Re: Post pictures taken with your Moto X Pure Edition (Moto X Style) here!
I've had the Pure for the last week and also the Nexus 5x and a Nexus 6. Surprisingly, of all 3 the Moto X has the worst pics. This is after looking at the pics on a computer thru google photos.
I'll directly download them to my pc to see the full size files soon. From what I see so far though the camera has some, maybe ALL of these problems:
1. Low contrast in images. This could simply be that the lens they use is of lower quality than the nexus ones. You pay thousands of $$ for good camera lenses and this is to get things like low distortion and good contrast without internal reflections. The issue on contrast "could" also be they just have crappy image algorithms. I've played with a few of the images trying to tweak out the curves in Photoshop to color correct and contrast correct but have had little success. This leads me to believe more that the problem is simply bad glass to begin with...a cheap lens on the camera.
2. Really bad noise as the sensor reaches it's limits. There is a lot of color noise present in the images. The Nexus cameras remove most of the color noise the processing in the moto x doesn't. The pure images get really crunchy and grungy at their low and high light limits.
3. Poor detail. This is weird. 21 mp vs. the Nexus's 12mp. Both the old Nexus 6 and the new 5x at least 80% of the time resolve more detail than the Pure. I've noticed that a lot of this is caused by camera movement. The Nexus cameras take the shot instantly but then process it. On the Pure you tap on the screen and there is often a delay which leaves time for you to be slightly moving the phone with you hands causing blur which amounts to robbing you of detail. So, twice the megapixels but a more shaky shooting experience equals detail robbing blur. If I mounted each camera in a tripod every time I took a shot and could force the ISO on the pure to never go past 320 then you'd likely see the pure do much better..but who carries around a tripod for a camera phone..
4. Audio thru headset. Pure is 2nd best. Surprisingly the Nexus 6 is the loudest and cleanest of the 3. The 5x doesn't have the volume of the others but the sound is good. Pair with external amp and you have a nice headphone rig.
Anyway, to be clear, I believe the image issues with the pure start with the lens itself. This can never be fixed. You will always lose contrast to internal reflections and poor lens coating. They could get away with that if they had some really good image processing software as you took the shot, but they don't right now.
Edited to add, the surprise here has been the Nexus 6. It has the best audio, 2nd best pictures, feels the best in my hand and was by far the cheapest. Didn't expect that phone to be so tempting.
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