yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy S 4 General] hung2900:
But I think it is only on par to 2012's flagships only.

I even think my Note 2 can shoot better:silly:
[Galaxy S 4 General] BoneXDA:
S4 normal vs. image stabilized test. There is no notable benefit of stabilization IMO, the normal is quite stable in the tester's hand and the stabilized shows some very little compression artifacts.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2213853&page=9
[Galaxy S 4 General] bwin999:
Yea. Where is the imagesense go..
[Galaxy S 4 General] BoneXDA:
No surprise that the One performs better under artificial/low light, that's what the UltraPixels are all about , but I'm still very positively impressed by SIV quality, especially outside (later). In the same venue the SIV outperforms the iPhone both in dynamic range, white balance, dark details and natural skin color reproduction, the latter is so good it's slight better than the One itself (red on dude's face).

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Samsung-Galaxy-S-4-camera-samples-vs-iPhone-5_id40873#7-Galaxy-S-4

Now getting on the outside, and the One comes up short undoubtedly. Results are fairly good if you don't plan to crop or need to zoom, but even at 4MPs you see quite a high amount of noise, noticeable noise reduction blur, and edge sharpening When not in HDR (are the first post samples HDR?), dynamic range isn't very good either.

HTC One:

http://pocketnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/IMAG00381.jpg

http://l.f5.img.vnexpress.net/2013/03/14/HTC-One-1-jpg-1363226928.jpg

http://cdn.gsmarena.com/pics//13/03/htc-one-xperia-z-samples/camera/gsmarena_003.jpg

Galaxy SIV Chinese samples

http://www.abload.de/img/2013031418580229100hmu27.jpg

http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=gsmarena_004zpu4k.jpg

http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=2013031419393338112sru93.jpg

The SIV results are very impressive. Noise level is almost zero where there's no notable reduction blurriness, plus no oversharped edges. Very natrual looking very high detailed photos. The XPeria Z fails where it compresses the living crap out of pictures landing in the 2,5MB ballpark, the same sensor have the Oppo Find 5 doing 4,5MB pictures, and they are that much detailed. Samsung shoots around 5MB when details are full but some go up to 7MBs, which means that much rawer details.

---------- Post added at 01:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:43 PM ----------

Also, look at this one with no flash in low light, quite impressive, not just details, but that in difficult conditions it still gets colors right. My guess is that Samsung apples a skin color filter in post-processing.

http://www.ringhk.com/editor/news/20130315_samsung_galaxys4_part3_pic01.jpg

Sony Xperia Z light on, lights off:

http://timg.eprice.com.hk/hk/mobile...sung-_f219aa7378f73597ce6ec57e285a90d7ori.jpg

http://timg.eprice.com.hk/hk/mobile...sung-_362f0600742bcd476445a4c56cb04ed5ori.jpg

Galaxy SIV lights on (here the Z looks sharper), lights off (the SIV gets white balance better):

http://timg.eprice.com.hk/hk/mobile...sung-_9169351192b25fcaa5df0d4f8701dac6ori.jpg

http://timg.eprice.com.hk/hk/mobile...sung-_34272d30e3c6744377d41b82285a2139ori.jpg

More SIV samples outdoors:

http://www.abload.de/img/2013031419321861400uhunj.jpg

http://www.abload.de/img/20130314192059660007su0i.jpg

http://www.abload.de/img/gsmarena_006vtue0.jpg

http://www.abload.de/img/2013031419012499700a9u3z.jpg

http://www.abload.de/img/2013031419175772200fju1f.jpg

http://www.abload.de/img/2013031419374652062t0ujn.jpg

Challenging conditions:

http://www.abload.de/img/gsmarena_007mtufv.jpg

http://www.abload.de/img/20130314_112010_lls9uunq.jpg

http://www.abload.de/img/2013031419065337300stutz.jpg
[Galaxy S 4 General] newabv:
These pics are from Bulgaria. I don't think there is even one piece of HTC One here in Bulgaria :cool:
[Galaxy S 4 General] Toss3:
Gsmarena definitely have access to one.
[Galaxy S 4 General] Squirrel1620:
Looks like htc has it on this one.. Let's face it they've always had superior cameras both hw and software
[Galaxy S 4 General] notsointeresting:
I wasn't drawing final conclusions. That's why I said the One won on the 4 images posted, nothing more.

But you're right. The devices aren't on final software so we've got plenty of time to wait and see.

Thanks for providing the articles with information.
[Galaxy S 4 General] Toss3:
Since when?
[Galaxy S 4 General] GGXtreme:
No.
[Galaxy S 4 General] Bagbug:
thanks for trying but this is a useless comparison . Again thanks for your time and effort.
[Galaxy S 4 General] Squirrel1620:
... Didn't mean to thank you, carry on sir.

I'm mostly talking about the camera app for htc.. I've always liked it more than Samsung. I've handed my phone to people taking a pic and they're always saying wow that was easy.. Never got that compliment when I had my s2
[Galaxy S 4 General] MarioBlacksmith:
htc looks nice !
[Galaxy S 4 General] johnk1973:
I've had a every generation of HTC smartphones, right from the very first one (XDA) up to last year and have to say HTC have always had poor quality camera's, it's only been in the last year they have been on par with the competition.

The only outstanding camera from HTC was the Amaze,

I'm not talking about megapixel count, but quality of pictures.
[Galaxy S 4 General] GGXtreme:
This. If they used the Amaze camera in the One X, then the argument about a superior camera to the GS3 might have actually held up.
[Galaxy S 4 General] BoneXDA:
New samples, more here:

http://thoibaocongnghe.com/tin_tuc/news/tinhtevn--hinh-chup-tu-camera-cua-samsung-galaxy-s4/12342

And more inside shots:

http://attach.sogi.com.tw/cf_forum/201303/2013031509341563344b.jpg

http://attach.sogi.com.tw/cf_forum/201303/2013031509321571590b.jpg

http://attach.sogi.com.tw/cf_forum/201303/2013031509311575018b.jpg

http://attach.sogi.com.tw/cf_forum/201303/2013031509301576863b.jpg

http://attach.sogi.com.tw/cf_forum/201303/201303150928158041b.jpg
[Galaxy S 4 General] Briztama:
Actually, i have compared my shots from my HTC One X to my friend's Samsung GS3..

and they think my camera is a bit superior, it's their opinion...

i take pictures from direct sunlight to dark areas and they all were pretty well..the F 2.0 comes in handy, while samsung only has F 2.4..

however i do admit the 'smart flash' sucks for portraying any objects but people...

i know in my country (Indonesia) most people (including my driver) used samsung, it's because of their savvy marketing (and the FACT that they makes good phones) so the amount of 'fanboys' is tremendously high... they continually mocks my device for no reason even though at some point my device is superior...

So basically i think One X images is still superior compared to GS3... anyone with a slight sense of technology will agree... :D

but battery life (especially), aftersales service and resale value still belongs to samsung :good:
[Galaxy S 4 General] BoneXDA:
100% crop detail and FHD resize detail comparison. Contrast level is much higher on the One and Z (although that depends on the situation), as well as post-processing.
[Galaxy S 4 General] NPWS:
both phone has very good camera :good:

I still wondering about the "Ultrapixel" in HTC One
[Galaxy S 4 General] GGXtreme:
I've also directly compared the One X camera to the GS3 camera, and it's not too difficult to declare the S3 the winner once you look closely. The One X smears and overprocesses details while the GS3 doesn't. The GS3 also offers a more consistent and accurate white balance:

Source: GSMArena

If I had to pick a winner for overall camera quality of devices currently on the market (excluding the PureView 808), I'd give it to the iPhone 5, with the S3/Note 2 being a close second. However, the current S4 sample images seem to be an improvement even over the iPhone 5.
[Galaxy S 4 General] BoneXDA:
More indoors and low-light

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8087/8559932904_c9baf5c5e0_o.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8515/8558828071_50ae7c11fc_o.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8102/8559933326_d94c5b51ee_o.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8238/8559934128_1a787dd5f8_o.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8380/8558825315_9aef4f6caf_o.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8100/8559934382_5efd45bc0c_o.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8512/8558826363_a99bafbf71_o.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8372/8558824839_eb6e13dc3a_o.jpg
[Galaxy S 4 General] :
Nice find.

So, it's a f2.2 lens.

31mm focal length, which is bit odd. I understand that it was bit wider in GS3.

Looking good so far.
[Galaxy S 4 General] Terrorantula:
No that's called exposure......
[Galaxy S 4 General] BarryH_GEG:
It all comes down to expectations. ;)

Facebook Size...

Crop at 2688 x 1520 (4MP)...
[Galaxy S 4 General] aliveon2legs:
That building is extremely well lit, so it shouldn't be a surprise at all that the GS4 captures it well. If you look at the foreground and to the side of the building, though, you'll see that the Htc One still clearly dominates in true low light. I still think it has the best photo of that set.
[Galaxy S 4 General] BarryH_GEG:
Here's the FOV difference. It's pretty big.
[Galaxy S 4 General] foxy4270:
I just saw HTC one's pics and i can say :

Macro shoots are good.

Night shots are below average.Over-exposed, full of noise and they lack details.
[Galaxy S 4 General] yahyoh:
not really even the micro look bad , there a lot of sharpening and noise reduction which made the image look sucks
[Galaxy S 4 General] aliveon2legs:
What's funny about that is that part of the reason you're seeing so much noise on the night shots of the One is that you can see so much of everything on the night shots of the One. You're not going to have much noise in blackness, which is what most phones are going to capture.

Take this shot, for example:

According to Android Police:

Is there a lot of noise in it? You bet, but that's because so much of everything in the field of view can be seen. Would you rather have illuminated noise, or a photo where the noise can't be seen because it (along with everything else) isn't illuminated?

From what I've seen, there is simply no question that nothing comes even close to the One in terms of low light shots, except for the 920, which doesn't have nearly the color accuracy of the One, imho.

http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/0...nt-smartphone-this-year-may-also-be-the-best/
[Galaxy S 4 General] BarryH_GEG:
We've beaten the detail thing to death but it needs one more mention. Software updates aren't going to do a thing for it. A 4MP camera can only capture the detail that a 4MP camera can. There's a post a couple of pages back where 11 sites that rated the One's camera highly also mentioned the lack of detail it's able to capture. Even the Android Police article with the pretty macros mentioned it.

Are certain smartphone cameras out there probably going to best certain aspects of the One's camera? Probably. I found, for example, that the Xperia ZL's Exmor RS sensor has a better eye for detail in (well-lit) macro situations, and produces less noise.​

And Brian at Anandtech's review in which he adored the One's camera talked about HTC's s/w tuning in general:

I see a lot of sharpening going on which affects the readability of the menu beyond just the loss of resolution from the camera being 4 MP.

There’s a strange combination of noise reduction and sharpening going on at some times.

In the distortion chart we can see some noise in a few of the solid color boxes.

We can see that the One starts to alias around the 12 or 13 mark and other 8 MP shooters alias around the 15 mark or just above. That’s not too much of a surprise however given the fact that it’s a 4 MP camera compared to higher resolution cameras. We can see some odd little demosaicing artifacts as the two lines start to alias as well.

I still can’t shake the impression that HTC has some JPEG artifacts which accentuate the noise in these relatively homogenous regions.

HTC seems to go for more aggressive noise reduction which occasionally leaves that oil painting look.​

I posted some pics about a dozen pages back comparing a One X that had the benefit of three major updates and two minor ones to a N2. Historically, HTC's camera s/w has had issues with noise, artifacting, and over sharpening. So maybe in 2013 they've hired a ton of new programmers and with updates the One will be the turning of a new leaf.

But does any of it really matter? To 90% of people that are casual "point and shoot" photographers that view photos on their mobile devices, PC, 1080P TV's, post them to social, and create the occasional 4x6" print probably not.

I think PhoneArena said it well at the beginning of their very detailed review...

We'll start by taking a look at all photos from the viewpoint of an average consumer. In other words, we're keeping things simple for this category, without focusing on the minute details (as we're saving that for the next page of the comparison). For fairness' sake, all of the photos below have been scaled down to a resolution of about 2.8 megapixels as that's sufficient for most people's needs, such as sharing the images online or printing out small-sized hard copies.​

Under those circumstances either the One or SGS4's camera would keep the masses happy with each having different strengths and weaknesses.
[Galaxy S 4 General] NZtechfreak:
I don't think so, and I owned a Note 2 and rated its camera highly as cameras went last year (and this year so far for that matter). See how the One froze the bee in motion? See the bokeh? You won't get either of those on the Note 2. You might get a bit more detail in the main subject, but the photo is less pleasing due to the DOF.

Curious what your thoughts are about the piece you've cropped from that?

To my eye the area of focus looks acceptable, is it the noise in the OOF area that you're looking at? I don't really see noise in the OOF area as being particularly relevant if it isn't too distracting when viewing the photo under normal (non-pixel peeping) circumstances. Looking at the full res shot of that fullscreen on my 1080p monitor the noise is slightly distracting, but hard to know whether I'm simply seeing it more for knowing its there. My eye is drawn to the subject, which is the important thing. The fact that it has a reasonable OOF area with fairly well drawn bokeh is what separates it from most other phone cameras in the macro stakes. I'll take non-distracting (or relatively non-distracting) noise in the OOF area in exchange for the ability to compose much a more appealing macro quite happily.

I guess what I'm trying to say there is that the point of photography isn't to take perfectly noiseless detailed shots, although that is generally extremely important. The point of photography is to take nice images, and pixel-peeping isn't the only worthwhile metric there (I went to photography show recently and one of the most striking images was a completely out of focus Bob Dylan hunkered down in an even more out of focus empty cinema). In the macro stakes I think the One will often allow nicer images than the S4. Regardless of the other merits of the One camera its probably the ideal "food porn" phone cam right now given its macro and low light performance. Looking at the overall picture I don't think that is enough to make me want the One camera over the S4 camera across all settings, but I think in peoples desire to justify the S4 as the better camera some people are losing sight of the forest for the trees (that isn't directed at you Barry).

Oh, worth pointing out that if you compare the flower shot here to the one of the bee you can see the flower shot has a wider luminance range, which is likely the reason for the OOF area being more noisy and a bit more "water-coloured" than it is with the bee shot.
[Galaxy S 4 General] BarryH_GEG:
We're kind of losing context though, wouldn't you agree? Who takes pictures in a pitch black house? And if the white/blue building was the focus of a shot what trails off around the edges really isn't "core" to the picture the shooter was trying to capture.

When I use my phone camera it's typically on vacations, in planned social settings, casually and opportunistically with family & friends, and spur of the moment to capture something interesting I stumble upon. Vacation pics are most likely a combination of indoors and outdoors with the majority being the latter. Social settings typically have medium lighting. Casual shots tend to be less well lit indoors and, depending on the venue, potentially low light situations. Spur of the moment is just that and runs the gamut. On vacations, with casual shots, and spur of the moment pics I'd put detail ahead of general performance differences because those scenarios are one's I typically crop and edit and actually take shots with that in mind. But taking in to account all those use cases the difference between "good" low light performance and "very good" low light performance isn't important enough to me to give up detail and daylight performance. That's if choosing the camera was a device agnostic decision. Obviously it's a big YMMV but unless you're nocturnal no one here's going to exclusively take low/no light shots.

And in low light settings where you’re trying to capture something spontaneous the flash is still a better choice. You may lose some pic quality and have to do some after the fact correcting but even if you take sequential shots with the flash off you won’t know until the moment’s passed whether you got a good one. I'd rather have a decent flash-assisted photo than potentially miss the shot completely trying for a better one by relying on night mode alone. And you won't know you missed it until it happens. And Brian said this about the One being used with its flash.

With the lights off, the HTC One oddly continually underexposed the image with the flash on. My other issue is that HTC continues to not light the LED for AF assist during focus, meaning that there were a bunch of out of focus shots before I finally obtained an in-focus shot out of luck.​

It’s interesting how much discussion this year is being devoted to low light, FOV, and OIS as if we've all somehow been completely dissatisfied with camera phones we've previously used. The iPhone which is typically used as a reference device doesn’t excel at those things yet for tens of millions of happy customers it’s their only camera. With all the chatter about those things and an increase in MP it'll be interesting to see what Apple does with the iP5s' camera in June. So the question still remains is the One the “best” camera because it does well in low light, has OIS, and a large FOV? I guess the real test will be how well it sells.

---------- Post added at 02:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:53 PM ----------

This is what I reacted to. Granted it won't matter to 90% of people using either camera.

And it's kind of a Déjà vu from my One X experiences.
[Galaxy S 4 General] aliveon2legs:
I guess, but if we're not willing to look at the areas of the photo outside of the building, then the premise that the GS4 is taking a good low light photo is false, since that building is lit up like a Christmas tree. The true "low light" areas of those photos are the ones that I highlighted.

Very true.

Maybe for you.

:D

;)

Personally, I wouldn't classify the GS4 as "good" low light performance nor would I say the One is "very good". I guess if you're speaking relative to camera phones only, then maybe, but I've still yet to see a true low light photo that I would classify as "good" from the GS4.

Certainly.

In close range, yes. In distance shots, it's not going to be very effective, and to whatever degree it is, the One is still going to capture far more of that light.

It is interesting, but it's because before now, nobody has offered a different option.

To me, that's a question that doesn't need answered. I've fought this internal battle for a couple of weeks now, and I will never come to a conclusion about which is the "best" camera. It's very clear to me that:

The GS4 destroys the One (and probably most others) in well lit, distance photography.

The One destroys the GS4 (and pretty much everything else) in poorly lit, distance photography.

For me, there was a very simple solution to determining my personal "use cases", as you mention above. I took the DCIM folder from my phone and copied it to my PC. It included over a year's worth of photos. I then divided them into 3 separate folders; those that would look better on the GS4, those that would look better on the One, and those where it really wouldn't matter. You would probably be very surprised how many near pitch-black photos I had on my phone, where I tried to capture the moment, but to no avail. They were mostly nighttime camping photos at concerts, the Indy 500, etc. It was a near even split between the photos that would have been better on each device.

Ultimately I came to the conclusion that it was a draw... split decision... dead even... neither "better" than the other, for me. That was okay, because it freed me up to decide which phone to buy based on other criteria. I pre-ordered the One, and will probably buy a point and shoot camera to take with me on vacations and to sporting events. That's not a huge number of days to carry around an extra camera, by any stretch. I could just have easily decided to get the GS4 and buy a point and shoot for camping/nightlife activities, but as I said, I was able to make my decision based on other criteria.
[Galaxy S 4 General] NZtechfreak:
Oh, I totally get where you're coming from there Barry. I had the One X and had the same experience, usual HTC post-processing flaws much in evidence. I'm still a bit dumbfounded at people who think the One X camera was amongst the best cameras from last year, let alone the best (some people seem to genuinely believe this).
[Galaxy S 4 General] BoneXDA:
Exactly. Nobody. What matters is if your subject you want to photograph, in this case the house. So who cares about the side being better visible on the One when the main subject you intend to capture is over-exposed? The DSLR is a good benchmark for these photos, and the conclusion is fairly favorable for the Samsung.
[Galaxy S 4 General] aliveon2legs:
Of course nobody cares what is to the side of that building. That's missing the point, though. The point was that where there was low light, the One took more in, substantially so.
[Galaxy S 4 General] lawlow:
Hmm the HTC One pictures look a lot better...:crying:
[Galaxy S 4 General] BoneXDA:
Yes. That's why it got overexposed. Because it took more in than it should've. Point is not who does the brightest, but who does the most natural. Overexposed is not natural.
[Galaxy S 4 General] hung2900:
Ok, I agree that because of very short shutter time and lower resolution, One can froze the motion very well. Shooting moving object is very annoying on Note 2.

However, about the bokeh, it's due to difference aparture (2.6 vs 2.0), not between "megapixels" and "Ultrapixels" as what we are discussing about. In fact with that small aparture, bokeh effect on S3 and Note 2 is pretty good.

I'm sure that One's low light photo is brighter, but not always better in terms of noise, detail and exposure.

In the case I need less noise but more detail, better color accuracy (Like the photo Phonearena shot the big building at night), S4 is better.
[Galaxy S 4 General] NZtechfreak:
Obviously I'm aware of the aperture difference and the effect it has on DOF, please.

This conversation is a bit more wide-ranging than just considering mp Vs 'ultrapixels', in case you hadn't noticed.