yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy Note 4 General] jonahtriangle:
Sorry man I have to say I disagree. Every phone I have had, has been bad up until now. I was on HTC then jumped to samsung gs3 then gs4. This has been an issue for so long with all phones. In fact most people I know with Icrap phone will ask me to take the picture instead cuz they can't stand their camera on the iphone. This has been the first time I am satisfied with the camera. Just 3 days ago my daughter had a Christmas show at school and every picture was crystal clear even with all the kids moving. Yesterday too I took my daughters to a chris.as festival and the kids were playing in the fake snow. Again crystal clear. To add to that my wife was using her gs3 and could not get the shots. In fact she was aittle mad at me because I have a phone that takes good pictures and she doesn't. We also need to remember one this this is a cell phone to a thousand dollar nikon that is built to only take pictures. In the end this is a phone it is to answer and make calls and for it to take the picture that it does is amazing. They are almost better than my nikon and that thing is huge. Just my 2 centz.

A d these kids were moving and squirming all over the place.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] sychak:
I disagree that there's a problem with the camera in the note 4. It's just the nature of an auto setting.

The low aperture allows for a higher shutter speed. Thus less motion blur.

However, in low light situations with a fixed aperture, the iso will rise and shutter speed will drop naturally in an auto setting like on our phones.

And to the pper talking about shutter delay, when you use the flash on a cell phone it will always take a little longer. It sucks and I noticed the note 4 does have a slightly longer delay with the flash being used than some other phones.

If you want total control over all lighting situations and thus little to no motion blur, buy a dslr and some good lenses. You can't expect perfection from a cell phone.

EDIT: sorry, saw you were talking about normal lighting conditions after I posted. I haven't noticed a problem with this with mine in good lighting. My bad!
[Galaxy Note 4 General] rayone:
You're right they're all blurry... the subject doesn't even need to be in motion... it's software bcos fine detail is being lost.

I have a pic of my cat just sitting on the floor and you can't even make out his nose, and his fur is missing all detail, whereas the floor around him has more detail and is generally sharp.

I have another where he's walking and he's all blurry whereas his surrounds are sharp.

It's like they've totally gone over board with NR.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] ZenInsight:
I dont understand why there aren't way more complaints. Could we have defective cameras? Ones that have the wrong apeture settings?
[Galaxy Note 4 General] jonahtriangle:
Are you guys on stock rom?
[Galaxy Note 4 General] ZenInsight:
Stock rooted here.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] jonahtriangle:
If it's within 14 days you can exchange it. I'm suprised no one else has any input. I wouldn't make a full conclusion on 2 guys cameras are other parts and 2 guys cameras are good. We need more data.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] manubaba:
I am an Australian user and facing same issue.

Close up pics are sharp. Long shots are blurry.

Camera also seems to loose focus.

I have tried all troubleshooting tips.

And no I do not have shaky hands :)
[Galaxy Note 4 General] rizzy123:
I also have the exact same problem as OP, have resorted to using camera in sports mode even for any slightly moving objects as otherwise pics are blurry
[Galaxy Note 4 General] RayHK:
I don't have this problem. I have never used sport mode and the pictures taken with my Note 4 are not blurry.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] foo:
Just made some tests with my Note 4 camera because of this thread. I have to admit, that I rarely use my phone camera, as I have always a system camera with me.

If you want to take a picture of people that are not moving much, you should have a shutter speed of at least 1/60s, if you have moving kids, I'd recommend 1/200s or more. I just took some test shots indoors (evening, only artificial light source) and noticed the Note 4 is limited to ISO 800 max, which results in slow shutter speeds like 1/17s in my conditions. I also tried sports mode, but as the camera is already at its limit, this does not speed up the shutter any more.

If you use the LED flash, the camera will decrease the ISO and keep the shutter speed still slow to decrease noise. The only way to speed up the shutter is to set ISO to 800 fix and force the LED flash. You will sure have more noise in your image, but less motion blur. To speed up even more, you can under expose by one step (EV -1), which will result in a darker image but shutter speed is additionally increased. Unfortunately the noise will get more visible in darker areas as well.

In low light the OIS does a good job as long as there are no moving subjects, but for moving subjects under bad light conditions the Note 4 camera is imho not capable of getting the job done.

I'm using the N910F (Qualcomm), not sure if the Exynos is using a different camera module.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] jonahtriangle:
This could be fixed in lolipop. They are opening up restriction in the camera. Maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel. Pardon the pun.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] alltruism:
HDR related?

I was getting blurry shots in reasonable lighting conditions, until I turned off HDR mode. That seemed to fix the issue for me, and increased the speed a little too.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] Teardrop45:
[/IMG]

---------- Post added at 03:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:12 PM ----------
[Galaxy Note 4 General] Burgscheinkerkdeiktraast:
Don't use stock camera app. Use example Camera FV-5 for settings - use flash and 800 ISO. Use flash in night mode.

Same for video - author made app for vids too.

I use these apps in SGS II, where in stock camera I couldn't set plenty of things, where in Camera FV-5 I can.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] Losthenes:
I agree with you. I tried to take a picture and my subject wasnt moving at all and it all blurry. Im not that noob at taking a picture.. fix it please.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] Iyrah:
Same problem here after talking shots it shows the pics but after restart the cell pictures lost y y y???
[Galaxy Note 4 General] craigulator:
I'm having the same issues, all my closeup pics are great, anything over 5 feet away is completely blurry. I'm on a Sprint phone, well past the 14 days for exchange. This is unacceptable. I can post examples.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] foo:
Examples are always a good idea. It makes it easier to identify the problem. :)
[Galaxy Note 4 General] ZenInsight:
Seriously? You caught a birds wings in midair?

Something must be seriously wrong with my phone. It's an Edge by the way, but should be the same. I am going to a Sprint store to check out the camera there and make sure I do not have a defective phone. There is NO WAY I can catch a birds wings still in mid flight with this phone, even if I was standing on the sun.

Just to be clear. In a fully lit room, if I wave my hand SLOWLY back and forth in front of the phone, and snap it...no matter how slow I move my hand or how many pics I take it is ALWAYS blurry. I am not a total idiot...something is wrong.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] andalism:
Uhm . The amount of light in a fully lit room is probably a lot lesser than the amount of light outdoors. If under bright sunlight you still take blurry pictures then you have a camera hardware issue I guess. I suggest you post some unedited pictures online and people can have a look at the exif data (if it's not on auto night mode, since auto night remove removes the data). At outdoors I'm getting ISO 40 and exposure time of 1/754 sec to 1/1000 sec which is enough to capture moving objects or prevent shaky motion. Indoors, even in a bright room I'm getting 1/15 secs to 1/50 which causes blur if you shake your hands or if subjects are moving
[Galaxy Note 4 General] blackspp:
Hi OP, you talk about we this, we that. Well, I have ZERO probs, in fact my Note 4 camera is the best I ever had.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] kevinsbacon:
I was frustrated by this blurry camera problem in a well lit room just the other day. Slight movement by kids would cause blurry photos.

How do you enable Sports mode? I went through all of the camera settings in the stock camera app and couldn't find it. TIA.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] cornelito:
Exactly the same problem here. I'm on 910F International Version rooted. Stock camera cannot handle moving objects even in Sport Mode under good light.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] ZenInsight:
We this and we that? You mean like the multiple other posters in this thread that have the same issue equaling "we"?

You lost me. Why are you in this thread if you don't have an issue anyway? Please be helpful or don't post.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] ZenInsight:
So...I took the advice of someone in this thread and installed the Camera FV-5 app. I need help verifying something. I did not purchase the full version so I am stuck at a lower resolution (which I think is the only thing missing from the lite version), and I noticed something very interesting.

No matter where I point, or in what light conditions, my aperture is on F 2.2. As far as I know this camera will do 1.9 on the front, and 2.2 on the back, but should it ever change? But would someone be kind enough to install the app and check and see if they get a shifting aperture when looking around and refocusing the camera?

The best candidate would be the guy that was able to freeze birds wings with his camera, since we know his works properly. I am going to Sprint tomorrow to check my phone against the camera of the Galaxy Note 4 and Edge on display in the store.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] razno:
Camera, mode, download.

:)

I believe aperture is fixed on mobile camera. Exposure change with shutter speed and iso.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] foo:
That's right, aperture can't be changed on the Note 4. I have FV-5 installed and for now it has one advantage: It can do higher ISO, so faster shutter speeds are possible with this app, but of course at the price of more noise.

When we get Lollipop and Samsung hopefully supports the new camera API, we will get more control over shutter speed.

I don't think that anyones camera here is broken, the motion blur is just the result of too less light and there is not much that can be done about it.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] blackspp:
When you started the first post you apparently assumed everybody has your problem. I'm just pointing out that's wrong, as I don't have it, as well as others.

No need to jump all over me.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] andalism:
This is because quite a few people lack understanding to aspects of photography and have come to expect too much from this puny 1/2.6 inch camera sensor from the note 4.

Even many dedicated digital cameras have problems with tracking kids moving.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] jonahtriangle:
I don't know about you but they are coming up very clear to me. This chick was going fast too.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] TriviaMonster:
I'm having an issue also. Sometimes when I haven't used my stock camera app in awhile it refuses to focus on anything closeup. Not a macro type situation, more like a business card from 1.5 feet away. Situations like that. Farther pics are incredibly sharp and focus easily and very quickly but closeups take awhile. Once it focuses closeup, all pics are sharp and focused after that.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] NovaChild:
Alternate App

I have had this problem too, with blurry children in fairly well-lit (but indoor) conditions. I hate hate hate the look of the flash, so always turn it off (I'd rather have no picture than a flashy one), but my Note 2 created far less blur with more graininess - a tradeoff I'd happily make. I assume that all of the people who are diagnosing overly-slow automatic shutter speeds are right.

Anyway, point being I downloaded Camera JB+, a modified port of the jellybean stock app, for $1.99 and was able to take several blur-free pictures of my kids. It doesn't have HDR mode that I saw, or any of the other fancy Samsung modes, so I will still use the stock app when taking pics outdoors, but inside I'm going to use JB+ across the board. A nice Bonus is that it comes with a version of the JB stock gallery, which I far prefer to the Samsung one.

What I'm curious about is if the JB+ app is taking any advantage of the OIS? Is that built-in to the sensor so that any alternative app will use it? Not that it matters since I can see with my eyes that I prefer the pictures with JB+ indoors, mostly just curious.

I'm a newish poster, so it won't let me upload a comparison directly, but you can copy and paste the link below to see examples. The picture of the baby is stock camera in a pretty well-lit (by natural light) room.The toddler picture is JB+ in a much less well-lit room. The baby in the first picture was not moving very quickly, but notice the blur on her arm. The toddler in the second was actively head-dancing (at my encouragement), so moving significantly faster. Clearly, JB+ is far less blurry.

dropbox.com/sc/jndejur4u3mdrch/AAANUvmWQZutpqzqOnJaq-1ga
[Galaxy Note 4 General] brandonbulbasaur:
Chiming in as a US Cellular Note 4, having the same issue.

Right at the two week mark the camera started to have this focusing issue, it's quite weird.

I feel like when the camera focuses far away, it wants to lock in the perfect focus, but then it retracts that focus a bit and makes everything blurry again.

This seems to be an issue across carriers so it has to be either a huge hardware fail or a huge software fail.

I
[Galaxy Note 4 General] ZenInsight:
So, I am reporting that not only is this a defect on in the camera, but the retail shops know about it. I went into AT&T and the guy knew about the blurry pic taking issue immediately. He said that you have to be perfectly still and the subject does too, then it takes great pics. I said, I have a baby. He knew what I meant.

Samsung fail. If I wanted the shutter to be that slow as to pull every bit of light possible, there should be a "night" setting for me to choose that option. During the day of a bright inside store or in the sun it should not happen. But it does.

I hope this is fixed for Lollipop. Sad really.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] Menneisyys:
BTW, as I've also explained at http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=58261166&postcount=70 , you can always manually increase the ISO sensitivity to force the phone to use a higher shutter speed.

In another post of mine (can't find it now), I've also pointed out the "Sports" scene mode of Samsung is indeed useless as it doesn't go over around 1/60s, which is useless for action shooting.

Unfortunately, it isn't a good idea either. During shooting each individual video frame, the Note4 will thrive for using the lowest possible ISO, which means it'll use 1/30s shutter speed a lot of times, resulting in motion blur.

See above.

---------- Post added at 07:33 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:32 AM ----------

I've also noticed that, despite the green focus confirmation in both the stock Camera app and third-party ones like Snap camera HDR, some shots come out defocused.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] brandonbulbasaur:
I've also read a lengthy thread on T-Mobile support and almost every user there was having this issue. Some even exchanged their phones multiple times and the new one did the same thing. What was really odd was that none of the T-Mobile support specialists replied to any of the posts as well.

I've read on here that the Exynos/Snapdragon variants have different sensors; Samsung/Sony respectively. So then maybe it is a software issue If everyone is feeling this, both sensors can't be bad right?

I'm holding out hope, lol . The bottomline is that an $800 phone should NOT have this issue. I just don't want to jump the gun and warranty exchange this phone for a possible refurbished one that is doing the same thing.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] gavinfabl:
Camera is great for me. My flickr album with leaping dogs too.https://www.flickr.com/photos/gavinfabl100/sets/72157648796796660/

Tiggy tries the long jump, Windy Post, Dartmoor #samsungnote4 by gavinfabl100, on Flickr

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And if you are in any doubt how good the camera is , get blown away with this post with 2 shots

http://gavinsgadgets.com/2015/01/16/is-there-no-shot-the-samsung-note-4-can-fail-at/
[Galaxy Note 4 General] foo:
[MENTION=241112]gavinfabl[/MENTION]

Your flickr album is incredible. That's a perfect example of what the Note 4 is capable of in the right hands.

Thanks for sharing! :)
[Galaxy Note 4 General] gavinfabl:
Thanks so much for your comments ☺ here are 4 more from the weekend that I haven't uploaded to flickr yet

http://gavinsgadgets.com/2015/01/25/samsung-note-4-camera-shots-of-the-week/
[Galaxy Note 4 General] ZenInsight:
Go into any store...pick up the note 4 or edge, wave your hand slowly in front of the camera. Take pic.

Fully lit room. Blurry picture.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] gavinfabl:
Out of interest, what was the result when you tried this with all the other phones in the store. Did any manage non blurry shots?

As shown in my recent posts, the camera can capture movement very well. At the end of the day it is still a smartphone camera with a small lens so limitations will occur. I have sorted 27 smartphones I have owned in to albums. Some have more shots than others. From my usage, I would feel safer having the Note 4 with me than many other smartphones. Link to albums https://www.flickr.com/photos/gavinfabl100/sets/

Have a look at the horses and dogs jumping over fences taken with the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom - https://www.flickr.com/photos/gavinfabl100/sets/72157644532639249/ these shots are quite capable of being snapped with the Note 4.

If you really want a pin sharp shot of your hand, it is possible ;)
[Galaxy Note 4 General] ZenInsight:
The only phone I have tried besides the Sprint Edge was the Att Note 4. Your post makes me wonder if the phone really does have a hardware problem though...

EDIT: Ug...I take that back. All of your shots are very far away that do not have much blur...and still I can see some blur. Have you simply tried waving your hand slowly in front of the phone rear camera? Can not get a still shot that way in my opinion.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] slind:
I've been using the Note 4 for about two weeks now. Compared to the iPhone 6, the camera is ok. It's much better than the S5 's , but still very picky when it comes to focus and movement.

Every review praises the camera in the Note 4. But I consider the one from Android Police the most honest one. The guy had very many blurred pictures. Same here. With the iPhone, this is basically impossible. Even with deliberate movement while taking the shot. It is *ALWAYS* crisp. Even in low light and with moving objects.

The Note 4 delivers blurry photos half of the time. Even in the exact same conditions, it's hit and miss. Have to take photos more than once (often 4-5 times) to make sure I end up with a usable picture later. Sudden movements ruin the picture most of the time. It's really frustrating, because you can never rely on the camera to take a good picture on your first try.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] gavinfabl:
Nothing wrong with the hardware. Ive tested the hand with iPhone 6+, Honor 6, HTC Desire Eye & Note 4 and they are all blurry. Lighting was average at best.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] Zamboney:
Everyone posting counter examples: why can't you post a non-blurry picture indoors? It's well known that outside in bright sunlight the shutter speed is OK, but it's far too slow indoors with regular lightning to be able to capture kids. This really sucks. Your pictures of birds on a very sunny day aren't really disproving the original post.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] gavinfabl:
How to take shots of moving pets and people - just wrote this post - http://gavinsgadgets.com/2015/01/27/samsung-note-4-how-to-capture-moving-people-dogs-and-kids/

Also, the dogs are not taking in sunny conditions. The lighting was poor. Also if you look you can see fog in the distance. I have got a number of people to test my Note 4 post, and the feedback is they have nice crisp photos now.

If I can help with your settings I will do so. Also let me know if Snapdragon or Exynos. Mine is Snapdragon.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] jonahtriangle:
O have to say I do agree. Previously I was not a believer and could not duplicate the results. Just the other day I took my 5 year old daughter to a father daughter dance. She was dancing with here friends and decided to take some snaps. I thought for sure i had this one, right. Nope every single one was blurry. I could not get one picture of her the whole night cuz she was dancing. Finally with these rwsults I would have to change my opinion that the camera does have an issue. I do think that maybe it is a software issue though since is is in auto mode and it can not adjust to the lighting properly. If i shot it in manual mode I could have gotten a shot but I am not skilled enough. However now I do blame Samsung that on my daughters first dance, I do not have one picture out of thirty shots.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] arjun90:
I'm not facing this issue on my T-Mobile Note 4. This is likely to be a firmware issue, and not the hardware camera sensor itself.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] Cheeseraid:
This was taken with snap hdr. Latest version, Samsung mode with autofocus on auto. Avery was wiggling her toes and turn the page in her book. I have a love hate relationship with this camera. Sometimes I can get it to take motion shots in low light, other times not at all. Stock camera app is terrible. Blown out highlights and overly sharpened.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] PieOfJustice:
I've had the same issue. No idea how to solve it but I can't take any photos without them being blurry. That being said on some Lollipop AOSP ROMS the camera performs great. Other times, even on the same MOD, it wont work correctly. On any Official ROM the camera doesn't focus correctly. Focus for a moment and then unfocus right away.
[Galaxy Note 4 General] nano303:
I did a factory reset and all is good. Had the same problem
[Galaxy Note 4 General] snguyen0730:
Been on the phone with T-Mobile and Samsung on and off for the past month. Pretty much most reps confirmed that its a hardware issue with certain batches. T-Mobile next day aired me a replacement, and its doing the exact same thing. My third replacement is on its way...
[Galaxy Note 4 General] brandonbulbasaur:
The weird thing is that itwasn't always like this. Granted when I first got the phone I didn't extensively test the camera, but I didn't have an unfocusing problem in the least. Then this problem all of a sudden arose. I was rooted, now I'm unrolled on fresh stock firmware and the issue still persists. So I think I'm gonna root again and flash a decent Lollipop ROM to test out the camera again
[Galaxy Note 4 General] arjun90:
Beware.

It would appear the Note 4 is having a mixed number of problems, from S-Pen, to Camera, to Home Button, to Display, to just about everything in its design nature. Some seem to be content with their devices, some don't because they know too much :p , but issues like these (camera focus problems) is something which concerns me in terms of lifespan longevity and overall quality of Samsung devices. Samsung really needs to get their act together, because these problems are becoming "more and MORE" prevalent on newer Samsung devices, but have their origins dating back to the original Galaxy S; these problems don't seem to have been fully resolved. I've had to go through a dozen devices (not pertaining to camera) to finally settle on a device which evens things out to the maximum extent possible by Samsung.

I like to mention certain users as they definitely understand what I mean, :)

[MENTION=5469644]Limeybastard[/MENTION]

:good:

The petition to Samsung should also quote whatever I stated above.

I will never forget the 12-page report I submitted to Samsung Korea back in January of 2012, focusing on the display problems which were prevalent on virtually all Galaxy Note N7000 devices.