Front-facing camera has better white balance??

[John Zacharkow]

So this is odd. When snapping shots around my home and office with the One, the shots from the front camera almost always have a more accurate white balance than the main shooter. Both shots below were taken in auto, and the rear camera (1st picture) consistently makes everything too green, while the front camera catches all colors almost perfectly (just oversaturated). Has anyone else noticed this? I had my main camera replaced because of the purple tint issue, but I think the original also behaved this way.

 

[Darth Mo]

From these two photos, while you've basically captured the same scene, that big white box (a microwave, maybe?) is nice target for white balancing. In the rear facing shot they only white you have is the paper with text on it, so the image processor has to do a little more "guessing."

If you've noticed this performance in regular use, that's fine, but you generally want to have identically framed shots to call one or the other better. And I get that's probably difficult to do since you probably don't have a tripod for your one so it's tough to line up the front facing shot, but that's the idea.

To me though, it looks like the exposure difference has more do with the look of the photos than the white balance. The whites still look very close in both.

 

[John Zacharkow]

I've taken test shots with a white piece of paper on my desk, and the rear camera fared even worse, adding even more green to the shot. I'll upload them later today. I'd be interested to see others' front vs rear indoor results.

 

[John Zacharkow]

Here's another comparison from our living room. Again, the main shooter greens everything out, while the front cam pretty much nails the colors.
Do others have this issue? It seems drastically worse than the front cam.

 

[John Zacharkow]

I don't know if I should contact HTC about this or not. If some people could post indoor comparison shots with their front and main cameras I'd really appreciate it. Thank you all!

 

[iN8ter]

Almost all camera reviews show the One doing this so I'm not sure I would send it in or risk trading a good phone for a refurbished which will perform identically.

The iPhone 5 has a similar issue where it yellows the whites out a bit.

The Optics on the Front and Back cameras aren't the same so the output will not be identical.

Sent from my Galaxy Note 3 using Tapatalk

 

[John Zacharkow]

I realized that at the end of the photo after effects, there's an option to create your own. I've made two with white balance adjustments that correct for this awful green hue that occasionally creeps into photos.