S5 Quality Photos

[Xords]

So tonight I was at a X-mas concert and i took some photos with my Galaxy S5 but i find the phot quality so bad and I was wondering if this is normal. I checked the photoquality in setting and it was at 16M what am I doing wrong? It seems I get some great pics in the daylight but sometimes they are so blurry.




Attached these 3 photos to see what I mean.



This last one looks so beautiful but it's sunny.

Why is it such a big difference comparing the last one with the first 3 ones?

 

[Rukbat]

The first one's not too bad, considering the lighting. Look at only the stage and the audience (cut off the top 60%) and you've got a decent picture.

The second one might be a combination of var motion, light motion (the oncoming cars are certainly moving) and glare, combined with a slow shutter speed due to the lack of light where it's being metered (probably just in front of the yellow car).

The 3rd one was taken from a moving car, probably not at a fast enough shutter speed to eliminate blur.

Hold the camera with your camera hand braced against something solid and take a picture in sunlight, with the sun off one shoulder. That will probably give you something like your 4th picture and that's what the camera is capable of. The other things are mostly due to the fact that you're not extremely experienced with photography coupled with the fact that you don't have much control over the F-stop and shutter speed with the stock camera app (and the knowledge to use them to your best advantage). Kodak puts out a lot of information on how to take good shots under all sorts of conditions. Search for that and read. And find a camera app that lets you set shutter speed (or F-stop - they're about inverse, so if you open the lens, you make the shutter faster, at the expense of depth of field - all of which you'll read about in Kodak's literature).

I've gotten some pretty good shots with my little Fuji 3MP camera - it's not the MP that matters, it's the shutter speed, the lens opening, the sensor sensitivity and the photographer. (And the willingness to take a lot of pictures - Ansel Adams took what's probably one of the greatest photographs of all time - out of a few hundred negatives he shot that night. Babe Ruth held the home run record, but few know that he held the strike out record too. If you don't swing, you don't hit the ball. Digital pictures are free. Take thousands and learn how to make your camera perform at its best.)

 

[black_thorne]

In lower light the photos will not be very good. Many people experience the exact same thing, including myself.

 

[colyn1353]

Anytime you are shooting low light you are using a slower shutter speed. Any movement of the camera will cause blurring because of the slow speed. However low light shots can be improved on by using image stabilization. Your first 3 images obviously show camera movement at the time the exposure was made.
This camera if used properly is capable of taking reasonably good images. Not as good as a DSLR but still reasonably sharp...

 

[buxz777]

the s5 camera is only good in decent lighting conditions ...... the hardware wont let it be good in night time shots , it has a small sensor , small pixel size , no ois , the aperture isn't very good , isocell sensor seems to be more marketing then useful

ive had the s5 one week now and after owning the 808 and 1020 and other Lumia devices like the 920 I can tell you honestly the camera on the s5 isn't very good , I think the s4 camera might even be better to be honest

the camera on the s5 also struggles with macro shots , iam guessing its because of the isocell sensor or the new focusing system in place , one thing is for sure though it is hard to get focus on macro shots that have lots of information in the scene , say a fly on a flower with a bush behind

I love a lot of things about the s5 , the screen is gorgeous , the waterproofing awesome , the battery life is pretty decent , the micro sd slot great , the power of the device , I even like some of touchwiz handy features but I don't like the camera only being useable in very good lighting (the flash does work ok if your subject is close and static though)

I am a pretty decent photographer , not pro , but my friends ask me for prints of my stuff when I use my 1020 and when I use the s5 they ask me if my 1020 is broke :-/

I don't think any app will make up for the hardware shortcomings , unless you have a tripod with you and can access the shutter speed somehow as even slowing the shutter speed down without ois is going to result in blur and shake showing in the picture and the lens doesn't seem to let a lot of light in and also smears some fine detail when you crop in a bit

I think the s5 is a nice phone ands has a lot going for it but its let down by an average camera that doesn't have any great features or hardware apart from some marketing about an isocell sensor that sounds great but in reality doesn't seem to work as well as the s4s sony sensor that is even smaller then the s5s :-/

 

[UKgalaxy]

the s5 camera is only good in decent lighting conditions ...... the hardware wont let it be good in night time shots , it has a small sensor , small pixel size , no ois , the aperture isn't very good , isocell sensor seems to be more marketing then useful

ive had the s5 one week now and after owning the 808 and 1020 and other Lumia devices like the 920 I can tell you honestly the camera on the s5 isn't very good , I think the s4 camera might even be better to be honest

the camera on the s5 also struggles with macro shots , iam guessing its because of the isocell sensor or the new focusing system in place , one thing is for sure though it is hard to get focus on macro shots that have lots of information in the scene , say a fly on a flower with a bush behind

I love a lot of things about the s5 , the screen is gorgeous , the waterproofing awesome , the battery life is pretty decent , the micro sd slot great , the power of the device , I even like some of touchwiz handy features but I don't like the camera only being useable in very good lighting (the flash does work ok if your subject is close and static though)

I am a pretty decent photographer , not pro , but my friends ask me for prints of my stuff when I use my 1020 and when I use the s5 they ask me if my 1020 is broke :-/

I don't think any app will make up for the hardware shortcomings , unless you have a tripod with you and can access the shutter speed somehow as even slowing the shutter speed down without ois is going to result in blur and shake showing in the picture and the lens doesn't seem to let a lot of light in and also smears some fine detail when you crop in a bit

I think the s5 is a nice phone ands has a lot going for it but its let down by an average camera that doesn't have any great features or hardware apart from some marketing about an isocell sensor that sounds great but in reality doesn't seem to work as well as the s4s sony sensor that is even smaller then the s5s :-/

Have apple gone the right way then with keeping the 8 mega pixel camera on the iPhone 6 but improving it even further? My iphone 5 used to be able to take fairly decent photos in fairness.

 

[Xords]

Thanks alot guys! I will try your tips

 

[buxz777]

I cant really comment on that as I haven't used one myself but I know they are very clever with their software and that the iPhone 6+ has hardware optical image stabilisation , the thing with photography is there are some elements that make a good camera and a versatile one

#sensor size - the bigger the better , it gathers more detail and light from the scene
#lens quality - the quality of the glass in front of the sensor , no oint in having a great sensor and a rubbish lens
#how fast the lens is and how much light it lets into the sensor
#pixel size can help - the bigger the pixels the more detail and light they can gather
#software processing to jpeg - the camera can get rubbish results from bad jpeg processing

in night time photography we need either a very good fast lens paired with a decent sensor size that results in bigger pixel size that gathers more light information (think htc 4mp on standard sensor size giving bigger pixels for better light capture , the thing is htc only used a normal size sensor and lowered the mp count at the expense of detail to make the pixels bigger when they should have made the sensor bigger but stuck with 8-12mp to get bigger pixels) or a slow shutter speed and a steady hand or ois and in the best case scenarios/cameras we would have all of these to help make the camera more versatile ;-)

now some phones have great hardware like the z3/z2 etc (although its missing xenon flash) which packs the same size sensor and lens as their hx50 digital camera ..... so in theory the phone should produce images like the digital camera ..... however sony seem to mess up their jpeg processing on android (maybe on purpose to protect their digital camera segment) and the results aren't as good as they should be which is a shame

I suppose apple have done it the right way , keeping the mp count the same and updating other things , as it is better then keeping the same size sensor and just upping the mp count which in turn will result in the camera having smaller pixel size and being worse at night time photography , so if they have kept the same mega pixel count but upped the quality of the glass , lens , sensor , then yep its a better way to go if that makes sense ;-)

the thing is the s5 camera isn't bad per se ..... its just not very good in anything but good light ...... even macro mode isn't great on the s5 ..... it doesn't have one and focus struggles quite a bit (manual focus would help here greatly but the software is missing)

what Samsung have done compared to the s4 is upped the mega pixel count but upped the sensor a fraction as well in turn it gives even smaller pixels then the s4 on a sensor that is unproven and new to the market , we still don't have optical image stabilisation , there is no quality lens/glass like carl zeis infront of the average isocell sensor and the lens doesn't seem to be very fast or good at gathering light in night time situations like some of the sony sensors used in other phones

they have then thrown words like isocell sensor , 16 mega pixels , bigger sensor at us as marketing ;-) yes it has an isocell sensor but it doesn't seem to perform that well , yes it has 16 mega pixels and a bigger sensor but the pixel size is still the same/smaller then the s4 ;-) so in turn we have a camera that is different to the s4 but in my opinion not better :-/

like I say I am really enjoying the s5 in everything but the camera but that is only because I have seen with my own eyes just how good and versatile and handy it is to have a camera with you like the Lumia range offer , even the Lumia 930 and 1520 camera are really really good (although they miss xenon and work with a fairly smallish sensor) and the 1020 knocks most pocket cameras up to £300 out of the park with its hardware and picture iq and versatility

its a shame they didn't up the camera more then they did and make it a bit more versatile in other conditions apart from perfect light ;-)

sorry for the long post lol its just I do like a good camera on the back of my phone , after all its the gadget we have with us at all times and the best camera is the one that we have with us ;-)

 

[salmanahmad]

For a slightly more "scientific" explanation your phone has a number of elements to take into account when shooting images, available light is one of them.

If a place is filled with bright lights your phone can use a lower ISO and higher shutter speed which results in pretty amazing shots, and reduce the chances of blurring.

In daylight your phone generally uses ISO 100, while in lowlight that could go as high up to ISO 3200 or more.

Again if you want it's not impossible to blur a shot in daylight, you can't take a clear shot "easily" while running for example, be it bright light or dim light. So there are limitations of phone cameras.

A basic explanation of ISO would be. Lower ISO means your phone is absorbing the surrounding lights whereas higher ISO means your phone is desperate to capture any and all light in a situation, it often has to blow out lights in a situation to capture anything at all. Lower ISO results in much more detailed shots, while higher ISO results in more noisy, albeit brighter shots.

Your phone can user lower ISO in daylight because there is a lot of light already present in the situation! But in lowlight it needs to use higher ISO or it'll turn out to be a dark image.

The second part is shutter speed. Basically the higher the shutter speed the more accurately you can capture motion and higher shutter speeds mean less chances of blurring a shot.

Your phone generally uses 1/60 seconds or higher shutter speed to capture an image in daylight, and you can we'll image how fast that is!

As nighttime approaches a phone needs to try it's best to take a bright and clear shot.

The phone could simply turn ISO to 10,000 and brighten up your shots like crazy! But they would look terrible.

Or your phone could turn shutter speed to 4 seconds(instead of the regular 1/60) but that means your camera will keep itself open to take an image for a whole 4 sounds! No one can keep their hands steady for that long.

So lowlight shots are a combination of higher ISO and lower shutter speeds, what this means is that you need to hold your phone more steady in lowlight to get a clear image (and this applies to every smartphone out there). And motion images are completely out, you won't be able to capture a moving car in lowlight.

That is why images you take in bright light are generally more clear and less blurry while shots taken in lowlight often turn out much worse.

If you have steady hands and you use Samsung's night mode you can get some pretty stunning images in lowlight even.

I hope the explanation helps, and I'm sure you can find online resources that could explain this better.

There are more things that go into a camera, such as the sensor size, optical or digital image stabilisation and aperture but that's for another day.

I'm a mobile photographer, and it would be awesome if you guys checked out the images I take: http://imgur.com/a/cpKQZ

 

[Xords]

For a slightly more "scientific" explanation your phone has a number of elements to take into account when shooting images, available light is one of them.

If a place is filled with bright lights your phone can use a lower ISO and higher shutter speed which results in pretty amazing shots, and reduce the chances of blurring.

In daylight your phone generally uses ISO 100, while in lowlight that could go as high up to ISO 3200 or more.

Again if you want it's not impossible to blur a shot in daylight, you can't take a clear shot "easily" while running for example, be it bright light or dim light. So there are limitations of phone cameras.

A basic explanation of ISO would be. Lower ISO means your phone is absorbing the surrounding lights whereas higher ISO means your phone is desperate to capture any and all light in a situation, it often has to blow out lights in a situation to capture anything at all. Lower ISO results in much more detailed shots, while higher ISO results in more noisy, albeit brighter shots.

Your phone can user lower ISO in daylight because there is a lot of light already present in the situation! But in lowlight it needs to use higher ISO or it'll turn out to be a dark image.

The second part is shutter speed. Basically the higher the shutter speed the more accurately you can capture motion and higher shutter speeds mean less chances of blurring a shot.

Your phone generally uses 1/60 seconds or higher shutter speed to capture an image in daylight, and you can we'll image how fast that is!

As nighttime approaches a phone needs to try it's best to take a bright and clear shot.

The phone could simply turn ISO to 10,000 and brighten up your shots like crazy! But they would look terrible.

Or your phone could turn shutter speed to 4 seconds(instead of the regular 1/60) but that means your camera will keep itself open to take an image for a whole 4 sounds! No one can keep their hands steady for that long.

So lowlight shots are a combination of higher ISO and lower shutter speeds, what this means is that you need to hold your phone more steady in lowlight to get a clear image (and this applies to every smartphone out there). And motion images are completely out, you won't be able to capture a moving car in lowlight.

That is why images you take in bright light are generally more clear and less blurry while shots taken in lowlight often turn out much worse.

If you have steady hands and you use Samsung's night mode you can get some pretty stunning images in lowlight even.

I hope the explanation helps, and I'm sure you can find online resources that could explain this better.

There are more things that go into a camera, such as the sensor size, optical or digital image stabilisation and aperture but that's for another day.

I'm a mobile photographer, and it would be awesome if you guys checked out the images I take: Pakistan Through The Lens of a Nexus 5 - Imgur

Amazing photos man! Loved them! Keep up the good work!

 

[Shawn kaller]

I have iPhone 5 and S5.But my iPhone 5 camera have batter result then S5 Camera.

 

[msingh48]

Use auto low light mode for nice photos in low light on s5

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