Phone Cameras

Further to Trems phone thread.

My Galaxy S2 has an 8m camera, and the pictures look great on the phone. When I transfer them to my pc though, they dont look as good as on my Camera, a Canon Powershot A550.

Is that to be expected, or am I doing something wrong? I'm just using standard settings on the phone.

This was taken with my Galaxy S2 very recently. I took it fairly quickly and couldn't see the phone very well as I had my goggles on!
Picture quality for me isnt too bad tbh
My settings: Auto Flash, SCN None,Exp Val 0, Auto Focus, Res: 3264x2448, Superfine qlty, other stuff auto or off

The lens on the Galaxy S2 will be poor in comparison to the optics on the P&S. Also, you'd need to do a controlled comparison of the same scene with the same settings to prove the image quality is better in one that the other.

You'll probably find they look very similar when printed at a reasonable size (7 by 5). When you view them at 100% on screen, you'll be "pixel peeping".

The first is with my phone, the second is with my camera. Can you see what I'm on about?

Throddy, can you tell me what the settings for the camera are on your S2? (things like ISO, white balance etc.)

Looks like a typical phone pic to me

By the way, yes I know one of my indicators is wonky there.

Scene mode - none

resolution 3264 x 2448

white balance auto

ISO auto

anti shake off

image quality superfine

I've just checked the EXIF data and it says that it was taken at ISO 800.

That's a fairly large contributor to the image being shite; ISO 800 is a stretch for a lot of P&S cameras, never mind a camera phone. You can see obvious chroma noise in the black and smearing of detail in the spokes due to noise reduction. Contrast this with the P&S shot below, it's set to ISO 80.

Can you set the ISO of your Galaxy S 2 to be ISO 100, repeat the test and post the result? Best to try in bright conditions.

I'll give it a go cheers mate.

Why on earth is it choosing 800 there? That's mental.

I dont know how it works, but it was a very bright day, last sunday.

It's completely bent that round in the background around as well!

Auto mode is for girls, men go FULL MANUAL.

That's the thing that puzzles me. It should be clever enough to drop to 100/200 in that situation, or at the very most 400. 800 is for low light (and carries with it a reduction in sharpness and increase in noise), so the algorithms behind the ISO selection must be heavily flawed.

There's often a little shutter lag with phone cameras too hence a little movement so it may be worthwhile to keep the phone still for a second or two after the "shutter" clicks. But ISO 800 on a phone is challenging.

The thing is, on my phone the picture looks superb. I wonder if the phone does the auto ISO thing to suit the phones own picture?

Everything looks good when it's down-sampled Throddy.