Nexus 5 Camera - how to increase resolution of photos?

[swolf76]

Hello. I purchased a Nexus 5 recently and for the most part I really enjoy the phone. One nagging issue is the camera. I like the camera software it is very quick and intuitive. However, I am at a loss trying to determine why the photos I take average less than 2 megapixels. I have played with the settings and have the resolution set to 8.0 megapixels. I have also tried toggling HDR+ mode and manual exposure, but with no change in results. Please, any advice would be much appreciated. Thank you.

 

[Rukbat]

How are you measuring the number of megapixels of resolution in the pictures? Are the pictures averaging less than 2 megapixels or less than 2 megabytes? You can take a 50 megapixel picture that creates a 1 megabyte file. The number of megabytes of file size isn't the number of megapixels of resolution. (The number of megapixels is determined by the camera's sensor - how many million separate measurement points it has. That has nothing to do with the size of a file the camera produces - especially considering that the files you're looking at are almost certainly compressed [which does reduce the available resolution, but that's how the digital camera industry does things].)