[Galaxy Note 4 General] electech13:
I have to agree. I was about to start a similar thread.. Not a petition mind you but questioning the commonality of sub par photos.

Now, the camera hardware in this phone IS good (by today's smart phone standards) and I know what to expect from a camera phone.. I do photography with DSLRs so I limit expectations of cameras on smart phones. They are what they are. And for most people are more then enough and do a great job for everyday photos. Sure, most lack manual modes/controls, no optical zoom, low light performance is so so at best and there can be more noise then optimal but hey, this is a small sensor low aperture camera phone so what can we expect! All in all though, they do a great job most of the time considering all of this.

If you know what to expect and want a simple and handy everyday shooter, today's phones are great.

So then it's just a matter of comparison from one phone to the next - which has clearer, sharper photos and has a good and effective auto mode....useable features and better low light function, etc. And this is unfortunately where this phone failed.

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To preface my next point - (the Note 4 is a beast! Great hardware and even at stock and on TW with all its faults, handles very well. Although I always prefer myself and recommend to most to at least root.... and rom too if can) -

This is basically my only real disappointment or at least one major quibble with this phone as a whole ,

##is the cameras ability to take sharp non blurry shots when there is even minimal movement in (what should be) decent lighting.##

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For most situations this phone can take incredible shots.... No doubt and in portraits and general people shots, if your subjects are *immaculately still* then the shot will turn out amazing....but there in lies the problem. For most indoor shots (especially children who can't stay still most of the time and nowadays most of my spur of the moment shots are of my kids from a phone) the shots will come out blurry or at least the parts that have even minor movement and this is very unfortunate because as I said, the hardware is plenty good.

***It truly is as simple as the Samsung firmware and the lack of enough or good manual controls. It really can be easily fixed! ***

The only problem for this issue is the damn (non adjustable) Samsung prespecified shutter speed! A better setup for this would have worked or at least the option to have some manual controls for those of us who want them...but Samsung wanted to get as much light as possible into the sensor to keep the ISO as low as can with as little noise as possible (which is fine and understandable) that they created this problem and/or they just think that every shot will always contain subjects that never move at all or flinch. Big mistake! Come on Samsung... In a perfect world maybe but people and especially kids, move! So why such a damn slow shutter?

*We can handle a tiny bit of noise sometimes to at least get the shot without all the damn motion blur. *

Ultimately I only find this a major downfall (even though I know to have tempered expectations on phone cameras) because I've seen so many other phones of lesser quality pull off this very common scenario so much better. Even my S3 was much better (as was my S4 and 5..all ironically Samsung phones too - One M8, Moto X, Nexus 6 to name a few others) are able to do this much more effectively so this ultimately leads to my one major disappointment with the phone.

Now, there are work-a-rounds for some of us. If you root and install Lollipop then with certain apps you can finally get access to some of these controls, ie shutter speed and make a big improvement...but this doesn't help people like my wife on stock unrooted 4.4 or other who just use stock.. Or even myself who won't 100% use Lollipop as my daily driver as there are still some big flaws to work out with the os.

Also some use "sport mode" but this is barely effective or you can manually change the ISO but these are all limited.

Hopefully the new stock Samsung Lollipop firmware will address this and make it better for the masses albeit there still will be the damn TouchWiz to contend with and one of the main reasons for rooting and rom'ing... But it would help.

This phone as a whole is great but this is my one disappointment that they couldn't make their good camera take better indoor photos of subject with minimal movement without turning out blurry almost all the time.

If so many other phones, even Samsung ones can do this rather well they why does this top end phone falter.?

Ps. I have now tested and used SEVEN Note 4's (4 Canadian variants, 2 US variants and 1 Intl) all of which suffer this same trait.