nah, i like to play around with my phone until i get things right.
Seems i missed your post, being sober and new years day, not happening
Good, you can go totally nuts with this then.
K zoom because of the manual controls. Don't know how you will get one though, they don't sell them anymore, maybe second hand. or just wait for the successor to come out in a month or two. Best bet. Once you get optical zoom you won't come back.
Was looking at S6 hands on. it uses the same sony sensor as the note 4. has a pro mode, could not find that all important shutter time setting. no mention of raw either. Does not mean it wont come but can't tell when or if it will either. Only thing pro mode offers that was not available earlier is manual focus. nice but you can trick the camera into doing that on your own anyway with any device. its more general user friendly than 'pro' which is such a damn misnomer.
I love taking shots like this
Unfortunately getting the focus right is a bit of a hit or a miss, and it usually works only if there is a decent amount of daylight.
Make your own light, use a torch. OR getting focus is about picking something that is about the right distance that is better lit clicking without removing your finger to lock focus and then recomposing back. will work with any device.
trying to get a lock indoors (even with sunlight in the room) or at night with plenty of light indoors is tough. I had to struggle to get this locked right, and even then there was a lot of noise.
Same thing as above. thing with macros is even a device from three years ago can compete with a flagship. macros are the worst photos you can use to show image quality for a phone camera. i saw a sony ericcsson i850 whats that like 5 years old compete and even outbeat the z1. Might have been a lucky shot but that shows macros and phone cameras go together well.
Thing with macros is keeping focus on your subject. A slight move means even though you locked focus your subject is no longer in focus. The closer you get the more stringent this requirement becomes. There is a minimum distance too where you won't get focus at all and that's just physics despite being in macro mode.
Check this
calculator
compact of 1/3" sensor, aperture 2.0, focal length 4mm
distance to subject : 10 cm.
Nearest Acceptable Sharpness: 9.49 cm
Furthest Acceptable Sharpness: 10.56cm
Total Depth of Field: 1.1cm (!)
That is a pretty tight depth of field. Want more of the subject at the back and front to be sharp ? then you have to do focus stacking and blend in post.
Ideally tripod stuff.
I personally like the FOV of this panorama, (the newer cams make them too wide!) but the white balance and the exposure don't stay constant over the panorama, and kinda screw that up. Even the stitching could be better.
stitching quality on phone cameras uses cylindrical projection. this projection only keeps verticals straight and well horizontals tend to bow.
Check a program called hugin. you can use your full resolution shots and with rectilinear projections to get horizontals straight too. It runs on your pc which has more processing power.
I am yet to find an HDR app which makes good (Iphone 4 quality) shots from my phone. They are okay, and capture more detail than regular mode, but still no amount of fine tuning HDR camera has gotten me close to good looking HDR shots. this photo has not had any tweaking - the greens were like that straight out of the hdr camera app
i think if you want better then you are going to have to do it manually in post processing with either gimp or photoshop.
Take two shots (expose for foreground and then expose for background)or if you have bracketing then 3 shots and blend. With masks you can control what gets blended in or not.
Alternatively there is a program called enfuse which works with hugin that will take those two or more shots and blend them automatically. will take some experimenting. but manual is best. i tried with night shots and trying to expose without blwoing highlights like anything illuminated was impossible until i tried blending.
FV5 is too clunky, and the other apps are too primitive. I prefer having a stock photo app I can manipulate into doing things i want without using too many settings - like this unfocussed snap
All you need to get this is focus at something 2m away that is lit and recompose. Now to get it clear means holding steady and using a low ISO. you don't have this control on any of the samsungs. you will have to try with night mode and hope for the best. or if you have manual settings then you have many options, including bracketing.
Hey, I know am asking for a lot, but It doesn't hurt to ask right
The reason I'm a bit apprehensive about the Z2 is that while i was researching for my phone in 2012, there was a lot of hype about the exmor BSI sensor, but all the outdoor daylight sample images i looked at especially the ones in sunlight, looked washed out/some sort of bloom. and a friend bought an xperia, and i noted the same issue in his photos when we took photos at the same place. I keep seeing the same bloom in the Xperia Z2 - and I don't want that
The one thing that is essential to have is control over the shutter.
Who offers this currently ?
lumia 630 has the nokia camera. entry level phone with camera software than even android flagships can't touch. But the sensor isn't quite in the same league.
htc m8, desire 820, upcoming m9
s4 zoom, k zoom, successor?
who currently does raw ? only the m8,9 and possibly g2. am hoping that k zoom will get it with an android update.
Vegetation with raw you can control for noise vs jpg is no comparison. the details just scream out to the point you wonder whether the same camera took the shot.
