Camera issues, Return the OP6?

[JAJameson2010]

So I bought the OnePlus 6 on a whim while I was upset with the lagginess of my Pixel 2 XL. I missed one too many cute pictures due to it taking so long to launch the camera app.

I instantly fell in love with the OnePlus 6! It's so fast and smooth, the face unlocking is what I have been missing in my life!

My only real problem is the camera. Photos are grainy and not very focused. I'm using the HDR feature. I'm a point and shoot user with no real understanding of all the camera lingo. I'm usually catching quick dog photos in low light settings. Is there an obvious setting I am missing on the OP6 camera?

Is there a 3rd party camera app that may help me out?

Or am I going to have to return the OP6 and deal with google over the phone to get a replacement Pixel 2 XL and then have the same lagginess issues within a few more months.

Seriously the Pixel 2 camera in the OP6 would be so awesome!

Hopefully someone has some suggestions! I tried posting on the OnePlus forums but I'm not allowed to start a thread there? Their CS over the phone was also unhelpful.

 

[Rukbat]

My only real problem is the camera. Photos are grainy and not very focused. ... I'm usually catching quick dog photos in low light settings.

If you understood photography, you'd realize that you posted the answer to the problem. The lower the light, the higher the ISO the camera is shooting at - and higher ISO means higher graininess. Focus is also bad in low light, since the focusing method id based on edges, and they're more difficult for the camera to detect at low light. It also shoots at a larger lens opening, which gives you less depth f field (that's an optics thing, nothing the manufacturer can do anything about), which gives you a smaller range at which things remain focused.

Is there an obvious setting I am missing on the OP6 camera?

Neither. You're missing something about cameras. To get good pictures with good depth of field in dim light is ... like the Grand Unified Theory. The perfect trifecta.

Kodak has great photography tutorials online. Read them. Learn about photography. Then you'll know what you're doing and you'll be able to figure out, for any given scene, what you need to do. (The Pixel 2 has a chip in it that processes the picture after you take it. If's fast, since it's a computer built to specifically process pictures. Which is why everyone else is comparing their cameras to the P2 to see ho9w close they come. [In my opinion, no one does.])

Is there a 3rd party camera app that may help me out?

Not even a Hasselblad camera. (And they start at $8,000 [and go to close to $30,000].) Learning that you can't take fast, grain-free, tightly-focused pictures in dim light would be the first thing that would "help you out". No camera can do that. Not a $50 cellphone, not an $18,000 Hasselblad.

Or am I going to have to return the OP6 and deal with google over the phone to get a replacement Pixel 2 XL and then have the same lagginess issues within a few more months.

Or return the OP6 and keep the camera app open on the P2 in situations in which you think you may want to snap a shot. (And that's what you're doing, not photography, snapshotting.) If you think the 2 is laggy, try getting your hands on a Pixel (the "1"), and taking HDR pictures. They do the processing in software. No rapidfire multiple shots.

Seriously the Pixel 2 camera in the OP6 would be so awesome!

The P2 camera and processor in any other phone would be fantastic - but don't expect to see it. The camera alone? It's not that great. Good, but it can't come close to a $900 DSLR. The P2 with the post-processor does.

Their CS over the phone was also unhelpful.

Google's is. (I've been working with them on an Android bug for about 4 weeks now, so I've gotten to know some of them. They know how to do customer service. And their developers really want to put out a good product. [And I embarrassed them, by diagnosing a bug for them that they didn't even know they had.])

No matter which camera you use, learn photography, at least the basics. How the less light there is, the higher the ISO has to get - and how that affects graininess. About depth of field. (I'm not talking about a 6 month course here - one full day studying Kodak's tutorials on line and you'll know more than 99.99% of the cellphone owners in the world do. Almost everyone is a snapshotter - and after you spend a few hours learning, you'll understand why I'm glad that the people who run this site aren't photographers - I like posting here.)

 

[JAJameson2010]

Thank you so much for the very detailed reply Rukbat!!!!! I really appreciate it!

I promise to spend time this Saturday looking at Kodak tutorials online. LOL I am FAR from a photographer! I just want to catch cute things that my dogs do. I'm not expecting perfection, if I snap 20 pictures, I want at least one of them not to be blurry. Understanding more about it will probably help my frustration!

I called google support and they actually are sending me a new Pixel 2XL, I've been troubleshooting that lagginess by myself for a month and a half. My old Nexus 6 works better than my current Pixel 2XL. I'm going to return the OP6 (sadly because I instantly LOVED everything else about that phone)

Always keeping the camera app open is an interesting concept... I wonder if there is a way to always keep that launched in the background? I'll go down that rabbit hole next week. So the Pixel 2 software is the magic, not the camera. Got it! Learning more every day! <3

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!

 

[PGrey]

Just get a camera, that's actually a CAMERA, and not a phone, which has a ridiculously short focal-length (i.e. depth-of-field almost always suffers, a LOT), for taking the pictures you want to keep.

Cell phones are great for taking "offhand" pics, but they're simply not going to replace real digital cameras, anytime soon, unless the laws of physics change, a lot, or they figure out some weird way to squeeze a huge sensor in there, and make the optics work (this really is pretty simple physics, Physics-101 kind of stuff), magically ;-]

You can read around, places like DPReview have great "buying guides", for ALL levels of camera use, starting at the full-auto snapshot, and all the way up to high-end DSLR and mirrorless.

A "budget" 100-200 point-and-shoot camera is going to take FAR more consistently good pictures, than the best cell phone, say if you look at a "set" of 20 pics.