Verizon Droid DNA - Photo tips?

[mightyfacundo]

I'm looking for some tips to improve my low light/night pics. Last night was my kid's Christmas show, and the pics I took with my DNA are worthless. I then used my wife's S4 and the pics were great. Also, looking around at other parents' phones as they were snapping shots, the images were much clearer on their screens than what I was seeing on mine. I used the standard camera and tried different modes that didn't make any difference. I do have a nice camera, which I used to capture some really good shots, but it would be nice to know I can use my phone in a pinch. Thanks and here are a couple of examples.


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[mightyfacundo]

From all of the responses, I'm guessing the answer is that our DNA's take crappy night shots!

 

[hmfoster]

When you open the camera on the upper left are 3 markers. When you click them the screen shows Screen, Night, and HDR Also on the upper right is the flash and you can change it to A ( I think for automatic ) etc. The night mode works great for low light conditions. The HDR is very good if there is a great difference in the lighting. Like if you are taking a picture of someone and the background light is very bright, a normal exposure would adjust for the background and blacking the foreground. HDR balances the 2 give it a try.

 

[mightyfacundo]

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, the two pics I posted were taken in Night mode, and the one I took in HDR was even worse.

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[anon(924308)]

tbh the DNA has one of the worst low-light performances I've seen in recent smartphones--my sister's old iPhone 4S even beat my DNA in lowlight. There's not a whole lot you can do--if you adjust the white balance, it'll blow out the highlights (like in the first pic); if you decrease the ISO it'll be blurry; if you increase ISO, it'll be too grainy (like in the second pic). If a camera just doesn't perform well in low-light, you can't really do much about it.

The only thing I can think of is, under Image Adjustments, increase exposure all the way and decrease contrast. This would be too obnoxious to use in a theatre, but if you turn the flash on and switch to video mode, the flash stays on, making it easier to focus; you can still take still images in video mode, but I don't know if you can adjust anything like exposure/contrast.

If you want more customization, you can try the app "Camera FV-5"; though, I have it and I think it's a waste of 4 bucks. It gives you DSLR-like controls in a hands-on layout, but no matter what I do, the picture quality always ends up much worse than with the stock camera (the app has pretty bad response time--i.e. shutter lag no matter what). Plus, with the new update, the stock camera app has basically all the same features anyway.

 

[mightyfacundo]

I love this phone but I absolutely agree with your assessment of its low light (lack of) performance. Thanks for the feedback.

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[ggrr8t]

When you open the camera on the upper left are 3 markers. When you click them the screen shows Screen, Night, and HDR Also on the upper right is the flash and you can change it to A ( I think for automatic ) etc. The night mode works great for low light conditions. The HDR is very good if there is a great difference in the lighting. Like if you are taking a picture of someone and the background light is very bright, a normal exposure would adjust for the background and blacking the foreground. HDR balances the 2 give it a try.

When using HDR subject needs to be still. Someone moved in my shot and in picture she had no head. Very odd. It scared her.

 

[ripewithdecay]

You may try Camera360. I've noticed it seems to be more capable in low light.

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