yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[One (M9) General] hamdir:
there is no real guide as the latest 2.x base took the M9 camera to great improvements

its very simple:

- Cap ISO to 400 in auto mode

- Reduce sharpness to -0.5 or -1 in auto mode

- Switch to 10:7 ratio

- ALWAYS use auto focus in day light and NEVER use manual focus with your touch, if the focus fails, lower the phone then raise it back up for auto focus, this is the way to get the gorgeous color/exposure balance you see in the latest photos which HTC calls "smart metering", this is the most important tip in the list

- only in n low light you can use manual focus targeting if your subject is dark

- keep in HDR in mind all the time, its killer in both low light and back-lit targets, always rely on auto focus when using HDR as well

- in one specific case of HDR you need to lock focus and that if you are taking a photo of interior with a corner light in view, zoom into the corner light and hold to lock focus into it, zoom back and take your shot

- remember to use flashlight and HDR in darkness, otherwise you will need to resort to manual mode

- digital zoom is pretty good on the M9 when you need to see something in the distance (two fingers pinch) but only use it for practical reasons, dont expect image quality from it

[MENTION=4412962]jaredkzr[/MENTION] excellent my friend, i am assuming these are from the 2.x latest software?

look at these photos people and laugh how the media still bash the M9 camera, not one of them bothered to review the device after the killer 2.10 update, this camera DESTROYS the M8 camera and the front camera is another story as well, every issue with the M9 was fixed in less than four months
[One (M9) General] OtterNZ:
Beautiful (I particularly like the street photo with the yellow around the door), and some good comparisons too!
[One (M9) General] Csetoue:
Does 'A Better Camera' app works great on M9?
[One (M9) General] LLegion:
Excellent samples!!!
[One (M9) General] --anx--:
Great help with this, thanks!!! :D:highfive:
[One (M9) General] richierich:
Have to agree with Hamdir, the post 2.10 update M9 camera is actually really awesome now, in both point and shoot mode and RAW. Infact in RAW mode I've yet to see samples from any other smartphone that is on par with its results. (And I have tested this against both the S6 and iPhone 6, still waiting to test the G4 though) I for one am a very happy M9 owner, and would like to thank all the devs on here for their continued help and support!
[One (M9) General] hamdir:
maybe [MENTION=456666]starbase64[/MENTION] can amend it and place it in OP :) and the link to the 2.10.401.1 samples
[One (M9) General] OGhoul:
I'm starting to wonder if it's a mental thing with me. I came from iPhones and the M7 & M8, where the idea of being able to zoom/crop a photo was a ludicrous at worst, an exercise in frustration at best, simply because of the 8 and 4mp photos.

I'm running 2.10, Medium, 10:7, Sharpness -0.5, and added the build.prop tweaks from page 198. (And ARHD + Elemental X kernel, if it matters). When I zoom in to the max in a photo on my M9 itself, grass in particular and some other objects look like they were painted in watercolor, not photographed.

Is this just a product of going beyond 100% zoom, or is the M9 still "potato?" When you zoom in to the max, in the gallery on the phone, is that 100% or is that beyond?

Also, is using Large a viable option now, or does Medium still result in the best quality (with the build.prop tweaks)?
[One (M9) General] hamdir:
Large with sharpness -0.5 resulted in the photos i posted recently, but denoise remains there in HTC app, aggressive still, they counter it with their really excellent sharpness algorithm

if you applied the root tips and still getting smudging then there is something wrong, perhaps people like [MENTION=377973]defcomg[/MENTION] can help you with this

but to answer your question quickly, take a photo in RAW mode, open the DNG file in Photoshop Express or on your pc zoom into 100% to see the real 1:1 of the M9 sensor
[One (M9) General] OGhoul:
I'll shoot some RAW today and see what happens. My only problem with shooting raw is that it takes up sooo much space. I guess I should outline my typical usage. I'm very point and shoot; I do shoot artisticly but more often than not, I'm taking a pic of the cat, or a neat car that I see. Normal day to day stuff.
[One (M9) General] hamdir:
i am only suggesting that so that you can see the 1:1 quality of the sensor without EIS and denoise
[One (M9) General] fmedrano1977:
Is noise on a more than 100% zoom normal? Speaking of dng files.

HTC One (M9)
[One (M9) General] hamdir:
comeone mate you can only judge 100% 1:1 and not beyond that
[One (M9) General] OGhoul:
Shouldn't the build.prop tweaks have turned that off though?
[One (M9) General] hamdir:
exactly! compare JPG to your DNG at 1:1 in order to conclude if the tweaks are really working or not ;)
[One (M9) General] OGhoul:
/facepalm Durr. Thanks!
[One (M9) General] Ramsey:
Problem with the build.prop tweaks is that sometimes they don't work when you select another mode in the camera. They start working out of nowhere.

Not reliable :/.. Not sure if the build.prop tweaks are also causing the camera app to take time to open.

Anyways, HTC has really improved the post processing. Sharpness is better, noise reduction is a bit better but still needs major improvement. They're being stubborn about it and want to remove all noise, it won't happen with sensors this small, so we end up suffering with bad noise reduction.

I'd say this is about equal to the Galaxy S5's low light now (without tweaks and without manual mode). S5 is a little bit sharper and shows 5% more details sometimes (sometimes the HTC shows more) but not enough to worry.

EDIT: The built.prop tweaks aren't causing it to take more time to open. It's still happening after I removed the tweaks. Must be something I installed, causing the whole phone to sleep deeper and it takes some time to wake up some apps, perhaps greenify, but I didn't greenify those.. hmm I don't have that issue with the S5.
[One (M9) General] Aleki:
Pretty useful, thanks! I may just end up closing my listing and breaking open my M9 box..

Has anyone done a m9/s6 comparison on photos & videos with the tweaks? If the camera really is better, I'd imagine that would make headlines, no?
[One (M9) General] DeadPotato:
I agree it has been a 180 degree turn and it deserves some recognition, and yes the camera is totally better than M8, but no, it's still not better than S6 or G4's camera. By day yes it may be on par, but as soon as night comes, there's simply no point of comparison unless you shoot in RAW, and it's not a valid point to compare a phone's auto mode with RAW mode, at least that's my opinion.
[One (M9) General] p50kombi:
You do realise a 360 degree turn will make you face the same direction, right? [emoji6] [emoji4]

Sorry, couldn't help myself....;)

**********

Sent from a tin of baked beans using some chewing gum, tinfoil, a piece of string and a manual written by MacGyver
[One (M9) General] DeadPotato:
It's ok, silly me :silly: I still stand my point though :p
[One (M9) General] Ramsey:
Enseñanos fotos de Costa Rica jaja!

Show us pictures of Costa Rica!

You live in a beautiful country and I'd like to see more of it =)

Take some raw shots.
[One (M9) General] Ramsey:
Here are some shots that I took today. Note that I removed the noise reduction tweak for the ones taken with my HTC One M9. All pics are compressed for quicker upload but shouldn't see a loss in quality. I did reduce the size by 5% but you can still tell how bad the noise reduction is in the M9 in auto lol.

Download to be able to zoom in 100%.

This one is original raw file:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3vmznAFra6gdFZhZXJ2dVpaQk0

unmodified raw jpg:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3vmznAFra6ga0hhUi12Z1RiZm8

modified raw jpg:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3vmznAFra6gR3VENTlkRnJwUTg

auto mode (not raw):

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3vmznAFra6gVnE0Sm9JMXBlTFU

auto - pic of my daughter:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3vmznAFra6gTDRKeEYzb2VVdkk

My beloved wife took the next 2 with my Galaxy S5 using Snap camera with denoise unchecked - They look like raw files eh? excellent quality:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3vmznAFra6gWnl2NmZHZWJ0R2c

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3vmznAFra6gU04yN3Z0TTZ0Znc

Sadly Snap Camera with denoise unchecked with the M9 doesn't produce that quality. It has lots of weird color noise so I had to stop using it for now, I suppose it's not fully supporting it. The same happened when I tried it on an LG G3 except that it didn't do much on the G3 (meaning didn't really take away the noise reduction :/)

Edit: I tried Snap camera again and while in very low light (almost dark) it has too much noise, the normal indoor shots and outdoor are excellent and better than stock. You'll get more noise but more details.
[One (M9) General] DeadPotato:
I'll see if I can schedule a trip with my GF to a National Park the next weeks, if it goes as planned I'll make sure to take some pics to share with you guys :good::D
[One (M9) General] OtterNZ:
Some older photos with firmware 1.40 (I'm on 2.9 now)

Album here below. Click on the photos to view captions saying what mode the camera was in and to show the "view original" button

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?res...!ABnxFoW81W-nGjc&ithint=album,40 - 2015-08-22
[One (M9) General] Ramsey:
Took this pic using Snap camera while at a lake:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3vmznAFra6gTUdSRnJOT21veVU
[One (M9) General] blueberry60:
Raw auto jpg:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/29347741@N07/20845509421/in/dateposted-public/

Raw PSX from DNG:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/29347741@N07/20242941193/in/dateposted-public/

My Collection wth M9:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/29347741@N07/
[One (M9) General] iggdawg:
What build.prop lines are people using on 2.10? I was still getting the watercolor smudging so I added the following 2 lines, but I'm just getting more artifacts now. I'm guessing one of them was just for older firmware and is bad now.

persist.denoise.process.plates=0

persist.camera.qcwnr.enabled=0
[One (M9) General] Ramsey:
When I was using the tweaks, I only had this one out of those 2: persist.camera.qcwnr.enabled=0

I still have this one also to disable EIS: camera.eis.enable=0
[One (M9) General] iggdawg:
Thanks for the feedback! I have the EIS line already, I'll try disabling the denoise line and see how it goes.
[One (M9) General] evak2979:
M9 with the FV-5 Android Camera

Hello everyone !

So here are two pics of my cat taken with only my bedside lamp, ISO capped at 200. FV-5 can, apparently, save as .PNG (which I am choosing to prevent loss detail when uploading on Facebook). It has a RAW option but it is, as yet, disabled for M9.

[IMG="Cat - 1"]http://s5.postimg.org/lf5uvm853/DSC_0049.png[/IMG]

[IMG="Cat - 2"]http://s5.postimg.org/67pvb9gaf/DSC_0055.png[/IMG]

FV-5 comes with 3 metering algorithms, so the over-exposure issue is solved fantastically. Tap and focus works ok, therefore. Apparently PNG is not as good as RAW, so I am caught between a rock and a hard place. :) Still I prefer this version of metering/exposure.

No flash was used; and it also has some sort of Digital OIS implemented that I've enabled. Pictures are not processed in any form by Snapseed or Lightroom - straight out of the camera.
[One (M9) General] OGhoul:
Great shots, I went and grabbed FV5 because of this. Unfortunately, nothing "normal" on the M9 can access the PNG files. :eek:
[One (M9) General] evak2979:
Give it time, and it does. It just has a bit of a slow loading time to put them in gallery for some reason (if that is what you meant) :)
[One (M9) General] OGhoul:
I took a shot (of a subject other than my quick test shots) to see, and the .PNG file is not showing the HTC Gallery app.
[One (M9) General] evak2979:
I use the gallery app not the htc gallery one. I think they are two different apps :) do you have a gallery one?
[One (M9) General] OGhoul:
Mine is called Gallery and shipped with the phone. Google's Photos app doesn't see them either. ES File Explorer shows a triangle with an exclamation point icon. Snapseed and Photoshop Express doesn't see them.
[One (M9) General] evak2979:
It was like that in the beginning for me too. Leave it hope and see if it loads? It is weird I know
[One (M9) General] OGhoul:
Where do you have it set to save to? I left mine with the default, DCIM > FV5 (or whatever).
[One (M9) General] evak2979:
The dcim folder on my external
[One (M9) General] OGhoul:
Actually, it appears to be working now. The first .PNG didn't show up, but the second one did. FV5 takes a little while to save the ~20mb .PNG files.
[One (M9) General] evak2979:
---------- Post added at 04:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:12 PM ----------

[/COLOR]

Great! Happy with the quality?
[One (M9) General] trwnh:
Just copied this over on 2.10.401.1 / Viper 3.5.0 and the first thing I noticed is that 10:7 actually disappeared. The only options are 4:3, 16:9, and 1:1. And the largest options are 2688x1520 (16:9) and 2048x1536 (4:3). Regardless... It seems brighter? I'm not sure yet, I need to test later this evening with the stock lib again. It's currently 11am, so it's too bright to tell if it has any effect.

EDIT: preliminary testing, with ISO 100 I'm finding that a shutter speed of 1/320 is accurate in the shade.

EDIT 2: RAW doesn't save output at all.

EDIT 3: testing side by side with my M7 doesn't show any real gains in my eyes, I'll test the M9 against itself tonight when I get home.
[One (M9) General] OGhoul:
Overall, it does seem to be a much crisper picture. I haven't gotten to test what I believe to be the M9's Achilles heel yet though, and that's green vegetation (grass and leaves). For whatever reason, those two subjects are affected the worst by the watercolor effect.

Edit: Grass is still watercolor. :(
[One (M9) General] evak2979:
what do you mean by watercolor? :( post?
[One (M9) General] OGhoul:
I'm trying to upload to Flickr straight from my phone; Flickr doesn't see any of the .PNG files either. :(
[One (M9) General] Ramsey:
Try uploading to Google Drive and you can share them here.
[One (M9) General] evak2979:
[IMG="Grass"]http://i.imgur.com/ndTpCd5.jpg[/IMG]

It converted it to JPG - this one i took this afternoon?
[One (M9) General] OGhoul:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8coQ1keB9DNR1RBT2xpaXB6TjA/view?usp=docslist_api
[One (M9) General] Ramsey:
33MB? wow that's big lol. What is the point of the pngs? I haven't been following.

I don't see much watercolor in this one, is it a raw to png?
[One (M9) General] OGhoul:
Supposedly no compression or sharpness/denoise code affecting it. though at 33mb, I might as well just shoot .DNG. Nope, that's straight .PNG from FV-5 Camera.
[One (M9) General] evak2979:
I am not seeing anything either :S what am I looking for?

it's PNG.
[One (M9) General] OGhoul:
The grass and leaves lack... crispness? I guess? To me, at full zoom, it looks like the scene was rendered instead of photographed. The green of the leaves and especially grass blend together in a way that looks painted.
[One (M9) General] evak2979:
Yes, I hope a future update enables RAW on FV-5 for the M9. But the point of using the FV-5, is not for PNG or RAW. Even JPEG looks good. I think the point is the metering system.

Experiment with it, be it touch, point, matrix, etc. See which ones fits you best.

The HTC camera, aside from a very bad compression method for JPEG, really suffers from Metering both on RAW and JPEG. If you point to focus, you're in trouble. With FV-5 you're good, and you can also adjust exposure from bottom right :)
[One (M9) General] Ramsey:
oh wow nice! I'll try the app out.

You can use Photoczip from the playstore to compress jpgs, maybe you can compress that png? Pictures look nearly identical but it'll remove lots of MBs.

On my PC I use Light Image Resizer.
[One (M9) General] evak2979:
This is because you've set it to capture at full image, at 20.2. What Sony does with the XPERIA line (and what I do, on the M9 as well), is to have it save at either medium or low (e.g. 14, or 8 MPs as mentioned earlier in this post). This way, the camera captures the image using the full sensor, then downsamples to a much clearer, crisper image.

Which is, in truth, one of the best you can get on mobile phones. I also own the RX 100 M2, and I can honestly say it is better, but marginally so, in bright light, and somewhat better in dim light.

Don't forget, however, we're talking about a mobile phone camera. It's hard to get a picture to put up on your wall given the size of the lense, and the amount of the device associated with taking a pic (e.g. reflexive mirror, so on so forth). The effect you speak of is all over the place, not just leaves. I think that's normal :)
[One (M9) General] defcomg:
copy original lib

Take Image @ 2688x1520

Copy mod Lib reboot device

Take Image @ 2688x1520

Test Camera with auto iso

if Mod lib has a faster shutter speed at same image brightness binning is working

You can dump binned raw file with freedcam it should be about 10mb

Note should you dump the raw make sure capture switch is set to raw and not dng
[One (M9) General] trwnh:
Well, did another quick test... The original is taking indoor pictures in my bathroom at 1/12 and ISO 800. The modded lib goes for ISO 500 instead, with 1/8 shutter. Have to go to dinner now, so I'll edit this post with the samples later...
[One (M9) General] OGhoul:
I just did quick tests of the available 8, 10, and 13mp resolutions and the 8mp 4:3 setting looks to get clearest pic of the bunch. I'll try shoot vegetation on break. I know I shouldn't expect professional results out of a phone, but it was hard not to want them when your sensor is almost as big as and you have all of the controls of your girlfriend's DSLR.

I do also wonder if it's a mental thing; I think I said earlier that I came from iPhones and the M7/M8, so being able to zoom in to that much detail just wasn't a tool available on those devices. The M9 literally has more image data available than the last 3 phones I owned combined.
[One (M9) General] OGhoul:
These are all 8mp, 3264x2448 (4:3), and auto. I aimed, then hit shutter (which handled the focusing), aside from the two that are similar. I tried to tap to focus with that one.

While the painting effect is mostly gone, there's so much noise. Especially the sky.

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine
[One (M9) General] evak2979:
I am not a photography expert but as an example my rx 100 m2 costs close to 400 pounds and I got my m9 480 sim free. My guess is the mirrors used in cameras and the technology being dslrs is vastly superior to mobile phones regardless what mobile companies try to convince us of haha. With that in mind I think the m9 is one of the best in its class and not that far behind the s6 and the g4. But nowhere near as good as a pro camera . It is after all a phone :)

---------- Post added at 04:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:38 PM ----------

I am guessing. This is jpg mode ?it is all about finding the sweet spot :)
[One (M9) General] OGhoul:
Oh, yes, jpg mode.
[One (M9) General] evak2979:
In jpg noise is always introduced in fields of evenness for some reason . Google jpg sky artifacts :)
[One (M9) General] amarryat:
HDR blows out the sky.

In the HDR picture looking down a fairway, the sky looks like it's right, until you see how it actually looked in the non-HDR pic.

When in HDR, I even tried clicking on the sky to make it lower its sensitivity because I could tell it was being blown out. But that doesn't work.
[One (M9) General] Ramsey:
The Sony RX100 has a 1 inch sensor, and the M9 has a 1/2.4 in. (if I recall correctly) sensor. There's a big difference between those 2 sizes. The rx100 is much bigger and that's why you get better quality as it is able to grab a lot more light. A DSLR with an APS-C sensor has an even bigger sensor, almost twice the size of the 1 in. sensor and produces way better results than the rx100. etc..

I am impressed with the M9's .png format output!
[One (M9) General] evak2979:
Exactly and thank you! I think I will sell my Sony and by a regular DSLR as my phone makes for a perfect point and shoot. If you have any brand to recommend please do so !
[One (M9) General] Ramsey:
I'll pm you as it requires a few messages between us :P.
[One (M9) General] hamdir:
auto focus solves that
[One (M9) General] amarryat:
It was on autofocus.

But that didn't work, so I tried clicking to highlight the area I wanted at the proper brightness and focus so that it would tone it down. That didn't work either.

T-Mobile version. Android 5.1 Software number 2.7.531.6
[One (M9) General] hamdir:
in HDR what you see on the screen does not reflect the final out put, rely on auto focus and check out the results
[One (M9) General] rizevnarastek:
I must say HDR on my M8 became very nice with the latest camera update. No need to zoom/lock for a nice HDR only for the most demanding scenes and even then it gets too much halos.

Sent from my HTC One_M8
[One (M9) General] m4jkee:
[MENTION=377973]defcomg[/MENTION] sorry for being late. Here are some raws you can play with... And not only you, everyone.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/35xk9c9kgwag3uc/AAAA0ApPZ3QlcPDB7-kZ9d5pa?dl=0
[One (M9) General] dafluke24:
Hamdir is correct. Not that I doubted his expertise in the first place. The attached pic is with auto HDR. The screen really blew out the sky and clouds, but the pic turned it great.
[One (M9) General] acidspider:
I can't find hdr in standard camera app. Help please. Or am I being really blind
[One (M9) General] sidjohn:
What I did...

Camera...3 dot menu...tap camera icon...select HDR

Tap settings wheel...select save custom camera
[One (M9) General] acidspider:
Agh there it is. Cheers
[One (M9) General] hamud.q:
How to use HDR while talking a video ?
[One (M9) General] defcomg:
IMAG0840c by defcomk, on Flickr

IMAG0968 by defcomk, on Flickr

conc by defcomk, on Flickr
[One (M9) General] defcomg:
did you try on freedcam ? there's a hdr video option
[One (M9) General] oblivianz:
By this do you mean keep HDR mode on at all times?
[One (M9) General] muayyadf1:
Auto mode and instagram filter

[IMG="a"]http://xdaforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=3467456&stc=1&d=1441770697[/IMG]
[One (M9) General] hamdir:
before you take a shot think about the scene, HDR will always help you in terms of backlight and also low light (since we dont have auto hdr)

so in a way i meant, always consider using HDR
[One (M9) General] solracarevir:
Colors are a little washed out because of the HDR but I like the overall look of the picture.

View attachment 3468367
[One (M9) General] Faouzi47:
I've seen better ;)
[One (M9) General] amarryat:
The kitten is cute. But I don't understand why so many people ruin pictures with those instagram filters.
[One (M9) General] muayyadf1:
People tend to like inaccurate and saturated colors, lol.
[One (M9) General] evak2979:
That is a stunning shot for a phone !!!

And here is one I took on the fly (I did not have my a6000 with me) in RAW, and adjusted in Lightroom !
[One (M9) General] mwatson:
Looks like North Street Guildford? Nice shot!
[One (M9) General] evak2979:
Indeed it is ! Neighbour? :)
[One (M9) General] Monsi:
St kitts, Great photo!
[One (M9) General] jaskarandhanju:
time lapse

here is a time lapse video that i made https://youtu.be/NoDPCpf5qvg https://youtu.be/DOfeVXL3Q94
[One (M9) General] jaskarandhanju:
Night shots are the worst with this phone. Tried RAW files for time lapse https://youtu.be/TfFqAAdWipU
[One (M9) General] DeadPotato:
I can't play this one, the daylight timelapse loads fine, any idea why?
[One (M9) General] jaskarandhanju:
work fine for me. try this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfFqAAdWipU&feature=youtu.be
[One (M9) General] DeadPotato:
This one works :D yes the sunset sequence is beatiful but was the last shot too dark?
[One (M9) General] jaskarandhanju:
last shots were in too dark. i realize that afterwards when i take the same shot with iPhone and that was totally black.:p
[One (M9) General] jaskarandhanju:
which micro sd card you all use ???