yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[One (M9) General] dondavis007:
I didn't think the M9 looked bad. Need to use a computer instead of my note 4 :)

Sent from a mobile gadget...

---------- Post added at 05:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:52 PM ----------

And guys, chill out. I don't think M9 will have the best camera, but it will hopefully be enough. What I'm worried about is the speed of the camera and SOT. I will probably buy it anyway because I love HTCs mix.

Sent from a mobile gadget...
[One (M9) General] th3:
You're not helping anyone mate. Pig with lipstick is still a pig. No matter how much spin you are putting on it.

Everything you are saying is your subjective opinion not backed by any reviewer or already debunked. No data at all.

I don't see any fruit in continuing this back and forth "I think" or "you can do this in software" discussion with you. I, and 99% of users, only care about how the product performs out of the box. A few may go further, with manual. That's it.

Lame apologist excuses don't hide that. If you can do x with M9, you can also do better with S6/iP6/N4 etc starting from a better base.

I'll have the M9 31st March. Then, we'll see.

Sent using Tapatalk
[One (M9) General] One Twelve:
Went right to the end for the punchline

Hah so despite the s6 camera 'trouncing' the m9, you actually went in for what ? .....<drum roll>....the M9 :D <applause>

Confirms what i said earlier, the image quality differences weren't enough to deter you.

yeah so why didn't you get one of them then ? riiiiightt. Why the narrow obsessions with image quality somehow don't pan out in the end. Bigger forces at play.

With ip6+ and 3rd party camera with manual controls. you can improve over stock auto. With the same on the iP6 or even iP5x and a steady hand you can come close if not match the plus.

S6 & N4 or even the G3 don't offer shutter speed control so there is no way to tell how effective their OIS is, its just stated and i believe its there but no way to tell like say with the iP6+ that can do a 1/4 handheld. Night mode on the recent samsungs is good. Much improved over earlier versions. They boosting sensor gain and fiddling around. To get a similar shot would require an exposure two times longer with other devices including the m9. So you will have to work at it.

No idea when raw support will come for the above. But i bet you get it on the m9 before them. Your details issues will disappear at that point but you have to process each image yourself.

So you do not understand that delaying shutter and lowering iso will improve image quality in low light ? This applies only with stationary subjects btw, forget doing it with people or anything that won't sit still.

Sop with any camera that allows manual control, i can show you manual lumia 930 vs note 4 where it gets pretty close and auto did not. When more people post later you'll see what i mean.

I'm most interested in the low light shots and rarely bother with daylight comparisons because they are pretty similar. In fact my problem with smartphone cameras is too much detail strange as that may sound. because it makes isolating subjects harder. Everything is so damn clear. Because its the equivalent of an f11 lens in 35mm speak. Depth of field is deeper. Great for macros but not others.

If you want better photos what i said works. 99% or not is meaningless. This is xda, do 99 % care about rooting, custom firmwares, or any number of hacks people share here ? So what 99% are you referring to and why do they matter. If anything i'm more interested in the 1%.

what i've said wrt to manual is no different. In fact its common knowledge to anyone who has a clue.

---------- Post added at 04:32 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:01 AM ----------

Why they didn't use iP6+ ?

1. night shots all soft because iso got boosted on m9. 2nd shot wrong wb for m9. 4th shot all have blown lights, cannot do this without blending.

2. again iso got boosted on m9. second selfie, because background is brighter so iso drops and looks normal.

3. is about where you set exposure.

4. macros are similar. contrast can be improved in post.

5. panoramas, heh all not to my liking because of cylindrical projection. no straight horizontals with such a wide fov.

6. food, can be improved in post or use manual. That ISO is maybe close to 600 try to get it at half.
[One (M9) General] One Twelve:
What is it about the Z2 that you don't like ? You'd be trading fantastic video stabilisation for none.

The scene modes should help in low light if you use them right. However the lack of shutter control can be frustrating. A quick tweak can't be done. More trial & error.

What does 4MP do ? sharpens the mind. You have to think more carefully about what you want to get it right. If you want to zoom & crop then you need to be closer to your subject. if you can't do that then 4MP is out.

m8 is a fast shooter in auto. But this gap has been closed with the S6 and the S5 is fast too. Have you considered them ? No shutter control though. Given what they've done may or may not be that critical. These samsungs are primarily auto shooters. If they get what you want great, if not don't complain because you can't do much.

As for similar manual controls the hybrid zooms had them first and optical zoom is a plus. crop in camera not afterwards. K zoom or wait for the successor. Slower though. And apertures are smaller. 3.1 all the way to 6.3. Working OIS.

The difference between f2.0 and 2.2 is a quarter a f-stop. That's like getting a shot at ISO 200 instead of 250. Or 1/50 instead of 1/40. Its insignficant as one or the other parameter will compensate anyway so not really as notable as reviewers make out.

However the m9 isn't as fast a camera as its predecessors.See the camera speed

benchmark

. Almost twice as slow as the m8. And the Z2 is faster than the m9. Does this matter ? only if you're rushed. And if you are you're not going to get very good shots to begin with. Is the choice no shot or passable. In that case look at an advanced compact with a 1 inch sensor. Much more light, faster lens and better quality. For the same money.
[One (M9) General] One Twelve:
I've noticed twice that it gets confused with halogen and neon lights, turning cream and red into green. With a yellow i can see how green can happen by wb adding blue, so just need to use a fluorescent wb or more. But cream into green is inexplicable for me. If its a bug then only a firmware update can fix it.

---------- Post added at 08:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:25 PM ----------

Whenever camera has to produce a jpg and do it fast it has to make a call between preserving detail (ie more noise) or smoothness (less noise). I've seen smudging happen with vegetation, it happens with all jpg outputting devices to varying degrees. To make larger features look good means smaller are going to appear less sharp. Must have the lowest ISO with a longer shutter that means anything that moves is out unless light is good or smudging gets worse.

Only way is raw but you have to process every image yourself, and its a much bigger file so it will be slower than 4mp jpg.

Compare these two from nexus 5.

Jpg

vs processed

RAW

. Pull the full resolution and pixel peep all you want.

The

originals

come from fv5 site.

You control what should be more in detail or not instead of some average one size fits all algorithm with an impossible task that is optimised for speed by trading off image quality. Image quality here isn't file size but a function of how much luminance and chroma noise is preserved or not.

That algorithm and its implementation is the source of lots of heated argument over which is the better camera. Silly really.
[One (M9) General] One Twelve:
Then those people should stick with the brands mentioned. Those brands are for people with no interest in photography. WHAT took the shot is more important than WHO took it. That is the mindset auto everything encourages, what did the owner do, just press a button. Still I would not be surprised to find people even on those boards complaining about something or the other.

Where i'm coming from is what if you don't want those brands for whatever reasons. What then ?

You wait for firmware upgrades and you learn how to get better shots. What went wrong and how to get around it.

My attitude is you are stuck with this thing and you are going to have to make the best of it. Few months later you will find people here doing just that. A review can never match it.
[One (M9) General] SPreston2001:
So HTC phones are for people who have interest in photography?? Lol they usually have the worst cameras amongst flagship devices yet theyre for photography minded people?? You act as of HTC is the only manufacturer that has the ability to tweak the camera settings. Most "serious" photographers won't use a cellphone to take a pic. The whole idea of cell cams is to capture quick and beautiful everyday life pictures. The ability to tweak the settings is just a added bonus for those who want to get a little more serious with it.

But to each his own I guess. When it comes to cell cams I just wanna pull it, out take a pic, and expect it to look good. If tweaking the settings to get the perfect shot is for you then that's fine. But all I'm saying is those same things can be done with other manufacturers cams too.
[One (M9) General] domineus:
Can't say my experience with the s6 / edge was similar. On the camera front yes the camera is fast. But I found a huge issue with white balance and somewhat heavier than normal post processing (pretty evident when you look at the photos on a camera). The problem is even in pro mode, the camera still struggles with white balance. I am a white balance whore to be honest and when I see a camera struggle, I shudder.

Touchwiz lagged for me. Immensely. I kept flicking through the homescreen, not many widgets above the stock ones, and there were multiple times the device just locked up. Even after rebooting the device quite a few times, there was lag. Off topic, I watched the verge podcast recently and they also affirmed a lot of the lag I experienced with my model.

So far, I'm semi disappointed. The devices are light (like physically, I expected something much heavier). The GS6 felt boxy and somewhat sharper for my tastes while the Edge just "fit" in my hand like a really nice glove. I was stunned that the edge was the more interesting feeling device. Both devices are fingerprint magnets though almost to the point of being disgusting. After 10 minutes of handling, I was in awe with the amount of smudges and oil the back of the device accrued from general handling.

Handling is something that the Edge excels in for the most part. It feels "natural" to swipe at an edge point and get a hamburg menu from Google. And you do in GMAIL, Google Play, and a myriad of other areas. It just feels like touchwiz didn't necessarily provide too many gesture driven tasks that would really take benefit of the edge display. II mean sure you get the call context menus and the light up gimmick, but that's about it sadly. The shame of it all is that above that, the GS6 is a beautiful iphone 5-5s ripoff and the Edge is something of a quagmire begging for a developer to put it to good use. It can be obtrusive but not so much to the point it ruins the user experience.

Overall, I'm left somewhat underwhelmed with the devices. Sure, the screen is gorgeous with marvelous viewing angle fitting for a flagship. But it feels like the GS6 / edge is a iterative step in a unique and bold direction that didn't fully deliver.

Shame actually. Most people will love the GS6 / Edge. Me, I'll be forever disappoint
[One (M9) General] One Twelve:
What purpose is there to provide manual controls then ? nokia started this btw.

its a mindset that comes naturally to those that are into photography. They are going to try a great deal more before throwing in the towel.

Very obvious when i see Jesse's photos. You make the shot not the camera. newbies whenever they see a nice photo always want to know what camera took the shot. The person, well he just clicked. How hard could it be. They like to hide behind their cameras. Often i see shots that are horribly taken and well it was the camera's fault.

HTC is a bad camera with people who cannot take a photo. I've never bought into the 4MP was bad. A full HD screen can only display 2MP anyway. if you're not zooming or need to then you're focus is on how nice the shot looks rather than whether you can count hairs on somebody's head. I've seen people post nice photos here. if you need to crop your photos then you ain't thinking about your shots or your use case exceeds what 4MP can provide.

lets be clear on what manual settings i'm referring to here. Who else offers shutter speed control ?

apple only woke up to the fact in their latest OS. prior to which you could do squat cos um turtle neck deemed it unecessary. Nokia had them early and the cheapest lumias 635 ? do too. samsungs don't not even in their latest. neither does moto, or LG which went backwards with the G3 or Sony. The Chinese provide some more. So yeah HTC since the m8 was the only android offering on a fixed focal lens that offered shutter control. Makes it easy to fix things if you were so inclined. Samsung's galaxy camera is the only other that can claim to have had it first on android earlier and its a compact.

A cam is a cam and you can learn photography with any cam and play more with one that allows manual settings. I don't have a DSLR because i've not got to the point where i need one. I take shots every day and i like to tweak them because auto cant get it right. Its very normal to have access if not always necessary. But i'd rather have them and not need them than the other way around.

If you drive a stick shift you won't enjoy driving a cruiser.

I never expect it to look good, if it does then conditions were perfect and i was lucky, i will usually take a auto shot and if it fine leave it at that or try to tweak things about and take a couple more. I always try to take more than one. A phone is going to get thrown into so many varied situations that would challenge a pro. To expect to get it right in one take with a phone camera when pointing at anything you can think of isn't realistic.
[One (M9) General] One Twelve:
A tweak here or there will always improve a shot. How many people know that. Then there is the question of will. if its there and you don't use it then its not the camera's fault. It is there for flexibility.

iphone 6 no, but 6+ will get shots at 1/4. Apple thinks slower than 1/12 is not feasible for iP6. To go slower than 1/4 have to use 3rd party soft to tweak things. iphone camera has always been capable but until ios8 there was no way to access camera parameters so low light was never good.

yes its useful there is also a way to do some exposure comp but it changes metering to spot from average or whatever apple equivalent is. A review was comparing 6 & 6+ and saying photos looked better with 6+ until i saw the exifs and pointed out both were using different metering. So of course shots will look different.

With the latest ios you have much more options than before. Curious apple did a u turn there. But not stock just with 3rd party software.

So wait for a few months then decide. As for firmware improvements. If you take a shot with firmware a at ISO 200 and compare with firmware b at ISO 200, there will be little difference.

What i mean is they can lower ISO for lower light shots so it does not boost it so high. This will improve auto some. But to go further it requires manual. Possible now, if somebody would try.

They can improve white balance with auto but it will get tricked some times so only up to a point.

They are trying to make it easy for the average person in the hope of selling more products. The traditional way is to learn how to use the product. I know the washouts you mean, blown skies etc. But once a person is aware of that you can improve it.

So what are you getting ?

freedcam can already output raw on m7 & m8 and by the looks of it m9 too. htc made this easy.

It was an accidental discovery. I was taking shot of somebody outside the house from inside with a tab (!) and wondered why the clothes were so saturated.

There is something up with the m9's WB i can see from numerous photos. But nobody is trying manual to fix it.

Was looking at latest world press photo

contest

. Many with pro dslrs and i saw one person entered an iphone

photo

and its in the list of winners. Out of 95k entries !!! smartphone photo..Can you believe it :D
[One (M9) General] twoeleven99:
Lol this thread is very entertaining to say the least
[One (M9) General] th3:
So what's your take on the M9 pictures, if I may ask?

Sent using Tapatalk
[One (M9) General] cpufrost:
It's better but the background exposure is still way overdone.

I really think we're expecting too much these days with our cell snappers...

Then again, my "lowly" Nexus 6 takes some incredible shots with its "measly" 13MP sensor. Manual camera app with 50 ISO and manual shutter control helps immensly.

In the 20+ league, IMO the droid turbo camera did quite well in normal lighting.

I'm gonna pick up another ATT M9 soon and get into this camera a bit more.
[One (M9) General] muayyadf1:
It was just an example of what is the potential of the camera. Also, I find noise reduction being too aggressive making the photos look like an oil paint drawings whem you zoom in. Raw pictures without editing look better!
[One (M9) General] cpufrost:
Yes a setting for NR aggressiveness and type could let users fine tune JPG quality as well.

When NR makes photos look like an oil painting its effectiveness has been for all intents and practical purposes made moot.

Of course true RAW makes this a moot point but it then requires post processing knowledge and a suitable software, etc.

Most manufactures IME, use too aggressive NR. Sony Cybershot cameras in the mid 2000s were notorious for this. Of course for those viewing at fit size on a viewfinder, crop for social media, etc. the over done NR will most likely look better than an image with lots of noise. Trying to get a tiny sensor to work in a dark room and expecting medium format camera performance is like expecting a three inch speaker to fill a large room with full range sound! But they try...and fail.
[One (M9) General] DeadPotato:
Have you tried to set sharpness to -2 on auto mode? It's very similar result than RAW, I still think raw is needed for night shots. I've also noticed this camera gets too low light from the environment, is my device faulty? Even at indoors the night shots are dimmer than the environment
[One (M9) General] SPreston2001:
Lol wow u guys are still tweaking settings to get decent pics? I gave up on the M9 months ago! Now that I have my N4, I just pull out my phone, snap a pic and it turns out beautiful!
[One (M9) General] DeadPotato:
Nope, auto works perfect by day, HDR works perfect for HDR scenes and so on. The only flaw so far it's the auto mode by night imo, which auto RAW settings work just as auto should. Hope you enjoy your Note 4 it's a great phone, I don't like Samsung phones neither that big screen :)
[One (M9) General] SPreston2001:
Honestly I dont like Samsung phones either lol. The Note definitely has its lag, hiccups, and stutter issues but the camera is nearly flawless. I honestly wanted to stay with HTC but the M9 just didnt do it for me. Hopefully the new Nexus device coming later this year can completely change things for me! Thinking about going with the G4 or Nexus 6 until then!
[One (M9) General] andybg40:
FWIW go for the Nexus!
[One (M9) General] dondavis007:
Yes. N5 2015 will be an interesting piece of hardware

sent from a mobile gadget.
[One (M9) General] ibip:
May I ask if, and if it's true, where can be camera mod for the M9 found? I've read in one of threads about the ability to take long exposure photos, but still I can't find it anywhere. Thanks for help.

Found it.
[One (M9) General] dlads:
Just my five cents here, I've found that if you take your time then you can get great shots, usually through manual. However usually as a point and shoot it's pretty crap in comparison to other devices, this is made particularly apparent when there is a bit of light within a normal shot, the bleed is horrible. There's been some improvements since the updated firmware but it's still not as good as I think it probably could have been. Still wouldn't swap my phone and it's still got a decent camera (when in manual) just wish the point and shoot was a bit better.

Oh, the app snap camera 2 does do a better job at point and shoot, maybe it's literally down to the software htc have put out.
[One (M9) General] SPreston2001:
Yeah I'll always have a soft spot for HTC in my heart but if the M10 doesn't blow me away I think I may stay away for good. I really don't understand why they can't get a decent camera. Samsung, Apple, Sony, n LG are killing it in the camera department, yet HTC keeps shooting themselves in the foot lol.
[One (M9) General] Snah001:
Well about the camera you are right.

It is unbelievable how they screw this up since the M7.

But for the rest the phone is awesome and for real good pictures I have next to my Nikon Dslr a nice small Nikon S9700 for quick shots of amazing good quality.

It is very small and can easy put it in your pocket and use it more often than the M9 camera.
[One (M9) General] racingmatt1:
Ive just used the flash for a flashlight and the tint on the bottom bulb is yellow and the top is blue. Why is this?
[One (M9) General] Snookers:
It's the dual-tone LED flash. iirc the yellow makes the photo appear more 'warm' to provide a little more realism in the light.
[One (M9) General] hamdir:
there is a HW mod for the "smudging" or "Bleed"

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=63314637&postcount=92

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=63329441&postcount=93

alternatively you might prefer the SW denoise mod:

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=63195076&postcount=91
[One (M9) General] tessut:
Its a led to simulate daylight in low light condition like daylight lamps for your home
[One (M9) General] cpgr:
How does the camera perform in high iso ,also is there any camera app to extend the 2s exposure?
[One (M9) General] sidjohn:
http://xdaforums.com/one-m9/general/camera-tweak-thread-to-make-m9s-camera-t3219828
[One (M9) General] GermanGuy:
Hamdir,

The suggestions for taking better pictures - is this still necessary? or has HTC improved this with software updates?
[One (M9) General] nebulaoperator:
I will just narrow and summaries things here. All being said and expressed can be covered in a few sentences.

In strongly believe and deeply convicted there should not be nurtured an idea like "wait for a few months". Because you don't buy a car and wait for a few months till they get engine software fix or you don't just buy a watch that is not attuned well and you have to pay few visits to watchmaker to fix it. Even worse you spend your time playing with your watch mathematics so only you know what time can be at given time. You saying: that's OK , but in general consumer says: NO We don't want half baked function and live on the mercy of OEM till final fix comes. I honestly don't understand your logic unless you are part of some sort of "development" program and you buy a device/product for that purpose. And one thing is to employ your creativity in creating beautiful images using well balanced device and the very different thing is to use your creativity to overcome shortcomings of the camera. Thinks of this :)

"The traditional way is to learn how to use the product" You misunderstand the purpose of AUTO . Answer to your statement lies in few sentences above.