Great shots here, especially the bottom two. After more experimentation, I find myself leaning on the HDR+ mode more and more, which is disappointing considering I don't like using the stock camera app. More pointedly, do you know of a way to control the exposure in the stock camera?
Yeah. Go to options (the circle) then the +/- symbol...thats exposure.
I have never had good results messing with exposure though. Only time I would use it is if clarity, not quality, was the issue (like text or something).
I'm talking something simple like on the iPhone where tapping an area of the screen dictates the exposure priority.
You can do that in normal mode, but it will focus on that area as well. If you want exposure and focus to be different for a given tap, the default app does not do that. What you are wanting is possible, but it is a software issue, and the default camera app is not great.
It does this somewhat in more balanced settings but if there's a bright source in frame and a dark source forget about this thing allowing you to meter for the dark source. Well, let me change that, if you try, try, try, try, try you can sometimes trick it into letting you purposely under/over expose things.
Thats what I do. If it is an image where everything will be focused about the same, I tap on a bright area or dark area...it will adjust exposure to that level. I did that in that last shot you see in my post you quoted. I wanted to make sure the sunset was not washed out and that the building were not drowned in shadow.
This is why I marvel at your last two photos, especially the CHASE one: getting the camera to expose a scene that way has been the hardest task for me
On the Chase one I tapped-to-focus on the chase logo specifically. The downside of this is the rest of the image will not be in focus...this is usually only an issue in close-up (Macro) shots though.
It's not ideal at all, but they made the default app to be intuitive, not flexible.
The thing I marvel at myself is the smooth gradients this camera delivers, even in low light. That was IMPOSSIBLE to do on the Nexus 4. Low light photos were a grainy mess. On the Nexus 5, there is very little noise on anything...that impresses the hell out of me.