Why does my camera do this?

[LD33085]

This has been an ongoing issue with my camera since day 1. I've heard about the lens coating issue and already made sure I've taken that off. Is there any way I can get better pictures when there are bright lights in the shot?

 

[Rukbat]

Use an app like Open Camera. Expose for what you want - skin, sidewalk - whatever you want as "neutral" in the shot. Lock the exposure, then aim and shoot. In the above picture, if you had set the exposure on the man's back you would have gotten detail in what's now just black - but the lights would have been brighter.

There may be a few cameras that can expose different part of the picture differently, but you're not going to buy one for the price of a crate of Note 4s. (A $15,000 Hasselblad can't.)

Read some Kodak online tutorials (they're free) on how to take night shots. Turning a little to the left, so the headlights weren't in the picture, would have made a much better shot. (The "star" effect from the other lights is due to the quality of the camera's lens. Considering that the whole rear camera in the M8 is $20, and a cheap decent-quality camera lens is about $300, you can understand the quality of the lens in the camera. There's not much you can do to get rid of it in the camera. You do that in Photoshop [or some similar program].)

 

[Mooncatt]

You can tap different areas in the stock app to adjust the exposure, but are you asking about that or the lens flares? The M8 sadly does have problems with that, and I haven't heard of any real solutions. Some people have been able to use manual mode to adjust exposure and speed, but that'll result in quality tradeoffs and still not completely remove the flares.