yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy S III General] NaimC:
Can you at least post pictures as a comparison? My guess is that your S3 is faulty and I'd probably advise that you take it back to the store for an exchange. I have the 4S, S2 and S3 and whilst I've only properly compared two of them, I can say that the S3 is at least a fantastic performer, and overall likely the best, though I think that's largely down to preference.

I'm pretty perplexed you think it lacks details. To me, some of the shots it takes are extremely detailed, especially for a phone camera. Even in the comparison I posted a few days back, several of the shots (in low light no less) were very detailed.

Here are a few examples the S3 fared particularly well in.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y180/nchoudhury/4S vs S3 low light/4S_S3_4.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y180/nchoudhury/4S vs S3 low light/4S_S3_9.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y180/nchoudhury/4S vs S3 low light/4S_S3_2.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y180/nchoudhury/4S vs S3 low light/4S_S3_3.jpg

Daylight shots are even sharper with even less noise. So I just can't accept your assessment of the S3's camera and think you may have a faulty device. I did say this a few days back, but it doesn't appear that you've done anything about it.
[Galaxy S III General] giovag7:
I'm not confused, exif data of my phones are strange...

As you well know in photography artistic sense is not enough if you don't well know your camera and technical questions about.

From my gallery you can have an idea of my technical background too.

I well know what is iso.

Quality level is at maximum in both phones.

Both phones were set to iso auto.

Later I try with fixed iso to 200 400 800.

This behavior is always the same in low light, gs3 set alway higher iso or longer exposure times respect to gs2 producing similar results.

Galaxy S3 con Tapatalk
[Galaxy S III General] foxy4270:
ok, i can accept that i may have a faulty device.

All those people complaining about camera issues

with Galaxy S3...they have faulty devices as well?
[Galaxy S III General] foxy4270:
here is a comparison with s2 camera

both taken with hdr
[Galaxy S III General] zodiaxe66:
Thank u for this detailed comparison ..

This is exactly my result

Gs3 in my view is very detailed in good light.

But have some noise in low light. Due to shutter time

Ps. I can only compare the sgs, gs2 and gs3. Not with the iPhone. Don't own one
[Galaxy S III General] foxy4270:
first pic on the left is S2

on the right is S3.
[Galaxy S III General] NoOneCanHelpMe:
can u try taking identical pics next time? comparison of 2 pics has to be from the same angle, lighting, settings etc. :)
[Galaxy S III General] Pipperox:
It's impossible to compare these pictures, too much processing for the S2 one, and too different exposure.

I don't see any substantial difference in noise; if anything, the S 3 picture has a little bit of detail available in the shadows, while the S2 is pitch black.
[Galaxy S III General] smoothiex:
Mine S3 is :

CAM FW Ver: ZDFE02

PHONE FW Ver: ZDFE02
[Galaxy S III General] smoothiex:
I'll take a quick pic
[Galaxy S III General] zodiaxe66:
This has been taken in dark room with flash, am i right.

The gs3 issue is with low light and no flash. Some say bad other (like me) not that bad, but could(should) improve
[Galaxy S III General] duowing:
I think one of the biggest problems with this thread and this comparison is the fact that there is no set standard. Sure we can all go take a pic in a dark or dimly lit room without a flash, but I feel like there are going to be variations no matter what, even with two GD firmware cameras. My idea of a dimly lit room might be way brighter than yours or vice versa. With things on auto, depending on where the screen was tapped, maybe it was tapped so it doesn't have a direct focus point. Some people have anti-shake on some don't, it's going to potentially adjust the ISO to different levels for each pic, not everyone is running the exact same firmware. If anything we need to set up standards and have a whole gallery of pics of each of the firmwares at specific settings so then we can get a better comparison. I have a hard time taking a picture, adjusting settings and then getting the exact same picture all on a single phone.

Also still waiting on that camera module to come so I can let you guys know if the sensors can just be swapped.
[Galaxy S III General] giovag7:
Gs2 vs gs3 low light comparison at fixed 200 400 800 iso. Look at the exif data too see details. Some pic is blurry but my scope is to demonstrate different exposure time between the two cameras, so I left them.

S3 SHOTS

http://db.tt/q20yI6hC

200ISO

http://db.tt/WM1q2TDp

400ISO

http://db.tt/ExgkORUf

800ISO

S2 SHOTS

http://db.tt/Re3yAa6M

200ISO

http://db.tt/BQvr5vTX

400ISO

http://db.tt/Ds9KsQOX

800ISO

Other settings in both phones:

White balance auto

Quality at maximum

No auto contrast

No hdr

No scene

No night mode

A the end of this comparison though I want to say that gs3 hdr work well in low light and can obtain a very good result. Look that

http://db.tt/ynltM9bk

Galaxy S3 con Tapatalk
[Galaxy S III General] NaimC:
Based on that, it looks like there is a issue with software or processing at ISO 800. But it does bode well for the S3 in one respect, and that is that ISO 400 on the S3 actually has a similar exposure to ISO 800 on the S2, and slightly less noise too. This would suggest the sensor does indeed let in more light.

I realise the shot isn't quite as sharp in the ISO 400 example of the S3, but speaking from experience, I pin this down to the focus not being right or movement causing blur. But either way, it's interesting that S3's ISO 400 brings in just as much light or exposure brightness as S2's ISO 800.
[Galaxy S III General] cmd512:
This actually is in line with my observation from my own SGS2 with the "good sensor" vs my SGS3 with the Samsung sensor. If you do a heads up comparison between the two devices at the same ISO setting, there is a whole lot more noise on the SGS2 than the SGS3.

The SGS3 shots look much better from a noise, white level/color reproduction, and overall image quality perspective. Again, this mirrors my assessment.
[Galaxy S III General] giovag7:
Ok but strange thing is that at 400 iso gs3 use 1/17s exposure time (long with risk of blurry pics) and gs2 use 1/25s exposure time.

It seem that iso is not corresponding between the two phones and that in general gs2 can use shorter exposure time.

Gs3 has better white balance, less noise, better exposure pics but superior risk to obtain blurry pics.

Another tingh i noticed is that gs2 pics of my test looks better than gs3 corresponding pics when i see them on gs3 display. On my pc i can see the opposite.
[Galaxy S III General] pnda:
so the g is the better sony module while the z is the bad samsung?
[Galaxy S III General] limeaid:
First off, thanks for posting these. However, the GS2 ISO 200 and ISO 400 pics are swapped and under the wrong heading.

The GS3 certainly seems to be less grainy than your GS2 at equivalent ISOs, but the GS3 is using a slower shutter speed at each ISO to achieve the same exposure. For example:

ISO 400 GS2: 1/25 GS3: 1/17

ISO 800 GS2: 1/51 GS3: 1/33

That's a problem. This implies that the GS3 sensor is actually LESS sensitive and is actually one of the reasons why the GS3 is performing poorly in low light. The slower shutter speed requires the camera to be much more still, which means many more pictures are going to be out of focus. It seems like the ZD/GS3 is making a tradeoff here. Less grainy images at higher ISOs, but less sensitivity which requires a slower shutter speed.
[Galaxy S III General] cmd512:
I agree that the different shutter speeds are strange but not that unheard of given the different sensors being used. Honestly though, even at 1/25 or 1/30 for that matter, shots are only guaranteed to be "not blurry" if completely still like using a tripod or something. That's the inherent problem with these camera phones, chances of you being still enough when taking a picture on the go are so slim that it almost negates the 1/25 advantage.

But, I'm glad you posted your samples, what really drove me nuts on my SGS2 with the purportedly "good sensor" is that anytime you tried using ISO400 or higher, the picture came out with a ton of noise... especially in even lower light environments. I mean, the noise was so bad it literally ruined the overall photo.

So to summarize: This thread has gone from some some people proclaiming the Samsung sensor to be horrendously bad to it have slightly longer shutter speeds but ultimately producing "better white balance, less noise, better exposure." This is what exactly what I was talking about... this "run for the hills" stuff with the Z- fw/Samsung sensor really needs to stop.
[Galaxy S III General] limeaid:
You must have posted this while I was typing my response, but yes, I agree 100% that this is what's happening. I said exactly the same thing using more words and numbers :D

---------- Post added at 07:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:30 PM ----------

The difference between 1/17 and 1/25 at ISO400 is not a big deal but the difference between 1/51 and 1/30 at ISO800 makes a HUGE difference. It's the difference between getting a focused shot of a moving object and a completely unfocused shot in low light. If everyone had a tripod with them all the time, I'd agree that the GS3 would take acceptable low light shots. But I think we all know how a phone's camera is usually used....
[Galaxy S III General] duowing:
Now what we need to do is take a comparison between the G and Z cameras and see if they're varying in shutter speeds at the various ISO and lighting conditions.
[Galaxy S III General] giovag7:
I use less words (and often wrong word i guess) because I don't speak English well :-P. I never study it seriously... Sorry for that. In italian would be more simple for me to explain...

Galaxy S3 con Tapatalk
[Galaxy S III General] waazup531:
Besides using 3 rd party software for taking indoor pics, i have to say that i found out that by manually focusing on a certain object (as close to the center of the image as possible) you will get a better shot. The autofocus algorithm is somehow messed up, cause many times i press the button exactly when it starts focusing and the image gets blurry as hell.

Basically i think you need to get a "lock" of the autofocus so to keep your photos safe of getting blurred.
[Galaxy S III General] kannanX10:
Already there r 2/3 comparisons posted in this thread itself with compared pics, go thro' it....check page no 16/17
[Galaxy S III General] giovag7:
I never had problems with autofocus. I can say that in gs3 is better than gs2. My comparison pics are blurry because i was not steady enough considering long exposure times.
[Galaxy S III General] NoOneCanHelpMe:
I wish there was a feature in xda which hits u with 10000 volts if u havent read and used search before asking "smart" question :D
[Galaxy S III General] nanoo-eg:
I saw the pictures on the screen of my iPad. I can say I was impressed by the sharpness of S3 when I zoom the pictures on my screen. S3 photos are better at the sharpness than those of the iPhone 4s, but 4s performs better some colors like green.
[Galaxy S III General] Electricview:
GDFD06 vs ZDFE02

I dont know if this matters or not my friend got a blue phone which has a GDFD06 firmware cam and i took pictures with it right next to my phone at the exact same time , my phone has ZDFE02. If these dont help sorry for wasting space, just thought i'd add a few.

Pic A

GD

ZD

Pic B

GD

ZD

Pic C

GD

ZD

Pic D

GD

ZD

Pic E

GD

ZD
[Galaxy S III General] giovag7:
Good work. They are practically identical, exposure times too.
[Galaxy S III General] kannanX10:
great work..........both firmwares seems to produce same result,when looked in depth with zoom/crop ZD seems to produce better details in those pics but its minimal.............this puts to rest that ZD is not a good camera module for sure............
[Galaxy S III General] Crunozaur:
Can anyone explain me whats with the glow around white objects? Images quality is bad enough without it.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4wguzjdltyvrsw3/2012-07-17 16.21.28-2.jpg
[Galaxy S III General] cmd512:
MANY thanks, like the gents above, can't tell a huge difference between the two sensors. Frankly, this what I expected, would make no sense for Samsung to dual source a part that is of completely different quality.

Hopefully, this will finally shut the idiots up that have been spouting about how horrific the Samsung sensor is. Nothing worse than those who feel the need to propagate unverified misinformation.
[Galaxy S III General] cmd512:
Repost.....!
[Galaxy S III General] limeaid:
While this is good data that supports the theory that there may not be any significant difference between the G and Z sensors on the GS3, it does NOT resolve the overall point of this thread--which is why the GS3 performs poorly in low light... compared to the GS2. THAT has already been proven to be true. The Z sensor being worse than the G sensor was simply one theory. It may or may not be untrue. But that doesn't explain why the GS3 is using slower shutter speeds at equivalent ISOs to achieve the same exposure. THAT is still a huge issue.

And finally, not sure why you feel the need to throw out insults like "moron" and "idiot" in every single one of your posts. That is the reason why people react negatively to you and I think it shows how much rational thought and factual basis go into your opinions and arguments. Personally, I think people like you are the reason why so many XDA discussions devolve into flame wars.
[Galaxy S III General] Pipperox:
But it's not true.

The last post from giovag7 has shown that the SGS III at ISO 800 has significantly less noise than the SGS II.

And yes, it has a slightly longer exposure time, which basically means that the ISO rating between the two phones is a bit different.

Some people came here claiming that the SGS III has poor low light high ISO image quality, and so far the evidence collected seems to point to the opposite direction.
[Galaxy S III General] Product F(RED):
I get that too. Wiping the lens seems to help.
[Galaxy S III General] Aimara:
haha , guess he didnt read from the beginning , anyway after a cam fw update finally able to take decent shots , my room light is quite dim , had to use night mode and outdoor visibility
[Galaxy S III General] limeaid:
No. What giovag did was a good experiment that directly compared the different ISOs and helped to isolate what was going on. Yes, the GS3 was less grainy at comparable ISOs but what you're forgetting is that under the same light conditions, the GS3 will default to a higher ISO than the GS2 in order to compensate for a less sensitive sensor. That offsets any advantage it has in noise reduction and often leads to a poor exposure under similar lighting conditions.
[Galaxy S III General] kannanX10:
My kind advice is to edit ur first post of this thread stating GD fw is superior to ZD in some parts of ur post.....
[Galaxy S III General] cmd512:
Agree with you completely, but save your breath... don't bother feeding the trolls. There are clearly some in here that are convinced there's a mass conspiracy to put an inferior camera module in the S3, nothing you say or any other blatantly obvious proof (like actual photos showing less noise/better overall picture quality than the S2) is going to change their mind.

Can't convince the ignorant and/or stupid.
[Galaxy S III General] smoothiex:
I think the S3 takes awesome pictures, I love the panorama option. Although I did have a BB curve with 2MP camera before, but I also have a 7.1MP canon camera that I think my S3 beats.
[Galaxy S III General] cmd512:
Excellent point. Panorama mode worked on my S2, but nowhere near as well as the S3. Panorama photos on the S2 were extremely blurry and unimpressive, especially where the shots were "linked" together. No such issues on the S3.
[Galaxy S III General] BeefTrust:
who has this firmware? It is after the update but before i had ff01 i think. I accidentally pressed the update button. Heres an image with no light
[Galaxy S III General] Crunozaur:
lol, you are right. thanks :p
[Galaxy S III General] Electricview:
You guys are welcome, forgot to mention, i reset both camera settings to default on both phones when i did this. I also did a 2 minute move of the same area outside panning around then walking inside if anyone needs that i can also upload it. Got lots of shots, its funny becuase each phone sometimes had difficulty focusing in the lower light, but it would go back and forth, sometimes the white (ZD) phone would focus very quickly while the blue (GD) would take 3-5 seconds to focus, then the other way around, and it seemed that 90% of the time when one got a good clear shot the other was more blurry! (and it was always flip flopping back and forth) so it seemed like they both performed the same roughly in terms of auto focus and such.

to my untrained eye it does look like the GD is just ever so slightly lighter in some details where it just seems darker on the ZD and there may be a slight tiny color difference, but almost indescernable. Just my rough guess..

Does anyone know why my phone let me get the samsung update a few days after the 4th of july, yet his phone still does not say there is an update when he plugs it into kies? He is currently on BALF3 build.
[Galaxy S III General] cmd512:
Are you guys both using phones from the same region... or is one person using a branded phone while the other isn't? Best thing though is to not even use Kies and just flash with the latest F/W through Odin, several people have screwed up their phones in the middle of a Kies flash because Kies really is junk.
[Galaxy S III General] Product F(RED):
The CSC is what controls which updates you get and when you get them. Unfortunately when you change it it requires you wipe the /data partition. Which CSC's are included on your phone vary on what ROM you're running (even the stock ones), and most ROM developers include one (like Omega ROM) or few since they take up a lot of space.
[Galaxy S III General] penfold:
try lowering the exposure
[Galaxy S III General] Product F(RED):
Nah, it was solved. Fingerprints on the lens.
[Galaxy S III General] Electricview:
Ahh Maybe that explains why my phone is now forever Roaming.. I thought kies was reliable... I never used odin or anything like that, I thought it had to do with rooting and such, I dont really want to root, i like the phone stock, Just wish a few kinks were worked out! Where is a beginners guide to what odin is and does and such?

Just running stock phone no roms or roots or anything else.. I got my white phone about 2 weeks before he got his blue, his was from newegg, mine was from Expansys. So i'm not sure where they originally came from but i'm under the impression mine (white) is UK. Mine says made by samsung his says Made in Korea. Any way to find out what region they are from for sure?
[Galaxy S III General] limeaid:
Anti-shake increases the shutter speed (reducing the likelihood of blurriness) but also doubles the ISO (increasing noise). It's a tradeoff.

I'll try to state this one more time and we'll see if I get attacked. I completely agree that the GS3 is capable of taking decent low light shots in night mode or HDR when there is almost no movement and the photographer has steady hands. However, it's VERY difficult for the phone to capture a decent shot in a low light setting with people moving at all (even slowly). None of the settings allow the amount of control needed to capture a scene like this because we don't have direct access to shutter speed. My point is simply that we shouldn't even have to think about this that hard because other phones (such as the GS2) do a much better job in situations like this even in automatic mode.

I hope no one finds the above statements I just made to be offensive. If you do, God help us all.
[Galaxy S III General] v1rtu4l:
alright, i rembered anti-shake creating potentially more noisy pictures (because of the higher iso then).

wasn't the conclusion that the GS2 did use a higher ISO with a faster shutter speed in a situation where the GS3 would choose the lower ISO with slower shutter speed ?

if so, we can at least "force" the GS3 to act just like the GS2 in using a higher iso with a faster shutter speed.

of course i know most of you would like to have a faster shutter speed while retaining the ISO, but you can't have it all obviously :p
[Galaxy S III General] NIK516:
You are right about the anti shake increasing the shutter speed and upping the iso, night mode will also up the iso.

Another thing is when in a dark environment the camera will pic a shallow depth of field such as a f/2.6 and this will also make an image look soft or blurry.

But i own the gs2 the galaxy nexus work phone and now the s3 personal phone. And im well aware of how dslrs work, i can safly say the gs3 takes better night shots. Look at a 100% crop.

When i get a chance ill post some pics.
[Galaxy S III General] limeaid:
Actually, night mode decreases ISO (reducing noise) and slows down the shutter speed in order to let in more light and achieve a brighter exposure. Unfortunately, this also requires everything to be very still otherwise the picture will be blurry.

Looking forward to the pics

---------- Post added at 09:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:58 PM ----------

This is where it gets very complicated and difficult to compare apples to apples. Under similar light conditions, the GS2 defaults to a lower ISO than the GS3. Using giovag's examples, at equivalent ISOs, the GS2 uses a faster shutter speed than the GS3. However, since the GS3 is using a higher ISO under the same light conditions, the shutter speeds in any given situation tend to be about the same (with the GS3 being slightly faster). To further complicate matters, it seems like the GS3 has less noise at comparable ISOs (though I haven't confirmed this with my own experience). Here's an illustration using giovags pics:

ISO 400 GS2: 1/25 GS3: 1/17

ISO 800 GS2: 1/51 GS3: 1/33

So in a given light situation, each camera would choose the settings that are in RED.

Hope that clarifies what's going on. I'm not sure what to do about it though. And to my earlier point (and a lot of others have echoed the same sentiment), I don't think we should really have to be thinking about this so hard. I expect my camera phone to be pretty much point and shoot... I shouldn't be messing with the settings THIS much.
[Galaxy S III General] @Existence@:
I also have an S2. I tested the difference of quality of pictures, taken with both devices, on my pc. The result is that I see zero difference. Pictures taken with my S3 are not better nor worse then the ones I took with my S2...
[Galaxy S III General] Andrewtst:
Just did some simple indoor snapping comparison S III v/s S II (my colleague one is G version).

I really not see any huge different on it. Both seems quite equally. In-fact I find

S3 much better in coloring & brightness control

, more to actual color & better lightning.

All using Auto setting (this is the most general method people use). Also S3 always pick much higher ISO than S2 in auto mode and I don't see it getting worst output, this proof ISO in S3 is better. In general, S3 image size is bigger than S2 as well.

My S3 is G sensor, surround me no one is having Z sensor yet, so I can't compare G v/s Z. But I believe it won't be any much different as well.

Sample 1 - S3

Sample 1 - S2-G

Sample 2 - S3

Sample 2 - S2-G

Sample 3 - S3

Sample 3 - S2-G

Actual photo without modified - http://db.tt/PqMJ4nVF