yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Xperia Z3 General] Silverdace:
I'm tempted to unlock bootloader to improve the pictures. However does that mean I lose the low light performance?

---------- Post added at 06:36 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:23 AM ----------

Took a SA picture in almost dark. Look at the interesting halo in the centre of the picture.
[Xperia Z3 General] hanime:
I believe there is a trade-off. You lose low light performance, but gain details in the dark. In other words, you will see more grains or noise, but things in the darker areas won't be water-colored (smeared) down as much.
[Xperia Z3 General] cadboncopyvw:
Funnily enough I did the same thing tonight. SA, taken on Dartmoor tonight. Same halo.

Didn't do a bad job on this shot though

It was dark enough that it was taking roughly 3 minutes at 400 Iso with a wide angle lens to get a decent shot on an Eos 50D
[Xperia Z3 General] One Twelve:
So the question is why did SA overexpose ?

Try that same scene again with the monitor on, since the subject is more or less at the same distance, it will be clear. Lighting is the same. this is what makes indoors shots easier.

Now in SA try tapping the brightest area of the scene to get focus. Focus on the white desk and take the shot, or tap to ficus there and then recompose.click. Try again with the darkest area (something black) you see. click. Check the ISO's of both. Now in your comparison the google got an ISO of 640 (ISO 800 -0.3EV or ISO 400 +2.3EV) vs SA that got ISO 800.

You will find when clicking on the darker areas that is when overexposure happens. So the trick is to pick focus of an object that is in the same focal plane as your subject to maintain focus but is not too dark. Experiment a bit. No manual required here just knowing what to focus on. Ideally it must be white, that will auto set wb. if you find anything that is the same distance as your subject, first click on that, turn your phone onto your subject and click through.

There are only two exceptions here where the meter will get confused, a scene with lots of white will default underexpose so you have to correct with +exp comp. A scene with lots of dark wil overexpose so you need to -exp comp. These are the only two situations where manual is mandatory.

Also you would be better off with center weighted metering in images with bright sources in them instead of average. You don't want bright areas to influence the overall exposure. Adds an unwanted haze. Avoid average metering, use spot or centre if there are bright light sources in the photo. Average is when the lighting is more or less the same or not too different in the image.

metering and exposure is what people are having problems with. Overexposed shots with high iso and they think bad camera. Everybody that got this problem should do this exercise, focus on darkest area and then lightest area (both areas should be close to the subject), click. Repeat for a different scenes with different lightig.

i think you will find with practice they are the same as both use the same imaging processing.

The one problem 3rd party cams have is if ISO is manually picked it tends not to stick, reverts back to auto ISO. You might want to check that with google cam.
[Xperia Z3 General] Silverdace:
You are correct good sir.

I have performed some more experiments and the ISO/shutter speed are the same in GCam and SA. I must have been focusing on different things in the previous shots.

In my few days of experimenting I've decided leaves and trees seem to be the Z3's worst enemy. They end up a weird looking 'watercolour' every time I've tried.

Wish I'd kept my OPO to compare with that.
[Xperia Z3 General] mario999:
Manual... Firework setting.
[Xperia Z3 General] quaver84:
Heres a pic i took a week or so ago. The camera works well for me.

Edit: although seeing it uploaded now, it doesn't look so good. Must be the uploading process.
[Xperia Z3 General] One Twelve:
Hyperfocal distance

has to be considered for landscapes.

Since its his first time, i assume focus was set at the centre. What is in the centre ? something far off in the distance at infinity. if you want that red bush to be more sharp he needs to focus closer in. Say at 5 metres away. Ideally he needs to set focus on the roofs left of centre and then recompose for the whole image to be sharp. Or even on the brighter parts of the big bush near the centre. Software shutter will help with avoiding camera shake.

This will add a further complication, since those roofs are dark the picture might blow out the sky so has to pick something that is bright and closer in to focus on. Alternatively HDR could be used as the differences in lighting between foreground and background is large. Tricky shot for a beginner to get right.

---------- Post added at 04:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:50 PM ----------

I don't quite understand what you mean by 'watercolour'.

red slurry smudge ? A low ISO will sort that out. For that outdoors shot IS0 50-100.
[Xperia Z3 General] Venacephalica:
Took this pic in the early morning:D

https://flic.kr/p/pXpwk4
[Xperia Z3 General] One Twelve:
There is no such thing as consistently producing better photos. Only if the lighting is consistent can you expect that. There are so many possibilities when taking a photo. The best thing to do is take many shots of the same subject under different lighting and experiment. Not take many photos of different subject with wildly or even difficult lighting situations and expect miracles. That is way too much too soon for learning. Each photo taken is a puzzle, why did it come out good or not.

What happens when its not good. Who is to blame there ? Camera or user. Still the user. Have seen people post photos that others find they can never get. Clearly user matters more than camera.

The user needs to understand what went wrong and this comes after many shots. You find out the quirks and adjust. More importantly how to adapt with any camera.

Also good looking photos is a very broad term. if you compose well then quality isn't as important or can be sufficiently masked. Choice of subject is another. If its powerful the other two do not matter either.

This is the common line trotted out by apple. Their camera before ios8 was so constrained you could not adjust much. They've seen the light after android & WP opened up more settings and allowed more possibilities.

I do not agree with it because the implication is you cannot get a good photo out of a phone. Ridiculous. Camera is a camera, some can do more than others but how many every fully use what they got.

Moment shots are the hardest to get even with the best of cameras. Getting a moment shot means skill first & foremost and anticipation. Lots of waiting and failed attempts.

How so when auto can at times boost ISO more than necessary ?

The problem with your chroma comparisons is the exposures are different for all the models.

Source

Earlier you said lab conditions aren't necessary, i would argue they are if one is going to make statements that hold over different lighting.
[Xperia Z3 General] ktek:
Only if you actually had calculated the depth of field...

So, we have a 1/2.3" sensor, 25mm (4.6mm real) wide angle lens and maximum aperture of f2.0. Set focus to 2 meters and your image is sharp from 0.97 m to infinity. Focus to 10 m and it's 1.57 m to infinity. Let's say you focused to some of those roofs 200 meters away. Even then the image would be sharp from 1.85 m to infinity. Small sensor combined with wide angle lens almost guarantees correct focus every time besides close up photography.

In other words, focus has nothing to do with that specific pic. It's probably just combination of lens distortion and aggressive noise reduction.

EDIT: Some pics to stay on topic.
[Xperia Z3 General] One Twelve:
How did you calculate the DOF ? f2.0 is more like f11 in 35mm speak. As you have to multiply the crop factor (25/4.6=5.4) by the aperture. That is why its impossible to get any pronounced natural bokeh if the subject is more than a few cms away from the camera. Any phone camera for that matter.

i don't know how useful calcualtors are going to be here, its going to take somebody to do some empircal tests. Could you do it ?

Point is we don't know here the focus was set. if it was at infinity then things closer up are going to appear soft. Have seen a few pics where things closer up were softer than they needed to be and that is why i hit upon the idea of hyperfocal distances.

Once its ruled out then you are down to lens distortion which on a 25mm is going to be present to some degree at the edges any way.

noise reduction will come in at higher iso's. For that shot i guess he got it under ISO 200. You don't get aggressive noise reduction at such low levels.

All of these pics have something to focus on within 10m, so ficus will be good all through.
[Xperia Z3 General] ktek:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field#Derivation_of_the_DOF_formulae or any online calculator where you can set sensor size, aperture, focal length and focal point. I know it's pretty much pointless to use any dof calculator, I usually jus go with the feel and experience. Live view helps tremendously. Yeah, I could do some tests later, but I'm not expecting to find anything that would invalidate my previous post. It's physics.

f2.0 is f2.0, it describes the light-gathering ability of a lens. N = f / D, where f is the focal length and D is diameter of the entrance pupil. So Z3 entrance pupil is around 2,3 mm. You're talking about equivalent DoF.

Yes, and still no. Even if it was set to infinity anything beyond 2-3 meters would be sharp. We are not talking about 35mm systems here.

From what I've seen Sony applies noise reduction even at base ISO of 50. I'm really excited about Android L and raw capabilities. I'm pretty sure resolving ability of Z3 will jump significantly.

These are just random pics I've taken, nothing to do with focusing. :)
[Xperia Z3 General] radicans:
I appreciate all your time and effort in trying to refute each and all of my arguments :) (meant humorously!) But, without meaning to be rude, I think in many cases you seem to be missing the points I am trying to make. I agree 100% that the skill of the user is very important when taking a photo. I understand that you are an experienced photographer, and I can see that my statements can be misinterpreted into saying that skill or user experience don't matter. This is not what I am saying. My point is that if you were to compare the resulting photos from the same experienced user, taking the same shot with different cameras, one is likely going to come out better than the other (in terms of technically measurable quantites, like color fidelity and reproduced detail). With the Z3, I argue that in this case, and on these terms, it will produce inferior photos most of the time, when compared with it's competition. The reason for this, I claim, are the highly demonstrable flaws in the Z3, such as chroma blur and cross hatching / oversharpening.

So I understand you don't buy the blurry chroma channel argument. Which is fair enough of course, but then you need to provide actual backing which suggest I am wrong, or we will get nowhere. I believe that the blurred out chroma channels are present in each and every photo that comes out of the Z3. I have provided evidence showing this is plausible (I'm not saying I'm right, I'm saying I firmly believe this is how it is, based upon what I have seen so far). Also, I believe that this is something not happening with many other cameras, like the Samsung models. I also have provided evidence to back this statement. If you claim this to be related to exposure, it would be very helpful to see photos backing this. The claim itself is not sufficient. When you make a claim, the burden of proof lies with you. Otherwise we can argue til the cows come home, with no one becoming the wiser :) To prove your argument here, a good test would be to do an exposure bracketing in a controlled environment, and show that the chroma blur is reduced with increased exposure, and at ideal exposure we would have nice and chrisp chroma channels. But I'm not going to do it for you :)

Regarding the DxO quote about low chroma noise. I totally agree, the chroma noise is very low in Z3 photos! The chroma detail is also very low, probably as a result of noise elimination.

Now, it would be really easy for you to refute at least one of my claims; find one Z3 photo which does not have blurry chroma channels.

(you can use GIMP which is capable and free of charge)

---------- Post added at 05:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:59 PM ----------

And some really nice pics they are!
[Xperia Z3 General] raviboy100:
high iso
[Xperia Z3 General] oryan_dunn:
Anyone brave enough to run the Sony beta of lollipop to see how the camera works? See if it'll support raw?

http://developer.sonymobile.com/2014/11/06/android-5-0-xperia-z3-running-aosp/
[Xperia Z3 General] hanime:
I salute both [MENTION=5512893]One Twelve[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6079771]radicans[/MENTION] for great discussions. I can understand where both are coming from. We need to look it from an average point-and-shoot user's perspective, given that an advanced user (e.g. photographer) can fully use the manual functionality of the Z3. For an average user, let's take on the ideal case using the Superior Auto mode on the Z3 vs. the auto mode of other high-end phones such as an iPhone 6/6+, Samsung Galaxy S5, LG G3, Motorola X (2014), etc. For the sake of the argument, we will use the Z3 vs. iPhone 6+. Having said that, have the phones take the exact scene at the same focus point. Do it several times if you have to. I believe radican's argument would prove to be true. (Heck, I might try this experiment myself.) On the other hand, you take both phones on their manual mode (I'm not sure how iPhone does their manual mode) at the same scene, and you will theoretically get better photos. Hence, One Twelve's argument about manual mode. It will depend on the users, but for the majority, I would think most just want a better point-and-shoot smartphone. The camera is one of the big reasons why people get this phone. It was for me. If Sony improves their auto mode, no one would be complaining.
[Xperia Z3 General] radicans:
I'd love to know, but I don't think I've got what it takes. Considering that unlocking will blow your DRM keys clean off, you got to ask yourself one question, do I feel lucky?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I530sPVQSc8
[Xperia Z3 General] Chefproll:
Exactly.

Don't feed the troll who obviously doesn't even own a Z3. ;)
[Xperia Z3 General] One Twelve:
Practice the metering/exposure exercise i mentioned earlier f you want better shots, i think this is where people are having trouble.

Most people focus on the subject and expect to get it right. if the lighting was similar across the scene it would, but scenes you want to get are rarely like that.

Is there a way for you to set things up in manual so it comes up with those options set the next time you launch the camera ?

set iso to auto. metering to spot. Tap to focus on mid bright spot. click.

Only one extra step was required which is tapping manual. If you can get it to start up in manual then you're good.

So question to ask is why is the IP6+ getting it right ?

IP6+ is spot metering where you tap to focus. if you can get the z3 to do that as well the results will be similar.

Real question is would you dump the Z3 for the ip6+ because it got metering right more times than not ? doubt it :D

About the previous x, people said it was unpredictable, this is because of the metering.
[Xperia Z3 General] Chefproll:
I am sorry; but the manual mode produces just the same bad pictures, in some cases the results are even worse.

In fact, 20.7 MP photos provide just slightly more details than the 8 MP Auto ones, if any.

In addition, I did not find any other camera application (I tried about five or six) making it any better.

So the last resort will be Android L. But if the problem resides inside Sony's hardware, we just need to live with a 20.7 MP camera vastly inferior to 8 MP cameras.

At least most Z3 owners need to live with it; I won't. I am not going to accept that, I regard it as false advertizing. So I'll try my very best to return the Z3 for a full refund.

---------- Post added at 10:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:48 PM ----------

It will also kill X-Reality. And just believe me: You do NOT want to lose that. :)

Regarding the video link: If Harry had fired a .44 that way, the gun would have reached orbit after breaking his nose. :D
[Xperia Z3 General] Silverdace:
I've added some outdoor photos with trees.

One SA and one Manual HDR, ISO in both are 50.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/127371734@N05/sets/72157649102328586/

If you zoom in a little you will see lots of areas that are really blurry, some more than others. This is the 'watercolour' effect I was talking about which seems to happen mainly when taking pictures of trees and leaves.

Here's a watercolour tree

http://www.annardron.com/paintings/paintingofadappledpaththroughspringwoods.html

Do you think perhaps the algorithm is reading the fine detail of leaves etc. as noise and purposely smudging the colours to 'denoise' the pic?
[Xperia Z3 General] abhinav.tella:
Nice pic, I believe you are correct, it may be the software doing that.
[Xperia Z3 General] One Twelve:
metering and exposure.

ok, take the 5s vs z3 shots of the barn you posted earlier. You were going on about chroma channels but a simple histogram showed the 5s got a better exposure. That to me is why chroma channels look stronger.

Same applies when you did the phonearena comparison. Those impressions looked sharper for models that got a better exposure compared with the xperia.

Get the same exposure and will there be much of a differrence ? that is my point.

How to get the best exposure is the quesiton. What to focus on or rather what not to. We don't know what the user focuses on because its not recorded, we can maybe deduce but not much more. So getting equivalent exposures is vital. By that i mean similar looking histograms. eg, your test of the cork with the 8mp & 20mp is good enough.

Fine but were the exposures equivalent ? otherwise you are basing conclusions of an unequal set of data isn't it.

i think at a minimum the exposures must be similar as in both got enough light to get into deeper detail about processing.

Agree so i'm trying to hold you to what you claim. is your contention valid if exposures are equivalent.

i can't comment on cross hatching as image processing used by companies is different. How to say which is better or not. i don't know the answer to that.

Also i don't know if chroma channels as an argument means much either. Why does it matter ?

But I'm not making the chroma channels claim. You are :)

So make a defendable case.

i did not see anything to refute in your cork photos. That 20MP does not add as much detail compared to 8MP, in ideal conditions.

So why does Sony provide 20MP ? i think its so that noise and digital zoom effects can be mitigated when reduced to 8MP. You could get similar with a 16MP too. They are trying to imitate Nokia but reducing from 41MP to 5MP is going to produce a bigger effect.

But will you be able to do it with an 8MP, not to the same extent.

You said earlier that you were unsure when to take 20MP or 8MP. If lighting is good, you've shown 8MP is very close. So 8MP works in that case.

Otherwise i think 20MP if digital zoom or high iso is required. The problem is stock won't allow 20MP scene modes. This is where the night modes provide low iso and long shutter. So 20MP with mods might be better.

In the end the real benefit of 20MP is more the BSI sensor than the resolution. if you look at the Dxo scores it quite apparent.

What is the difference between Z & Z1 ? 15 points in photo within just 6 months (!) Why ? BSI sensor

What is the difference between 4 & 4s ? 24 points in just 1 year (!) Why ? BSI sensor

What is the difference between S2 & S3 ? 12 points in just 1 year (!) Why ? BSI sensor

What is the difference between 920 & 1020 ? 15 points in just 1 year (!) Why ? BSI sensor, bigger sensor helped less.

The difference between successors are of the order of 5 points for all the above three brands. Why ? software improvement only.
[Xperia Z3 General] radicans:
Smudgy indeed. Here are your chroma channels (sometimes I feel like a broken record), if you are interested:

http://i.imgur.com/l7Tlgrf.jpg (deletion link: http://imgur.com/delete/YvucF6QrEf3lI1z if you don't want it on imgur)

Not a whole lot of information in there.

If it wasn't so blurry, it almost looks like there is some native NZ bush in your photo...?
[Xperia Z3 General] One Twelve:
So i looked for a

DOF calculator

and tried the values you mentioned.

Click the advanced bit and you see things like print dimension and viewing distance. Huh ? what's going on here. It strikes me these DOF calculations are about what a 10 inch photo viewed at a distance of 25cm would look like.

What is happening here ? is anybody printing photos to those dimensions and then viewing them at 25 cm ? No, i have no idea what size screens people are using to view photos they can run the range from 5 inch phone to 11-15 inch laptop all the way to 24 inch and larger. Then viewing distance comes into it. How far away the screen is from you.

But the real point is with digital zoom. When i looked at a photo that was sized to fit on my laptop. it showed a 27% zoom. This gave me a diagonal of around 11 inches. If i zoom to 60% that diagonal doubles. It trebles when i zoom to 90%. So now my image has a diagonal of 33 inches.

DOF figures change when the image viewed increases as a result of zoom.

instead of 0.97m to infinity i find it becomes 3m - infinity at a focus distance of 500metres. Was that bush 3 meteres away ? maybe but what zoom you view at affects what distance you focus on is what i've found :)

That calculator does not go into DPI or screen resolution which i'm sure will play an additional role as well.

Lots of people zooming in images with different size screens finding different results. Isn't life fun.
[Xperia Z3 General] tesla45:
My theory as to what is killing the image quality in these z3 cameras (in addition to some over aggressive noise reduction) is the combination of a large apeture f/2.0 and wider angle lens. This seems to me that it would really hurt sharpness at anything off-center. Might explain why the middle of the picture always looks sharper than the edges?

HDR mode seems really hit or miss with this phone too ; it seems to really exacerbate the watercolor effect most times.

Also, I think its pretty ridiculous the panorama mode isn't full resolution (even 8mp). It looks like its simply a free moving axis x 1080 pixels instead of truly taking full resolution pictures and stitching them together. I doubt this would ever be corrected, I guess the only option is to use another app for panorama?
[Xperia Z3 General] radicans:
I predict the result will not change to a discernable degree. I have perfectly well exposed shots which have blurry chroma. The cork one for example. *All* the Z3 shots I have looked at have this, is that a coincidence? I find it much more plausible that there is something wrong with the camera, when the alternative is that every single Z3 photo I have examined so far have had incorrect settings.

Well, what we do know is that the Samsungs and Apples are capable of producing detailed chromas. What we have seen in every single Z3 photo so far, any exposure, are nothing but blurry chromas. That's enough to make a pretty strong case, in my book.

The processing that produces the cross hatching seems to destroy the photo detail to a great extent. That is clearly worse than a processing that doesn't :)

The chroma channels matter because when detail is lacking in them, it makes the photos look washed out and flat. The fact alone that a significant amount of information is missing is a pretty strong sign that something is wrong.

Ha ha, you were making the claim that a good exposure will improve the chroma channels, so prove it! :)

I believe I have ;)