized in 3rd party apps to 12MP. But then Symbian is dead, etc... My S6 will now be a backup phone and the 808 is going on Ebay :)

The S7 is a great phone. I like that at least one can get a pic right away instead of having to wait for a few secs and then get a good % of out of focus ones which is what the S6 did.

BTW I confirm the Pro mode selection is lost upon app exit.
 
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I think the point here is, it's still a smartphone camera, regardless of the phone's cost and your expectations are set way too high ;) A smartphone camera's main purpose is for convenience and the ability to take pics quickly and not for professional quality high res pics. If you want that then pull out your DSLR :) Or keep the Nokia 808 :D
 
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Honestly for a Smartphone is has all the features I could need ... and a whole load I would not use .... I prefer to do my processing later on with Lightroom.

All I want is that the camera would save RAW files to SD card .... also makes sense to have all pics in one location - not 2.
 
Well, yes, I tend to agree, but just because one can doesn't mean one always wants to. It takes time to post-process a load of pics. Lightroom is not exactly the fastest program although I guess one could set up a standard set of processing parameters.

I tend to use postprocessing for correcting stuff which actually needs it e.g. cropping, straightening out a crooked horizon (happens if taking pics in difficult situations), de-noise...

I think Samsung did this extra saturation in their camera firmware (not in their camera app) because it is popular with most ordinary users who like vivid pics.

The location storage bug is a bug which will probably get fixed. It's amazing that more than a month after launch they still haven't fixed it. We can't be the only people to have found it, surely? I wonder if the stock Gallery app automatically looks in the internal memory location, so most people will never realise their big DNGs are being stored in internal memory.
 
Gallery looks in both ... but only shows the jpeg.
No raw viewer built in.

FYI there is a batch processing function in Light room ..
I only use it occasionally...for example with underwater photography where I set up white balance & colour corrections then apply against all photos from same dive (if photos are at similar depth)

I don't dispute many will just want jpeg ... so they can happily ignore raw altogether

For any quick social media pics it makes sense .... for me I'd set for raw+jpeg
Then select afterwards those I want to post-process.
Just need them to be on sd card (as per the settings)
 
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