Re: M8 Camera
I read a few pages in this thread. Could someone summarize some thoughts about the camera. I think M8 convinced me finally to buy a new phone but the camera is critical because I am more like a shoot_a_photo_in_a_party guy. When I go to a vacation, I take my camera.
I've had the m8 since launch day, so I have no had plenty of time to experiment with the camera. My simple thoughts are this: The camera isn't necessarily better or worse than its closest competitors (S5 & 5S, for example), it's just very, very different. Not going to lie, despite all the talk about photons and apertures and sensor-sizes, it's a shock to the system at first to go from an 8+ megapixel camera down to 4. You absolutely lose fine detail (see the example given above about not being able to clearly read text on packages across the room). For this reason, as well as a few other technical reasons (blown out shots in daylight, occasional purple tinge), I was quite down on the camera in the first week. Slowly though, it really has grown on me. In exchange for that loss of detail, particularly when you start to zoom in, you get best-in-class low light performance. I have a three month old daughter that I'm just smitten with, I must admit. Last night, in my nearly pitch black bedroom, I was able to snap some photos of her sleeping in her crib without having to use a flash. It was craziest thing, like I was seeing in the dark. Even without optical image stabilization, the pictures were reasonably sharp and noise-free considering the conditions in which they were taken. UFocus has also really grown on me as well. Takes a few days to figure out how to get the best out of it and learn how to play nice with its limitations, but once you do, it's a really neat little feature. It's nice to be able to take some casual pics with decent bokeh without having to lug out the DSLR (here's a pic of my daughter because lord knows everyone loves seeing a stranger's baby yawning goofily
imgur: the simple image sharer). It obviously can't replace the Canon Rebel, but even the fastest, most expensive Canon lens isn't exactly going to let me make a phone call either, right? The manual settings are pretty nifty, as is the Zoe stuff, and the front-facing camera takes the best selfies out there. Overall, I guess, once I was able to get past the lost pixels, I really have come to appreciate the camera for the things that make it stand out from the crowd. Still some frustrations that I hope can be addressed via a software update, but this phone really is tremendous, and personally, I would not let the camera stand in your way of picking it up.
TLDR; Camera is very different from other smartphones and comes with a learning curve. Tradeoffs made in megapixel count are redeemed by low-light performance, nifty depth of field tricks, and all around fun of using camera.
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