Is my Nexus 5 defective?

[rmercovich]

The real problem is the software. When you look at the metadata for the images in low-ish light (I will explain why I say low-ish later) you will see crazy slow shutter speed even when using Action mode. I see things like 1/8 and 1/11 most often. Sometimes even 1/5. These are fractions of seconds, but still LONG in exposure time terms. That is all fine, as sometimes you just don't have the available light you need. So the camera must increase the integration time to get enough signal to not have a crazy noisy or smeary (after noise reduction) image. The problem with the nexus 5 is that it does this when it doesn't need to. Back to low-ish light. I see my N5 using 1/8 of a second all the time with ISO400. ISO is "film" sensitivity, higher means more gain essentially, and in turn more noise. ISO 800 or 1600 allows a shorter exposure time (and less motion blur, 1/8 at iso400 is roughly the same light exposure as 1/16 at iso800) at the expense of more noise. But noisy is better than blury in terms of image quality. Especially in pictures of people where noise reduction generally makes them look better (think of it as built in "make-up").

So why did Google choose this approach? Simple. OIS. Or optical image stabilization. They weight (entering the world of speculation here) the detected image motion in software (before the exposure). If the algorithm detects little or none, it will assume this is camera shake, and rely on the OIS (too much, in my opinion) and hope for a blur free shot. This is why people with kids/babies are complaining the most. Babies can't hold still for a picture, but they don't move a ton. Not enough to make the camera algorithm choose a short exposure time. Real cameras get around this issue by having modes where the user can control the shutter priority. But, the android camera api provides no fine control of exposure time, so even 3rd party apps can't solve this (sad trombone).

So.. Until the new camera api, or an update to address the N5 over reliance on OIS, there is no easy fix. Try really bright lights indoors.. Like more than 4 100 watt bulbs..

Edit: a little more info is on my Google+ here: https://plus.google.com/110413378766250443888/posts/dgv49rA8xUF and here https://plus.google.com/110413378766250443888/posts/PDdXQRf7sTQ

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[rmercovich]

What is the aperture on this thing. I see 2.53 in pics.. But it says 2.4 in marketing material.. Apparently we have one less stop to work with than advertised...

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[Ishaan Ahuja]

Guys, please Help if you feel you can...!
I purchased a 16gb Black Nexus 5 (311K batch) via Google Play India. What I find surprising is that there's NO HDR+ MODE in my camera app. I've left the phone un-modded and tweaked with every possible setting, but to no avail...