yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[One (M9) General] hamdir:
wait till my upload is finished you will understand...but you guys will need to open the file in Photoshop to compare the layers

i will try to raise it in Elevate, but i am sure HTC are aware of it on their own, the Sharpness code for the UP sensor really evolved from the M7 to the M8 and after the M8 Eye update, eventually the M9 front camera aka. Ultrapixel v3 has an amazing sharpness algorithm, completely different than that of the rear camera

my recommendation for now is not to go higher than sharpness -1.5 (but even with that some detail is lost)

it reminds me why i hate tiny pixel sensors...but its a really bright sensor
[One (M9) General] flex360:
Original pic is in my google drive
[One (M9) General] domineus:
I would love to see this post in the elevate forum actually. That actually explains why the images look smudged and not detailed. Great insight hamdir!
[One (M9) General] clsA:
Alright here's the 2nd attempt same settings as above
[One (M9) General] hamdir:
ok again, following this post:

for the experts:

download this file and open it in Photoshop

this is a 20MP crop and you can see on the top left a reference to the original image, we can clearly see the pure quality with sharpness -2 (disabled) it's ISO50 due to the sun, its unaffected, slightly soft with no artefacts except JPEG damage

compare with sharpness 0 layer and you can see the disastrous damage this algorithm is causing to the image by default

now sharpness -1.5 seems the only one usable sharpness, but look at the stoned wall to the right and you will see how some finer details of the stones and carpet is being lost already, its minor though and this makes -1.5 acceptable

starting with sharpenss -1 and above, smudging becomes evident and even Jaggies appear on the flying wires

i also included my own filter which i have applied on top of the -2 layer, HamdiRWoopBilinear and HamdiRWoopBicubic, you can see that this is a much more effective sharpening method than HTC's "smudging > resharpen" method, my filter is similar to the method used by Sony, smudging on the base layer > on top extract blacks from the original image and multiply on top of the smudged base, detail is extracted without introducing damage to the image

HamdiRWoopBilinear is the faster version and it's pretty similar to sharpness -1.5 except the damage on the right stoned wall

conclusion: stick to sharpness -1.5 or even disable at -2, use Large for later post/crop or medium for a cleaner/smaller image but less zoom.

on the other hand HTC should really deal with this on a lower level, its not about the defaults but the entire code needs a major reconsideration

[MENTION=2895182]clsA[/MENTION] now we are talking ;) the last two are awesome
[One (M9) General] v1rk:
Testing HDR mode on the m9 with iso set at 800
[One (M9) General] B.K.Q:
HDR - Edited with HTC gallery and the original one.
[One (M9) General] hamdir:
let me guess, auto enhance? :) the photo editor in the gallery is just incredible slick, i am loving daylight HDRs from the M9
[One (M9) General] Duncan1982:
Full Auto Settings :)
[One (M9) General] sallam5010:
Am 100% happy with m9s camera :D
[One (M9) General] Corduroy-21:
Very nice pictures. We have seen photos ranging from mediocre to very good from the M9.

Can't understand what's going on. A user thing or a camera problem?
[One (M9) General] One Twelve:
You need a flickr account :D
[One (M9) General] sallam5010:
lol for what :D
[One (M9) General] One Twelve:
So people can see the originals. Its going to have many nice ones :)
[One (M9) General] davidtm0:
Here's a nice spring pic done with the Bokeh cam setting. I guess it's auto, though I've created a custom cam with the xda suggested settings. I don't think they carry over to another cam mode.

Sent from my HTC One M9 on Tapatalk
[One (M9) General] MaxxieB:
Standard settings just using HDR.

Must say I'm rather impressed.
[One (M9) General] hamdir:
finally the thread is picking up :) [MENTION=5331562]davidtm0[/MENTION] try macro mode as well, it gets a lot closer than standard modes with beautiful natural f2.2 depth of field

people seem to miss that f-stop is a factor in beautiful natural bokeh effect

just macro mode and auto focus, of a really tiny flower:
[One (M9) General] Rage1ofakind:
What settings did you use for the low light picture. Looks great :)
[One (M9) General] aliHTCDHD:
Great pictures everyone. Hopefully I will be getting it soon and I will try it out for myself :)
[One (M9) General] c5satellite2:
Can someone post samples of HTC camera vs Google camera? On my m8 Google camera seems to handle exposure much better. Curious to see if the same is true with m9. Thanks.
[One (M9) General] One Twelve:
They look good.

Second pic, you notice the building closer is leaning away from you. That's perspective distortion. Happens when you point the phone up.

If you keep it parallel to buildings in front then everything will appear vertical.
[One (M9) General] hamdir:
HTC One M9 Camera Powers - Part I (Location: Beautiful Byblos )

Notes:

Auto Focus (point phone toward the target, when the focus turns green, shoot)

ISO capped at 200

Settings in general: 10:7 aspect for better crop control, contrast 0 (since very sunny), colour +0.5 (but it adds some yellowness), sharpness -1 (too much smudging i should have went for -1.5), Some are medium some are large

Two panoramas made simply from distance crops!

HDR and Macro modes are awesome, remember that we can not change default values in scenes (so it's colour 0, contrast 0 and sharpness 0)

A couple of photos are Auto Enhanced in HTC gallery photo editor (as noted)

Check the Amazing Digital zoom

Details and full size at My HTC One M9 Collection on Flickr

Auto

HDR

Auto

Auto + Crop

Auto

Auto

Auto

Auto

HDR

Auto + Crop

Auto

Auto

Auto

Auto

Macro mode

Macro mode

Auto + Auto Enhance

HDR

HDR

HDR + Auto Enhance

HDR

Auto

Max Digital Zoom!

HDR

HDR + Auto Enhance

Auto

HDR

HDR + Distance Crop + Auto Enhance, here's the original photo

[MENTION=456666]starbase64[/MENTION] can we add to OP? :)
[One (M9) General] aliHTCDHD:
Nice work Hamdir
[One (M9) General] hamdir:
best phone camera i have ever handled my friend :)
[One (M9) General] Duncan1982:
Second that very nice shots :)
[One (M9) General] aliHTCDHD:
These pictures are so good they would have everyone flocking to this location in a holiday advert with these shots. I can't wait lol. The more light it has, the better it looks although I've seen some nice low light pics too. The really exciting thing is the camera will improve even more with updates.
[One (M9) General] Duncan1982:
Appreciate the effort in highlighting that the M9's camera really isn't "that bad" :)
[One (M9) General] RSK01:
Now I can't wait for it to be launched in Singapore. Is the M9+ using the same camera?
[One (M9) General] hamdir:
you can call it "isn't bad" but for me it's simple this device has one i mean two very fun cameras, these cameras are the main upgrade over the M8

but i dont know if we can call "auto focus" an effort ;)
[One (M9) General] fernando sor:
Is that Lebanon? Very nice.
[One (M9) General] One Twelve:
You ever try panos the

old school

way ?

Get to use 20MP. Rectilinear projections instead of cylindrical one so horizontals are also straight at close range.

Multi row

.

overlap by a quarter, pivot yourself around the lens. not swinging the hand around. manual focus, custom wb, exposure lock. ie set your own parameters.

You should be able to keep everything horizontal with a 130 degree FOV.

You could do the same in PS with auto align.
[One (M9) General] combat goofwing:
Some one should sent this thread to the tech press,if they pick up on how good the camera can be and run with htc,it may give HTC a push in the right direction and provide a speedy update for some defaults
[One (M9) General] c5satellite2:
Here you go:

https://mobile.twitter.com/moversi

https://mobile.twitter.com/jasonmachtc

Tweet them.

Sent from my HTC One_

M8 using XDA Free mobile app
[One (M9) General] dondavis007:
I would also be interested in seeing a stock vs 3rd party camera comparison. It's a shame you can't use something like manual Camera , it would be really interesting.

Sent from a mobile gadget...
[One (M9) General] sallam5010:
There you go
[One (M9) General] hamdir:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byblos#cite_note-2

;)
[One (M9) General] rizevnarastek:
It must have been glorious during the Phoenician era... :D

Sent from my HTC One_M8
[One (M9) General] One Twelve:
Too late. every reviewer rushes to get their reviews out so they can max out on views. Any bugs or whatever are mentioned, they never go over it later so they create impressions that endure besides being out of date by the time the next firmware is out, then you have to come here follow for a month or two to get an idea.

That is why i only refer to reviews for things that do not change like ergonomics etc. One reviewer i followed, unboxed the m9 on friday, sent him the links for flickr and gave tips and it turns out he had already uploaded his camera review the next day. so his review has photos that look like very other review. pffft..why ? because he was familiar with m8 and figured this would be easy. did not wait.

So far the complaint i hear consistently is why isn't there any OIS on this thing when every other 'modern' device has it, lol not all of them, so my photos come out like mush in low light.

Well, what is mush. ISO 1600. when i look at comparable ones with ip6+ they are iso 800 taken at 1/4. so clearly handholds and ways to stabilise the phone need to be discussed. Then the question is but why should i do this. why can't it just be like the ip6+. err, maybe because apple has non-compete agreements signed with the camera vendor for that very reason.

so you're gonna have to learn handholds if you want an m9 to perform in low light. in the 1/4 - 1/10 range.
[One (M9) General] gavinfabl:
Where are the lovely photos. Too much chit chat, not enough photos. Am I going to have to fill this thread with proper quality photos :D
[One (M9) General] vegetaleb:
At last you woke up :p
[One (M9) General] dondavis007:
Please do, where dying for photos and tips. I just ordered the M9, I will compare it to Note 4 and iPhone 6 plus to see what it can do.
[One (M9) General] andybg40:
Getting my M9 tomorrow and reading this post has helped to reassure me about the camera. I never fully rely on reviews when it comes to cameras, as it's primarily the user that is the problem!

One thing i noticed in your flickr album, the shot's of the house with plants on the front (great detail) and the lion monuments, the sky is way wrong. Does the HDR not balance the light well in that situation?
[One (M9) General] hamdir:
thanks mate, your answers:

- the shot with the plant on the front, yes i was using HDR in its auto focus, as you can see from the many other highly effective HDRs i posted it actually works pretty well (it was broken on the ultrapixel without your intervention) sadly in this particular shot it didn't the backlight was just blinding, i couldnt do much either as there was little space behind my back it was a tight alley with cars passing and i couldn't find a better focus point for this particular HDR

- the lion monuments: this is one is not HDR it's auto mode, i intentionally messed up HTC camera's metering (which is center tweaked for auto focus) because i was locking my focus into the insect on top of the lion's head, the point of this shot is to compare a full 20MP crop of the mantis versus the digital zoom photo and you can see how digital zoom enlarged it more than we what get from the 20MP matrix, for once digital zoom is actually useful
[One (M9) General] andybg40:
Thanks for your reply.

Is the focus point choice quite effective in general with the HDR? I understand what you mean, sometimes the lighting just doesn't allow you to get the right balance.

I completely missed the Mantis in the second pic i mentioned, I was too busy looking at exposure across the frames!

Great pics though and confirms my belief that the sensor is ace. Previous iterations work in the Lumia's, so why would't it in this phone! Shame that HTC are way off on post though, it isn't doing them any favours at all in the wider market at all.
[One (M9) General] Adam182:
Added some more pics to my HTC M9 flickr album, here are a few of the macro shots....

- Adam
[One (M9) General] hamdir:
[MENTION=1920378]Adam182[/MENTION] gorgeous photos mate but you should link everyone to the rest :) they look just as tasty

https://www.flickr.com/photos/adam_bryant/sets/72157651317862569/
[One (M9) General] Adam182:
Thanks for the link Hamdir and the kind words :) yeah today has been a tasty day indeed :) - Adam
[One (M9) General] csoulr666:
I don't have an M9, though I tried this on my One Mini 2(OV13850 1.12µm sensor(13MP)) and low light photography was better, more detail and less noise. Could this sharpening and ISO algorithm be kinda implemented on all recent HTC phones? If yes then this could actually make low light performance on such phones better.
[One (M9) General] hamdir:
yes applies to all recent HTC phone with the same camera app (Sense 6 and 7)
[One (M9) General] One Twelve:
Was playing with a desire 820 and tried the recommended settings and shots did improve.

There is something unique with HTC and this ISO capping thing that i've not seen on others. You cap ISO to 200 or 400 it will work within those limits. if light is enough it will get it with less ISO if light is less then it will max out at the desired value and slow shutter. Down to you to hold it steady.

On samsungs and sony's setting ISO manually means you get that ISO with everything regardless of whether its required or not. So you then have to use exp comp on top if necessary. There is no need to do exp comp with HTC :)

---------- Post added at 03:44 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:34 AM ----------

Suppose this is the one

Take two. expose for the sky and the building. then blend in post with masks.

bracketing would make it easier. without it you need to be steady.
[One (M9) General] grrrr_unt:
Hey [MENTION=1144067]hamdir[/MENTION] ! May I know what are your suggested settings if the skies look washed out?
[One (M9) General] defcomg:
M9 Raw Shots by [MENTION=2895182]clsA[/MENTION]

All Processed in Adobe Camera Raw did nothing fancy just tapped auto on all of them

http://nubia.cn/MvuQBn

will upload full sizes when I get a chance but they look about the same I usually pixel peep at 1:1

must say they look pretty good compared to the devices I've played.

Only the default applied chroma noise was applied luma noise reduction was not used
[One (M9) General] dondavis007:
[MENTION=377973]defcomg[/MENTION] very nice. Can you shoot some in less perfect light?
[One (M9) General] defcomg:
I do not own a m9 I just processed raw files that were shot by [MENTION=2895182]clsA[/MENTION] but I've asked him if he can shoot some low light photos.

---------- Post added at 06:50 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:46 AM ----------

I'm pretty sure this can also be achieved with a single raw file by slightly overexposing then recovering the highlights
[One (M9) General] hamdir:
yes it's a cap, its called "Max IOS" by default it's Auto Max, you switch it to MAX 200 ISO, so effectively its a cap on the maximum ISO allowed, so its still auto, the way you described the other phones applies to HTC's manual mode

---------- Post added at 09:04 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:00 AM ----------

for HDR? if auto focus HDR fails you then in HDR you should lock focus into a bright area, like the sun etc same applies for indoor low light, say a photo with a corner light, you can lock into the corner light to get the best HDR

i must say that i find HTC's auto focus exposure metering pretty good in 90% of instances, it balances the image perfectly (i remember they hyped this ability in MWC) and so HDR is rarely needed
[One (M9) General] gavinfabl:
Either my M9 is special or you're all holding it wrong :D

Just look at these photos from the M9. They are coming, very soon, along with my review. 24 hours (approx) and this thread goes wild with photos *wild ones* are cometh :D

Just need some coffee :)

No more teasing. My shots are very mixed in results. Some amazing, some poor no matter what I've tried..
[One (M9) General] One Twelve:
Good, will discuss them. see what comes out of it.

You have an advantage over other reviewers since you've followed the thread :)
[One (M9) General] jkcarp94:
I'm learning that the touch to capture option in the camera settings is a very important setting. When you have that on the camera takes the picture the minute you touch anywhere in the shot on the screen and sets the focus on that location. Prior to using that setting I was finding that I would touch the screen to set a focus spot but by the time I would move my finger to press the shutter I could not keep the camera steady and focus results would be very spotty.
[One (M9) General] gavinfabl:
Okay, for speed I have them on my blog - http://gavinsgadgets.com/2015/04/07/htc-one-m9-camera-samples/

15 shots to give you a glimmer. These are nowhere near my best photos from the M9, but I was asked if I could share these, so I did.
[One (M9) General] dondavis007:
It can sure do really nice photos in the right conditions! Was that on latest firmware and all auto? What did you notice about the speed of the focus in different conditions? I've read a few comments about slow autofocus.
[One (M9) General] hudsoncouto:
How are those taken? ie, what app enables RAW capture? Can it be used on the M8?
[One (M9) General] defcomg:
They were taken with Freedcam https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=troop.com.freedcam&hl=en

All @

iso:100

Exposure Metering: Frame Average/Matrix/Multi

yeah it works on the m8 should basically work on all HTC devices
[One (M9) General] gavinfabl:
http://gavinsgadgets.com/2015/04/07/htc-one-m9-camera-samples/

The 15 shots from the M9 are super awesome, and they are not my best yet. I used various modes, from auto, to my custom setup, macro and bokeh. Bokeh mode is not as good as good old fashioned macro mode. The first thing I did was take photos with the M9 directly at the sun, and a few angles either side of the sun to see how the sensor reacts. From that I create my own settings. I will update on here exactly what I did. For now my I need food.
[One (M9) General] dondavis007:
Is anyone having problems with slow autofocus in lesser light?
[One (M9) General] poko2121:
large vs medium

Just received my M9 last night. Been playing with it a bit to test out some pictures. Thank you hamdir for the photo settings recommendation, that was a big help. I was a bit hesitant to change the resolution from Large to Medium, thinking that if necessary I could always just resize the large photos in post and get the same effect. But I did a quick test and realized that the Large photo I took even when resized in post to the medium resolution was still not as sharp as just taking the photo in medium resolution. I don't know if this was due to camera shake or maybe the camera selecting a different point of focus, but the medium resolution photo was definitely sharper. Does this make any sense or was it just user error?

Thanks
[One (M9) General] sallam5010:
Gdnyt
[One (M9) General] schumi_84:
hi folks! i'm reading this board since years, so now it's time to join the community! :D

i had the chance to try this device for a couple of weeks, due to a review for an italian blog.

since i was some days in london, i made a big gallery of pics, all taken @ full resolution in automatic mode.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/fedebattist/sets/72157649221793343/

unfortunately i had to return the device back for the moment, but i'm not excluding to purchase it. :fingers-crossed:
[One (M9) General] One Twelve:
This is an ISO 1000 shot. Not seeing mush in it. Its using the small 8MP setting.

Close up shot like this is not so bad at high iso.

Try a landscape and things look different.

16MP ISO 800

Light levels are the same between the two which is quite dark.
[One (M9) General] defcomg:
can you shoot in freedcam and disable denoise at high iso with same 8mp settings .

Got Lumia 1520 camera profile applied it to M9 DNG Hit Auto

http://nubia.cn/Rf6v6f

Old Profile vs New
[One (M9) General] Basil3:
HDR taken on the way to work on Dublin this morning. Have done a couple of quick edits with Snapseed. Wish I had a bit more time to get better lighting, and play with settings, but had a bus to catch!
[One (M9) General] sssurfer:
I can see you guys tweaked some settings in the m9 camera and it is producing now some better snaps..:good:

I do like HTC, love its design and UI and thinking to buy m9 this year, but the "only" thing drags me over to galaxy s6 is its camera performance.

My query is, can m9 camera be tweaked enough to produce quality snaps like s6 ?

I'll be glad if some one can reply me on this with more info.

Thanks. :)
[One (M9) General] sotroof:
M9 photos

Would like to share some shots with the M9 but since I'm new here, I can't post links.

Just lookup "vmwt" over at flickr
[One (M9) General] sallam5010:
Hmm you live in Qatar then ! You Qatari ?
[One (M9) General] One Twelve:
No, the first is from Schumi's flickr album, the second is from a reviewer that lives in qatar.

---------- Post added at 02:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:18 PM ----------

What about your performance in taking photos. Good shots come from people that try to get them.

If first time it does not come out right, will you try to understand how to get it better and try again or will you just give up and blame the camera.

You will have to work at it especially in low light. You can get close. To the point it should not make a difference.

Hamdi's settings are quite easy to follow. contrast, saturation, sharpness are a one time set and forget. after that its just capping ISO. start at 200, if it works good. If there is blur then try 400. if there is still blur you can go to 800 or steady yourself more and get it at 400. Can you get away with 8MP which will improve things more than say 16MP or 20MP.

if you start to blow things to 100% you will see differences. whether that is big enough is your call. You said you saw better snaps, is better good enough for you.

can it take usable photos ? i think so. it has all the controls to allow you to do that.
[One (M9) General] hamdir:
this is very high ISO as you can see in full 1:1, i wouldnt go beyond 400 with the M9

im doing more low light tests form my side
[One (M9) General] sallam5010:
And finally made my flicker account :D lots of pix

https://flic.kr/s/aHsk9WeaxU
[One (M9) General] hamdir:
these are lovely, but i am confused, all these photos form the M9 just different profiles?
[One (M9) General] sallam5010:
Nothing special bout that pic I know

I just want u to guess how fast was the shutter to expose the sun like this ? ?
[One (M9) General] hamdir:
waw these are awesome! i see you are using my caps :)

but we definitely have a motion blur problem in low light...
[One (M9) General] sallam5010:
Yup sometimes I do use it sometimes no depends on the scene

And what motion blur u talking about ? Those small fountains ?
[One (M9) General] hamdir:
the conference room and hotel entry, low light
[One (M9) General] xsardax:
[MENTION=1144067]hamdir[/MENTION], please, can you explain what is exatct benefit and why, beside smaller size, of scaling down from 20 MP to medium or small and to 10:7 ratio??

Thank you.

Sent from my HTC One_M8
[One (M9) General] sallam5010:
Hotel entrance I was walking actually when I took that pic

Conference hall was 1/7s which is not really slow but I believe it's my fault I wasn't steady as I should as there was lots of ppl coming to occupy those seats so I had to be ninja fast lol
[One (M9) General] hamdir:
it will sample down the image and clean it a little, also hide the tiny pixel 1:1 shortcomings, like a great 10MP camera ;) (if you went with small and 10:7)
[One (M9) General] xsardax:
Makes sense. Thank you again. I can't wait to get my hands on M9. My contract is free and waiting .... Grrr

Sent from my HTC One_M8