yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Xperia Z3 General] One Twelve:
Very good, i would recommend to people here to closely examine this 'quick play' and compare with the original at 100%. Then get Raw therapee and have a play themselves with the samples.

I notice an improvement with sky colour, more pleasing. But check out the vegetation, the tree in the foreground and the ones in the background. There is actually more detail visible. I can make out the texture of the tree bark and on the rocks midway. The detail in the buildings on the cliff in the distance stand out even more. There is more detail in the shadows in the foreground. I can't make out any fringing or artifacts.

I don't know about you but there is certainly an improvement over the jpeg. if one was unhappy with details in the vegetation then they are improved. This quick exercise shows more details can be revealed. More work can also be done on the image itself to improve it in other areas depending on how critical you are.

Did LG err on the side of over smoothening in their default jpeg over details ? a little bit.

Try with some of the lower light samples, and let's see how much more details can be revealed :)

This exercise will give a good idea of what is and isn't possible. I see no reason to expect any different from Sony, could even be better.

But people who are unhappy can have reason to expect better. The question is how intelligent is sony's processing or any other vendor's for that matter. Is it a one size fits all, optimised for certain conditions or is it more intelligent. How well can it cope with different lighting conditions. Only so much.

---------- Post added at 03:12 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:09 AM ----------

You will have all the control you desire over luminance & chroma. And then its up to how good your post processing skills are.

There is enough headroom to tweak exposures and this will effect how you take photos.

How soon can you do it ? depends if you play with FXP's version of 5.0 and then get Flavio to work with xperia. This will be quicker than waiting for sony to do it.

This is XDA. Impossible is possible but miracles take longer :D
[Xperia Z3 General] Silverdace:
When I was playing with it some of the default Rawtherapee settings produced very good images. Why OEMs don't use what appear to be standard camera algorithms who knows.

It seems it just comes down to manufacturers personal preferences as to how the images are produced.

I'm encouraged that access to RAW will allow 3rd party developers such as here on XDA (who seem to be better developers than the OEMs) to be able to make camera apps that apply better processing :).
[Xperia Z3 General] subhani:
You're absolutely right. [MENTION=1927729]CandyAndy[/MENTION], dom's advice is good. I have tested sport mode against the iPhone 6 plus and the Sony images may appear a tad darker but the moving subject (toddler) is captured with MUCH less blur than that of the iPhone. Even the anti motion blur is slightly better than that on our iPhone, which can be used when sport mode is too dark. Otherwise sport mode all the way.

Hit THANKS if I helped, cheers! Sent using a Z3 via Tapatalk.
[Xperia Z3 General] psychok9:
I use DenoiseMyImage plugin for Photoshop, it seems to me the best filter that I know (a little slow, but better quality and tuning).

I would love to see him at work on RAW files and compare it with the "on-fly" Sony denoise.
[Xperia Z3 General] isaali93:
One of the first pictures I took with the phone.
[Xperia Z3 General] One Twelve:
Why not try with the samples from N5 ? will give you a good idea of what to expect.
[Xperia Z3 General] CelticTitan:
A quick pic on just auto setting while walking on a per in Dun Laoghaire, Ireland
[Xperia Z3 General] dedei:
All my inside pics shot at night (with the lights on) come out absolutely ****ty. I swear my z1 was better than this ?
[Xperia Z3 General] hanime:
Makes me want to buy a Z1 and do a side-to-side test. Z3 is not acceptable!
[Xperia Z3 General] subhani:
Turn your metering from 'spot' to 'multi'. Your whites look completely blown out. Cranking the exposure way too high. I found that the case with spot metering. I know a lot of guys recommend using spot but it needs to be used in a specific way to achieve the correct result. I just use multi or even face.

In any case, you're right. The Z3 ought to have done better, considering their marketing, the 20MP sensor, their lower end hardware in the iPhone being on par and often better than the z3.

Hit THANKS if I helped, cheers! Sent using a Z3 via Tapatalk.
[Xperia Z3 General] One Twelve:
Agree, it metered off the dog, thought it was dark and pushed ISO up high. Multi will work in the majority of cases. But there is no blur in this shot.

If that dog was moving then there is a chance of blur with lower ISO. So a higher ISO with -exp comp or lower ISO with +exp comp to find the sweet spot.

Indoor shots with non static subjects is challenging.

Spot is for controlled lighting situations where you don't want background to be influenced by the subject. There shouldn't be anything brighter in the background than the subject, background will usually be less lit than the subject like for a portrait or macro. You do the lighting and want it to appear as you set it up.

centre weighted for flash and multi for almost everything else.
[Xperia Z3 General] dedei:
It was shot using superior auto, and my dog was not moving. Here's a pic taken with my old z1.
[Xperia Z3 General] doministry:
I am sure if I'd take the shot it would look totally different.

Posting some random results without any required info about camera mode and circumstnces doesn't make any sense.

And than you post a shot with completely different circumstances to compare. Nonsense.
[Xperia Z3 General] sgiannouris:
I too think the quality is bs, but only compared to my canon 5D mk.2(lol) Seriously though, it is miles better than the one on nexus 4 I had, and it has great potential when you learn it's quirks.

Here is one in the M, low light hand held mode :
[Xperia Z3 General] jbisana89:
8pm Shot, 50 ISO, Manual, Multi Metering and Touch Focus

http://imgur.com/RY4xKtH
[Xperia Z3 General] dedei:
Well, both were taken at night, my dog wasn't moving, the room had a single fluorescent lamp. My z3 tends to crank the ISO way too high while my z1 was perfectly fine under the same circumstances. Here are the details
[Xperia Z3 General] One Twelve:
Z1's using a lower iso. That is all. Otherwise same camera component. This if you recall was a major issue with the z1 until that update appeared 3+ months later. Until that happened every day somebody would be complaining about it. Have not noticed the same level of complaints with Z2 or Z3 when using SA.

Issue for whom ? SA shooters. Those that switched to manual got the shots from day 1.

Any shot that is ISO 400 or above can use some sharpening in post. I mean you do it yourself in PS or similar.
[Xperia Z3 General] doministry:
But it was full auto?

Well don't expect top results with auto, that's it.

Learn the camera, settings are there for something.
[Xperia Z3 General] juanmaasecas:
I just wanted to show you this comparison I made a couple of days ago. S4 vs z2.

First pic. Google camera on both phones, max resolution. Same iso. Same moment in same day. 100% crops.

Second pic: same as above.

Third pic. Low light, iso 800 forced on both phones. Max resolution. 100% crops.

Xperia z2 with the latest 4.4.4 update, s4 with Samsung official lollipop for Google Play Edition device (nexus-like experience, without Samsung stuff).

What do you think? Sony processing is horrendous. Of course we can get far better results using night portrait/night scene, but I wanted to compare both phones at same iso. Furthermore, if you select such scenes and there is any moving object in the picture (person, animal, etc) it will be blurred for sure...
[Xperia Z3 General] dedei:
Did you guys noticed that when you take a picture, you can click on the thumbnail preview while it's loading and it'll show you the pic before the post processing?
[Xperia Z3 General] One Twelve:
Try some unsharp mask with both. What difference it made.

If you go crazy with sharpening then the whole image becomes so sharp that your eyes start to bleed just looking at it. So the key is to do it selectively.

I think sony's processing is about right but this is an asthetic call.

No RAW option for S4 with lollipop?

Different values used for luminance noise reduction used by either company, samsung tries to make it little more sharper. So all the online 1:1's make it look like the better candidate. f you look at more samsung shots then the sony's can seem less sharp.

TOo much noise people complain, too little noise details start to get cloudy and again complain.

See the raw taken from fv5 on nexus 5 and processed by Silverdace in the last page and compare with the jpeg. You will not believe both were taken by the same camera (!) Doing it like this you can always optimise for areas you do not like but in-camera processing does not give you the option.

What i want to know is how far off either sony or samsung are compared to doing manually RAW processing. In some cases they can be a noticeable difference but in other lighting conditions it remains to be seen.

Low light will be one of them.
[Xperia Z3 General] juanmaasecas:
No, sadly no raw or manual adjustments. Just nexus 5 and 6 at the moment, so Sony is hardly implementing it via lollipop update, hope is the last thing we should lose, but I've already lost mine...

If we had raw support, I think Samsung lens would remain sharper around the whole frame due to the wider xperia lens (even wider in xperia z3, I hate it...) and the bigger aperture. But of course, the extra resolution in the Sony sensor would be an advantage when downsampling...
[Xperia Z3 General] Silverdace:
I'm wondering, if we unlock bootloader and we flash an aosp lollipop Rom would we have access to raw? What exactly is lost in unlocking bootloader? The low light algorithms I guess but if we have raw that won't matter as we can process ourselves anyway to get great low light shots.

Or is there something I'm missing? Does the low light stuff have an influence on hardware somehow?

---------- Post added at 11:51 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:50 AM ----------

I'm just concerned Sony won't give us raw in which case we'll be stuck with the poor processing.
[Xperia Z3 General] juanmaasecas:
Sadly, I think it won't happen. Even in aosp roms, I think we're using Sony camera drivers, etc.

When you unlock the bootloader, you "miss" a portion of the Sony post-processing, mostly the noise reduction concerned, which could be even good. Tomorrow my xperia z2 is going to Sony service to get my bootloader unlockable. When I get it back, I'll do a proper comparison between before/after unlocking. I think you get much more noisier pictures when you unlock the bootloader, but probably more like a "raw" picture, with more natural details and colours...
[Xperia Z3 General] CuBG:
This picture is made with Manual Mode 20Mpx, Multi Focus, ISO 50 ( inside the picture details said actual ISO 64 ) in not so light condition as you can see. I am not neither a professional photographer or amatior but for me its not bad at all.
[Xperia Z3 General] One Twelve:
If Z4 gets it then it will be ported back.

but on lollipop, fv5 will be able to do it. You will also have proper manual controls. How well they work depends on bug reports to flavio.

A little, 30mm vs 25mm. Either selectively sharpen or crop the edges. This only applies for landscapes though, is it really that apparent for people shots.
[Xperia Z3 General] juanmaasecas:
So I'll pray for Z4 to be able to shoot in raw and it's portable to older devices. Nowadays in CM I think developers are using camera blobs from Z1 on Z2... But if Z4 mounts the new Sony sensor (a little smaller and 21 mpx) it could be more difficult I guess.

And no, even in Camera FV-5 you can't shoot in RAW in any device apart from Nexus 5 and Nexus 6. You can read it in flavio's webpage. At the moment, the only devices supported are those two, despite of some other phones are already running official lollipop builds... The brand has to make the phone compatible with the new API from google, and it seems they prefer to stay with their "closed sources".
[Xperia Z3 General] guybrush2099:
sorry, I think this compare is really bad. I'm going to explain why...

- this Sony sensor gets the best with MANUAL, 8 MPX, LOW ISO (50 light-400 low light), MISURING MULTI/MATRIX. if I have understood yours aren't

- if you shot 20mpx you will get less sharp images. If I have understood your are 20MPX..........

- Sony lens are grandangolar/wide (specially 20MPX), and they get much more viewable area, so if you compare the same identical object you need to zoom more ("less crop available", if you prefer..) with Sony images than samsung ones, so it's normal they seems more pixeled...

- camera quality isn' only sharpness, but a good yield in all light conditions and stress, color gamma, etc. Sony seems to get best

let me know if you can do the right compare using 8 MPX ISO 50 good light, MISURING WIDE and not "CENTRE" or "POINT"
[Xperia Z3 General] One Twelve:
Camera will be ported it should not cause a problem some features that are not implemented will not work on older devices.

My understanding is the camera driver needs to be updated. Now if the company owns the camera like S5 then they can do something. But if its the case of s4 or note 4 then its sony and its up to the OEM to provide the driver. As far as sources are concerned, they do not provide anything, just updated camera driver and hooks in the firmware which are callable by the OS. This is all fv5 requires.

Since Sony is a major OEM to numerous other companies including Apple, there might be an incentive to do it. mobile os are going through updates regularly, a new OS version means device drivers for all components have to be updated or they will not work. I think its odd that other components recieve the driver to allow L support but not the camera. The decision to support the next OS is much bigger than the work required to do this driver.

You can argue phone was sold without promise of raw support but can also say neither was L mentioned either :)
[Xperia Z3 General] undercover:
No. Being on lollipop doesn't mean Sony will give you direct access to drivers. And they won't, mark my words.

I wanted to note that you are replying to all the complaints from the wrong perspective. If people wanted to mess about with post processing, they'd have a dslr. An average user, not in terms of knowledge but in terms of requirements, just wants to get the phone out, take a snap and enjoy results. A lot of phones deliver this, Z3 unfortunately is a notch lower. I use Google Camera and results satisfy me. Don't make me happy, but good enough.

I'm not sure it'll be as easy to post camera drivers. This is pretty low level stuff. I'm yet to see this done on any of the devices I've owned, but can't confirm with Sony, as haven't looked or followed Dev scene for it much.

Edit. I'm talking hw drivers, camera app can be ported.
[Xperia Z3 General] One Twelve:
They will not 'post' drivers. They have to update the driver. Devs dont do driver development. the OEM that provide the components have to do it. One of the issues with the windows world is that every time you had a new OS, there was a driver issue. Dell was infamous for never providing updated drivers when the next OS came around as they used cheap components. You want the next OS then buy a new computer (!) Same is the case with chinese rebrands. Sony or samsung isn't in this category.

The OS has access to drivers otherwise it will not be able to use components. I said modify the driver to enable RAW output. Adding some more functions that allows the feature to be called. There is no IP problem here at all. I'm not a in position to say whether they will do it or not.

This silly argument was used by Apple to justify a crippled camera software. Then in ios8 they do a quiet u-turn and allow much more control. Why does windows phone allow it already a year back and L want to introduce it. The same argument i saw a few pages back by a guy called mennoch, who says if i get my lights out then i will use my dslr instead. eh? a dslr has a much bigger sensor and gets the benefit fo added light but a phone camera with a smaller sensor does not deserve more light. ridiculous.

Post processing is used regardless of the kind of camera if you want to improve your shots. A lot of issues raised can be easily fixed. That you can get the camera to always give you a good shot is a myth.

One thing i know, everybody that complains about the camera cares deeply about their photos and loves to take them, why they can't make the extra step is beyond me. Its a really useful skill that will work with any camera.

Where are these 'happy' users ?

Check out photo threads of various devices. There are people complaining about the camera. Not just the camera something or the other just isn't right. Been going on for years, will continue because there is always this idea that the next device will give you that better shot when in reality its you that cant take a better shot.

These people are what i term 'one star' reviewers, you know when you check out amazon and theres tons of people slamming the product for whatever reason. What these people do is decrease the SNR of any discussion. They raise doubt whether to buy this or that because of their own inability to comprehend and use the product. How good the shot turns out is up to you and your ability to understand and use it appropriately. you make the shot not the camera. Otherwise you get prettier crap with a dslr.

Let me turn this around, whenever people examine a photographers work the first thing they want to know is what camera was used because the underlying assumption is they could do the same if only they had the same camera. Wrong.
[Xperia Z3 General] undercover:
Either I was grossly misunderstood or you refuse to consider different point of view.

People see phones that do P&S much better than Z3. People want it especially from a professional camera manufacturer and because expectations are raised high by advertising from the said manufacturer. Camera simply underperforms.

Manual controls are a necessity imho, especially as it's just software and easy to implement. But and it's a massive BUT, auto mode has to be as good as it can because public in general doesn't know much about how to take pictures with manual settings. Nor do they want. No do they HAVE to because there are products out there that DO it better.

I'd suggest you step away from your point of view and consider users IN GENERAL.

regarding drivers : OS has access via layer Sony provides. And that's not going away or all their R&D was a waste on that front.

Well done on spotting the typo, that added a lot of importance to your reply.
[Xperia Z3 General] jiggyb21:
No doubt in my mind that my z1 and z2 took better indoor pics. And my z2 was bootloader unlocked early losing TA supposedly hurting the camera performance.
[Xperia Z3 General] One Twelve:
Previously the OS did not provide the ability to output in RAW so if they wanted to sell devices every vendor had to process the images with varying degrees of success. A one size fits all was never going to work to everybody's satisfaction. This means every camera by definition outputs in RAW.

When you say they won't allow output to RAW you are in fact saying vendors have the freedom to selectively implement features of the OS. Can you show me precedents with KK or ICS ?

Look, you're saying they won't allow RAW output. I think you're speculating.
[Xperia Z3 General] undercover:
Correct. I am. But that speculation comes from previous experience with different manufacturers. Nothing is ever guaranteed, but I'm adamant in this instance I am right. If not, well, remind me and I will publicly admit that I was wrong.
[Xperia Z3 General] jhnvlz:
Edited in Lightroom

So, now that Lightroom is available for Android, I decided to edit this. What do you guys think?

By the way, the Z3 takes good night shots.
[Xperia Z3 General] radicans:
I'm with undercover here.

Currently only the Nexus units have created the hooks between the driver and the API to allow RAW image retrieval. No other OEMs with Lollipop out have implemented this so far, which means that it won't be available even if you try to code your own camera app (that means not even through fv5). I don't know why on earth the OEMs would want to leave this out, when it's so easy to implement! But there is no reason to believe Sony will do it if no one else does it. But I do hope I'm wrong!
[Xperia Z3 General] One Twelve:
Didn't i post a link a while ago to a video about OPO doing RAW ? It uses a 13MP sony sensor. Saw somebody claiming they could also do RAW with the Oppo 7a. So that's two chinese phones whilst the heavy weights we are led to believe, for some reason won't do it.

No hooks means no 3rd party soft can make a call and expect that call to work. Hooks are in the driver, its already been established that an updated driver is required. The point of contention is whether or not this driver will be provided by the OEM. I can't see why they will discriminate with just the camera as a new OS requires updated drivers for all components.

Also bear in mind that 5.0 is buggy, word is 5.0.2 will be less so.

This is the part i'm challenging. I can't find anything on the web to this effect. If you say this device is android L compliant then what is your obligation as a vendor to comply with the features L provides ? Who here can show that camera2 api compliance is optional ?

THis opens up a can of worms as if this or that api is optional we will end up with a fragmented mess where some apps work on this device and not others whilst at the same time claiming 'android L'. See the L compatibility

doc

. Pg.49

Check the

camera api

., search for the word raw.

Just so its clear i'm not saying RAW will be there (i don't know) trying to examine the basis behind why people say it will not be there.

Have not heard anything convincing in this regard. Lots of cynicism on offer though :)
[Xperia Z3 General] N77NS:
Z3 is much worse than lg g3,,, images lose focus, are mute and yellow, in some places you can not read the letters and if the image is enlarged, the images were taken with a 15MP lg has 13

https://drive.google.com/?utm_sourc...ve&pli=1#folders/0B7Y0SvexgRJGUmFIUWhVU1g0NWc

https://drive.google.com/?utm_sourc...ve&pli=1#folders/0B7Y0SvexgRJGREw4SHYxaldhUFE
[Xperia Z3 General] juanmaasecas:
I can't see the pictures. Private folder?
[Xperia Z3 General] N77NS:
z3
[Xperia Z3 General] N77NS:
LG G3
[Xperia Z3 General] radicans:
Here you go sir:

"Individual capabilities are exposed via the android.request.availableCapabilities property in the Camera API2 interfaces. Full devices require both the MANUAL_SENSOR and MANUAL_POST_PROCESSING capabilities, among others. There is also a RAW capability that is optional even for full devices. Limited devices can advertise any subset of these capabilities, including none of them. "

http://source.android.com/devices/camera/versioning.html#camera_api2_capabilities_and_support_levels

It just seems to good to be true that Sony would actually implement it. I was a bit more hopeful before, have even implemented a nice RAW demosaic routine in a way that would work really fast on the GPU, and started to look at the maths of color temperature transforms. My plan was to see if I could make a nice and simple in-phone RAW converter to avoid having to shift the photos back and forth between the computer. But those plans are on hold now until Sony show their cards.