Anyone noticed photo quality deterioration?

[Amanda Nicholls]

I've had the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 for about 6 months and the photo quality has deteriorated dramatically in that time. I haven't been able to find a lot of info on this and thought I was going a little mad, but since talking to a few other friends about it, it seems to be a bit of an issue! My previous phone was an Xperia Z, and I had the same issue with that, however this time it has happened a lot faster. Considering the picture quality was the main reason I got this phone, I'm not too pleased.

 

[nahoku]

I purchased my Note 4 in Feb. I've not had any problem with photos. I also just did a search on Google for "Note 4 photo quality deterioration", and "Note 4 photo quality degradation" and there are no hits other than this thread. Are your friends the only other ones seeing this issue? Do they own Note 4's too?

Your Note is under a year old which is in the warranty period. I would contact Samsung.

 

[IAmSixNine]

If you had the same issue with a different phone could it be the external lens on the back on the devices may be getting dirty or scratched up.
Thats the only common feature they might share since they are completely different devices by different manufacturers.

 

[Bgp5891]

I don't know about deterioration as I've had the phone for under 2 weeks, but I'm disappointed with the indoor performance of the camera right out of the box, unless I use the flash or get really close to the object I'm shooting. Photos can be very noisy and grainy etc. Outdoor photos with ample light look really good though. Wish they'd put a 1.9 aperture lens on the back shooter like they did on the selfie camera and on the note 5.

Would hate to think the camera will get worse over time.

Camera was of of the main reasons I bought this device too, it was marketed as top of the range. Very underwhelming experience when using it though.

Other than that the phone is good.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[nahoku]

If you had the same issue with a different phone could it be the external lens on the back on the devices may be getting dirty or scratched up.
Thats the only common feature they might share since they are completely different devices by different manufacturers.

What has "deteriorated dramatically"? What kind of problems are you seeing?

 

[nahoku]

I'm disappointed with the indoor performance of the camera right out of the box, unless I use the flash or get really close to the object I'm shooting. Photos can be very noisy and grainy etc. Outdoor photos with ample light look really good though. Wish they'd put a 1.9 aperture lens on the back shooter like they did on the selfie camera and on the note 5.

The problem is not the lens, (although 1.9 would help a little), its the amount of available light, compounded with the weak LCD flash. Since the overall light is weak, the camera adjusts to shoot with higher iso... and higher iso means noise. If you want less noise, you have to set the iso manually, but then the photo will come out darker. The fact that this is a "phone camera" has it's limitations. I've not seen any phone that can shoot decent photos in low light... that includes Android and iPhone. You want good low light photos, use a real camera.

 

[pduffer]

I'm absolutely pleased with the camera on my Note 4, and my daughter recently said she thinks it takes better pictures than her expensive camera.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

 

[muzzy996]

It's all relative . . . depending on use case and experience of the shooter the perceived results are going to differ too. Reality is the ISO range of this phone and most other mobile devices is far lower than that of many other digital cameras, especially DSLRs. The sensors in mobile devices are simply too small to have low light performance that competes with APS-C or full frame cameras at ISOs of 1000 or higher. While there may be subjective evaluation when it comes to quality of images the bottom line is exposure itself is basically just math.

I'm not sure what the issue is with the perceived deterioration of image quality . . that simply shouldn't be the case . . UNLESS what's being observed is more frequent out of focus shots due to potential issues with the optical image stabilization. That would be a hardware issue. It happened to my Note 4 and I had to get the camera module replaced. The lens would have a hard time focusing and eventually the issue got progressively worse. After the repair the camera's perfect again for daylight shots.