Bionic Camera Picture Quality

[Adweber328]

Hello,
Let me start by admitting that I am new to Android, and I know nothing beyond what I've learned on these forums digging around for the past few days.
I'm also not a photographer, and claim no advanced knowledge on picture quality beyond what I've experienced with other phones I've had.

I'm opening this thread as a plea for help, really, since I can only suspect that I'm doing something wrong when I'm taking pictures with my new Bionic.
Before anyone responds with the "It's a phone with a camera, not a camera with a phone" response, I would like to say that I'm not looking to submit any pictures I take for a Pulitzer. Really, I'd just like to be able to see them. And right now, I'm not even getting that.

I've seen some amazing pictures taken from Bionics out there, so I was starting to think that maybe my device was defective. I ran over to my wife, who also has a Bionic, and learned that hers takes pictures of the same caliber that mine does. So unless I got two faulty Bionics, the blame must lie with myself as the camera holder.

So my question is: Is there some trick, or something else that I'm supposed to be doing to get a decent picture out of this thing? I'm using the stock camera app, with default settings. I've tried Camera360 and Vignette, with similar results.
I'm holding the camera steady, waiting for the focus box to turn green, and then taking the picture by tapping the camera shutter icon on the screen.

I took two pictures to use as samples. One is of my dog. This was taken from about 5 feet away, and the dog is not moving. I also tried taking a picture of some instructions on a sheet of paper by holding the phone about 16-24 inches above the paper and taking the shot straight down. There is indirect florescent light on the paper when I took it. Neither photo used the flash.

The dog picture is blurry, and the paper picture is unreadable.





Any tips, help, suggestions, or the like would be appreciated.
Thanks!


::EDITED::
To save you the reading, I found the issue with the phone. It was defective. I brought it back to Verizon and they swapped it out. The new phone takes great pictures, and I couldn't be happier with it. If your Bionic is taking really bad pictures, take it back and get a new one!

 

[ConqSoft]

Are you waiting until the little square turns green before snapping the shot?

 

[Adweber328]

Are you waiting until the little square turns green before snapping the shot?

Yes, I am. Getting the box to turn green with the paper shot was tricky. I had to move it closer and farther before it eventually focused and turned green. I took several shots to see if I could get different results. I have yet to get any of them to be clear enough to read, yet all seem to show me a green box before I take the picture.

I won't post a link to the thread directly because it's been locked, but I will post a link to a picture that mopar posted on another thread, since his Bionic obviously has no problem focusing on close up pictures: CLICK

I guess what I'm asking is, "How'd you do that?!"

 

[ConqSoft]

If you're that close, might want to try Macro mode.

 

[Adweber328]

If you're that close, might want to try Macro mode.

That is an excellent suggestion, ConqSoft, unfortunately it didn't produce different results.
I tried Macro mode, and it actually made the picture more blurry. I took shots from anywhere from 3 feet to 5 inches using macro mode, trying to find the "sweet spot"

 

[pilot12]

I miss the mechanical shutter button on my D1. I'm having a difficult time holding the camera steady and pushing the shutter icon. I'm having better luck than the OP but do get a lot of blurry pictures that I can only assume are because I just can't hold it still and push that icon at the same time.

I suggest you put the camera in vise or some type of holder and take a pic or two just to make sure you aren't moving it.

I'd post a pic if I KNEW THE HECK HOW.

 

[pilot12]

OK, I figured it out. I took this of the first post with my Bionic. Didn't use and settings or flash, just held it up to the screen and tried to be steady.

 

[Seawolf]

The biggist gripe I have about these newer smartphones is the lack of a physical shutter button like we had on the Droid 1. Being able to "Stage" a picture with the D1 was great and I was seriously disappointed when I found out the Bionic would not have the same button.
They made the volume buttons able to zoom so why not a shutter button?

Hopefully someone will creat an app that gives us the ability to use the power button or one of the volume buttons as a shutter button, but none are the two stage we had with the D1 and that's a shame. 8mp camera that records video in 1080P on a $700 smartphone and you can't even get a shutter button for the camera. Damn shame!

 

[Adweber328]

OK, I figured it out. I took this of the first post with my Bionic. Didn't use and settings or flash, just held it up to the screen and tried to be steady.

View attachment 40377

I tried the same thing, with not the same results... What did you do, exactly?

Hold the phone, wait for green box, then click the iris shutter icon thing on the screen? That's what I'm doing.. See results below:



Also, I set my phone on the floor. Made sure it was perfectly still, and took a picture of my Verizon bag and Bionic boxes from about 2.5 feet away. Shaky hands isn't the problem, and unfortunately there wasn't an earthquake when I took this picture. This is probably the best of all of them, but you still can't really make out the text clearly, and unfortunately I don't always have a floor handy that is level with the thing I'm taking a photo of.

 

[aaf709]

The biggist gripe I have about these newer smartphones is the lack of a physical shutter button like we had on the Droid 1. Being able to "Stage" a picture with the D1 was great and I was seriously disappointed when I found out the Bionic would not have the same button.
They made the volume buttons able to zoom so why not a shutter button?

I admit it's odd. On the D1 you could hold it very steady by squeezing your thumb with equal pressure when pressing the camera button. I'll have to practice. Last July I was at Preview Night at ComicCon sans camera except for the Droid. Used it to snap some costume pictures.

 

[Adweber328]

Here's something I just found that's quite frustrating.. I can take better pictures with the front-facing VGA camera than I can with the 8MP camera on back.
That's just wrong..

 

[catfisher]

It is focusing farther away from the subject if your photos. The dog was fuzzy, the background was clear. The VZW bags were fuzzy, the chair in the left was clear...I do not own a Bionic so I do not know if you can alter focal points at all but it seems like it is focusing off-center for some stupid reason.

Sent from my DROIDX, while stomping zombies, and using DroidForums

 

[ice456789]

He's right. Looking at your pictures while the is some small amount of camera shake on the handheld pics, your main problem is that the camera is focusing on something other than your subject for some reason. When I studied photography a decade ago, auto focus cameras focused on vertical lines better than anything else. That may help explain why the chairs in your latter pic are more in focus than the box.

Or maybe the camera just sucks. I'll try mine out tomorrow.

 

[Adweber328]

It is focusing farther away from the subject if your photos. The dog was fuzzy, the background was clear. The VZW bags were fuzzy, the chair in the left was clear...I do not own a Bionic so I do not know if you can alter focal points at all but it seems like it is focusing off-center for some stupid reason.

Sent from my DROIDX, while stomping zombies, and using DroidForums

I agree with what you're saying. With the Bionic you can tap the screen on what you want to focus on, or at least that's how I perceive the interface to work. For example, if my focal point was off center, I can click on it and the camera will put the green focus box over the focal point. A neat feature, but unfortunately it appears to focus on everything but what I want it to focus on. And unfortunately there's still no hope for up-close pictures where the entire viewable area is the same distance.

I guess I'll just hope and pray for a firmware/software upgrade that will fix the camera. I didn't buy the phone for the camera, but I do use it frequently enough. Honestly the biggest use of phone cameras that I have is taking pictures of service tags on Dell servers because I'm too lazy to write down the numbers when I'm in the datacenter. Unfortunately I can't do that with this phone, which is annoying.

 

[ConqSoft]

It is focusing farther away from the subject if your photos. The dog was fuzzy, the background was clear. The VZW bags were fuzzy, the chair in the left was clear...I do not own a Bionic so I do not know if you can alter focal points at all but it seems like it is focusing off-center for some stupid reason.

Sent from my DROIDX, while stomping zombies, and using DroidForums

Yes, you can touch the screen to move the focus point (the square) to another section of the photo.