yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Xperia Z5 General] Timaustin2000:
EXACTLY what I was talking about! Those S7 images, as with many others I've seen, are pretty ugly, frankly. They look artificial, over-processed and noisy. I'd put my Z5 night output above those any day.

I look forward to hearing whether algorithm improvements are real or in my bonce, lol. Thanks mate.
[Xperia Z5 General] gm007:
Night scene.
[Xperia Z5 General] FYLin21:
Still only 8MP and doesn't always take a picture when I press the shutter (both the physical and the screen shutter). However, now the screen blacks out when you take a picture and this seems to give the impression of "lag". On Lollipop it continued to play and then you can see it captured a frame later.

I think the shutter lag has improved but still isn't the fastest out there.
[Xperia Z5 General] kadimatik:
Yes, you are right. Maybe someone hack this. With this additon there are apps which supported camera2 API a little. I found Manual Camera, ProShot and Camera FV-5. Unfortunately ProShot and Camera FV-5 didn't work. Maybe this reasoning MarshMallow. We will wait for updates.
[Xperia Z5 General] Duckly2:
I have FV-5 working. This little trick get it working each time after my phone has been restarted. Change to legacy camera driver in the FV-5 settings, take a picture and switch off legacy camera driver. After this it is working fine. I dont mind it being locked to 8mp, I never use more anyways, it is sufficiently for a good A4 print. Even my ancient dslr with 6mp still takes excellent pictures printed at A4.
[Xperia Z5 General] kadimatik:
Maybe Camera FV-5 works. I tried lite version. I dislike user interface. I bought Manual Camera. It is useful for me.

8 MP sometimes not good. For example last night. Moon was very beautiful, but I couldn't take any good pictures. If I have 23 MP, maybe I could.
[Xperia Z5 General] Duckly2:
I am not certain it will help much in that case, you will need really good optics to get better details 8mp vs 23mp. I doubt you will ever be able to capture any details of the moon which is far away with a mobile, especially z5 with its widelens. You will need a good zoom lens with descent optics.

For dark moon landscape pictures it is great. In my oppinion the main advantage of 20mp vs 8mp is the possibility to crop the picture and still get a good a4 print as example. I prefer to frame the pictures properly, take a few extra pictures framed differently and keep the good ones than spending additional time postprocessing and cropping.

My main camera is still my dslr, but this is the first time I have a mobile where I find the camera good enough as alternative for the dslr. This widelens is excellent and speed is acceptable.

I found that fv-5 is working more reilable when in full manual, both shutter, iso and focus. Manual focus is easy and fast in fv-5, it will not replace sony camera app but I will definitely use it when I have time to adjust settings. Sony for full auto when I need a quick picture of the kids where it is more important to capture the moment and expressions on their faces and fv-5 when i have better time ti frame and adjust the settings for static targets.
[Xperia Z5 General] doministry:
Guys, just a quick but useful update!

As we all know, shutter speed is not controlled by the user (still...).

But you can definitely trick it!

So, when shooting in dark conditions even with ISO 100 I was getting 1/8s shutter speed at the fastest.

SO... If I select ISO 100 or even 200 but put the Exposition maximum DOWN,

the camera immediately sets much faster shutter speeds.

Usually 1/20s the slowest, sometimes even 1/125s.

Useful!
[Xperia Z5 General] bubimir13:
Thanks,

Would be great to not to use these kind of tweaks or hack for something others have implemented in UI. But otherwise, its OK to have at least that option...
[Xperia Z5 General] exnokiafan:
Hi people! So, have the Xperia Z5 received full manual controls and some more quality with the marshmallow update? I know it didn't get the raw output yet, but it's negligible.

I'm about to change my phone and I would choose the Z5 for the physical shutter button.......but in terms of quality the Galaxy S6 seems to do a better job.

Sorry for the slight OT :( :)
[Xperia Z5 General] NewToWeb:
I also agree.

I've tried taking pictures in a different light, and must admit, they are not as impressed as I thought they will be. Don't get me wrong, I like the phone, but too many issues I had with picture settings, sim slots and now even loosing signal completely and having to reset phone to a factory settings too often
[Xperia Z5 General] Daniel_GB:
The interesting thing is S7 is realeased with two different sensor:

1- SONY sensor

2- SAMSUNG sensor

and people with SAMSUNG sensor are complaining about why they didn't get the superior SONY sensor...

I have seen sample images from s7 with SONY sensor and they are actually better!

How come SONY can't properly use their own sensors on Xperia line???

I'm really satisfied with my Z5p camera but the software can be better
[Xperia Z5 General] EQ2000:
Well they can use it properly just that they could allow for more manual settings (for example scene mode in full resolution, more ISO options and more). Else their camera and sensor on their Xperia Z1+ line performs and gives better photos than competition while resorting to low amount of post-processing and of pretty high quality. NR and super sampling in 8MP mode for example is superb. Took me nearly 10 minutes to achieve same in Photoshop. And S7 is just quite a bit behind the Z1+ line, even more so becouse of their nasty post-processing. Just take a look at S7 photos, they look gritty, plasterized, heavily oversharpened, wonky dynamics and it gets worse when you downscale the photos to media sharing resolution. Ans low light cappabilities are still behind Z1+ line. So Sony is doing really good with their Z1+ line. :cool:

Let's see if modders start working on the Z5 software. For example for Z1-Z4 you have now the Camera v2 from Z5 but with 20MP full SA, full scene selection at any resolution, extended ISO settings for all resolutions, 100% jpeg enconding quality vs 97% for stock, more focus settings and they might be able to implement manual shutter like in another camera mod (uses outdated camera apk though). Might even work on Z5..

http://xdaforums.com/crossdevice-dev/sony-themes-apps/z1-z4-z5-camera-1-0-unlocked-20-23mp-t3335412
[Xperia Z5 General] NewToWeb:
Before Z5 I had Z1... And must admit I don't see huge difference in picture quality. I'm not an expert, but I had a hope that pictures will be much better using Z5
[Xperia Z5 General] FYLin21:
Nope... still the same UI. With third party apps it's still 8MP. The Manual Camera app allows you to change shutter speed and stuff, but the shutter lag is even worse than the stock camera app and it struggles to autofocus.

I tried the Galaxy S7 yesterday it had 0.13s shutter response and 20+fps burst shooting.

After the update the shutter lag on the Z5 seems BIT better but still disappointingly slow. It actually seems at times the camera takes longer to autofocus

On the other hand Sony is marketing the Xperia X Performance as having 0.6s startup+shoot time from standby using the camera button, geez....

What I like:

- Good dynamic range

- Accurate colours

What I don't like

- Shutter lag

- No burst shooting (might as well film in 4K and extract 8MP stills after)

- "Clear image zoom" just post-processes the image and doesn't work on video. Theoretically it's possible to crop the 23MP sensor way down for a lossless digital zoom with 1080p video...
[Xperia Z5 General] Timaustin2000:
The more I look at photographs from the S7, the less I like the camera. Indeed, I'm starting to actively dislike it: while it sucks in an absolute tonne of detail, the post-processing is quite abysmal. Images are heavily over-sharpened and have a plastic, flat feel that furs my teeth.

Compare these shots, the first from an S7 and the second from my own Z5:

https://flic.kr/p/E5hZLA

https://flic.kr/p/BhVK3U

Crop into both. The S7 looks positively artificial, despite the abundance of good light. The Z5 looks natural and even in its composure: still a tonne of detail but it's not resorting to heavy-handed algorithms to do it - it's just using its superior sensor. It is also impeccably colour-accurate.
[Xperia Z5 General] bubimir13:
Ok just to check,

Do you guys still have like this blue markers on dark areas that shouldn't be there, like on first photo? Because its now driving me nuts. Second photo is how it should look like, more or less, but without any blue light around the scene, i don't know why this happens and how not to create any bluish markers, except for lowering the ISO below 400 or even 200 in Manual mode, then its clean black.

It's kinda annoying to shot in Superior Auto with this...
[Xperia Z5 General] Timaustin2000:
This generally happens far more at 23mp than 8mp, due to the ISO's of each. 8mp modes use a broader ISO than 23 - if taking night shots, always stick to 8mp, I say: the results are always better.
[Xperia Z5 General] EQ2000:
I agree. The S7 photo is painfull to watch as it "cuts" into the eyes. Tons of sharpening halos that makes small details suffer giving the whole image a white washout look. They also seem to apply unsharp mask radius that is much higher than standard 1.0-1.2 which makes for gritty contrast edges and on top of that 'texture' or 'clarity' filter to bring out small details. But that just makes contrast edges lit up in an unnatural way on surfaces and colors will suffer aswell as make photo brighter than is in low contrast areas which can create bad contrast and wonky lumination. The noise reduction is also to aggressive and makes the scene look layered. Front, middle and background and as such makes the sky almost look like it is photoshoped into the image. :eek:

Your photo from front to background is uniform and seamless and makes for great depth. Pleasant for the eye while the S7 shot makes my eyes go on a frenzy trying to "make out the scenes composition". They need to tone it down as S6 had less of it even though it also suffered a bit from it.

Another thing I find interesting is that S7 produces photos that are way to dark in low contrast areas when HDR is not used in good to medium lighting scenarios with dark areas. Looks like what you would get in an editor by lowering the shadow strength to a negative value. With HDR it doesn't have this problem and dynamic range is good. Now unless the HDR system is single frame based then the fast auto-focus system will not come into it's full potential as it would need to take several shots to compose the final HDR frame and so scene needs to be fairly static and the stability to.

Question now is if they are going to reduce the post-processing. Seems kinda strange to go for more than they used on the S6 unless the new focus system creates more noise and problems becouse even if pixel size is bigger than S6 each pixel is divided into 2 parts for a total of 24 million focus points. This would create more electronical interference and thus more noise amongst other problems. Even Canons dual pixel focus system suffers from this.
[Xperia Z5 General] bubimir13:
First one was shot in 8mp SA mode, second one was edited to what it should be. So, even the 8mp isn't the solution... i don't remember this happening to Z3c with same amount of ISO.
[Xperia Z5 General] swooc:
for anyone who's interested, the exposure value are in increments of 1/3 of a stop. so if shutter is 1/60 at EV 0, one notch up - shutter is 1/50, or one notch down - shutter is 1/80 etc. but i believe when you reach the slowest speed of 1/8, increasing EV will not yield anything slower.

this is really only for people who are absolutely finicky with their shutter speeds. otherwise adjusting ISO to suit the time of the day is a much easier and quicker variable to adjust. i know people have different standards. but for me, anything upto ISO1600 on the z5 is useable.
[Xperia Z5 General] rvnlvrz:
The thing is, SONY has that best hardware available. But their post-processing algorithm destroys the detail almost every time. If you check at photography reviews, edges produced by the Z5 really tends to lose the detail.

They focused on so much noise reduction which then "smudges" the picture. Like applying thick make up or something on top of it.

In the end, it just goes to waste.
[Xperia Z5 General] swooc:
^sony's post processing is really subject to ones taste. just by reading this thread alone, you'll find mixed feedback. some people like it, some people hate it, some people think it needs tweaking. i think what we see now, is here to stay. it's what sony thinks looks best.

as for them having the best hardware, that's hard to tell. on paper, the specs are favourable compared to whats currently on the market. but we will never know how well it actually performs against others until every manufacturer opens up raw data and full control for us to compare. all we are comparing right now really is the difference in post processing between the manufacturers, and the implementation of software to hardware for usability.
[Xperia Z5 General] FYLin21:
If by hardware you mean the sensor, then yes this is one of the best out there, but if you mean the optics then far from it. In my opinion the wide angle is not worth compromising the corner optics, and what were they thinking using a smudgy plastic lens cover? As for the f2.0 aperture, the Galaxy S7 and LG G5 have even wider apertures and have less corner blur than the Z5.
[Xperia Z5 General] Duckly2:
Interesting, I also upgraded from Z1 to Z5 and see huge improvements. Especially during low light the colors were gone and washed out on Z1 but preserved on Z5, never used Z1 as camera and always made sure to carry around my dslr. Z1 was bad in low light and only average in normal light with flat boring pictures, dynamic range too small.

With Z5 it is different, I am impressed how good it is with its widelens and low light capabilities. It compares descently with my stock lens on the dslr as a quick point and shoot always available. More manual control and I would be very happy, it is too quick to go up in ISO when on auto and cumbersome to enter menu and change ISO. I also miss on screen information on shutterspeed and iso.
[Xperia Z5 General] EQ2000:
Well they did uppgrade the algorithms for the Z1 on 5.02, 5.1.1 and upto latest Lollipop update which improved it quite a bit giving richer photos. They should allow to disable digital stabilisation in auto as that is mainly the culprit for ramped up ISO in favor of faster shutter speed. Even holding camera still you will have the same. Atleast it could switch between manual modes ISO to shutter speed and auto systems based on movements.

---------- Post added at 11:28 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:17 AM ----------

Actually a more "smudged" fine-grain detail is the sign of lesser noise reduction and Sony has very good balance without resorting to overdone post-processing like many other brands do and they account that photo will be downscaled which just makes their post-processing decision perfect.

Check the S7 RAW vs jpeg to see the differences. Maybe now people will understand Sony has less post-procecssing than others and avoids the often horrible over-the-top post-processing most like to do like for example Samsung. No oversharpening, no unsharpmask radius induced grittyness, no color loss, detail to noise ratio kept as intact as possible, full dynamic range, no plastic and flat "layered" look and more. :cool:

https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=ee3b82ee1502b388&id=EE3B82EE1502B388!1581&authkey=!APjXJ9r7UYYWm2Q
[Xperia Z5 General] pressytcn:
For pics like that i use my sony hx60v with 30x optical zoom you can even see craters clearly so I'm looking forward to the next blood moon
[Xperia Z5 General] NewToWeb:
I was checking old pictures taken with Z1. And I agree, Z5 takes better ones in low light.

But yesterday I took some pictures in low light with Galaxy S6 Edge - and I pictures were much better then same ones taken with Z5.

I still like Z5 but I wish there could be more manual settings I could play with ...closer to dslr
[Xperia Z5 General] EQ2000:
But at what ISO and shutter speed? You still have scenes for the Z1+ series like night and night portrait. If strictly talking about ISO for ISO with similar shutter speed Z1+ line just walks all over the S6 without even needing to manipulate curves to bring out detail in the post-processing stage and end up with blacks that look grey. If you had slow shutter speed like 2s+ then it might do better but only good for absolutely static scenes.

I have not seen any Samsung phone even come close to this while using shutter speed lower than a second. 0,8 shutter speed, ISO 250 and 20,7MP on the Z1.

And here you got one 8MP manual mode in Sony camera v2. 1/8 shutter speed and ISO 1600 on the Z1. Still ahead of competition even if they like S6 and S7 use ISO 1000 and 1/7 shutter speed.

And one taken at ISO 200 and shutter speed 1/8 on the Z1 at 20,7MP. Still ahead with flying colors!

Z5 can do better though more manual settings for some type of scenes would be in place. Samsung phones still have a quite long way to go before they can seriously compete in similar conditions without resorting to very slow shutter speed or multi-frame noise reduction which also requires static scenes and is automatically applied in low light scenes if hand is steady on the S6 and S7 which the Z1+ line doesn't do yet performs exemplary. :cool:
[Xperia Z5 General] doministry:
I would say that Z5's camera is usually fantastic.

There are some manual ctrls missing and the shutter speed control would be fantastic.

BUT I just want to point out that just adding some more manual controls WILL NOT transfer the smartphone's camera performance

to the next level... It's still a small sensor with no real optics, where software is a king....

But it's the moment when Sony should add it.
[Xperia Z5 General] pressytcn:
Yeah it's about time for sony to add some optical sensors i got the qx10 with my first sony the z1 in a bundle deal and i still bring that lens cause it can improve your pictures so much more so if the z6 or z7 comes with some heavy duty hardware like it's competitors have done it for some time now i would buy a sony again
[Xperia Z5 General] Timaustin2000:
I'm with EQ - I think the processing is wonderfully balanced on the Z5: not too little, not too much. Sure, it can be annoying that some forms of texture (Fur particularly) are less clear on the Sony compared to others but I'll take that hit in exchange for fewer sharpening aberrations, accurate colours and more depth in my image. People rave about Samsung's latest efforts but I don't see it. The processing is far, far too heavy.

I want a photograph not an electronic approximation of a photograph that's gone through more filters than Instagram.

I have a feeling that things are a little tweaked with MM. Can't be wholly sure, though. Any word on this, EQ?
[Xperia Z5 General] EQ2000:
Well I just got the update notification today so I will install it tomorrow after taking some sample photos and then with the MM update to check differences in different conditions. :cool:
[Xperia Z5 General] doministry:
I still love my QX10. Especially it has such a great zoom.

Anyway, interesting here regarding how HARD it is for mobiles to balance things:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9je1_3raQo
[Xperia Z5 General] pressytcn:
I would love to see a full sized android camera from sony their new cameras already has nfc gps wifi and apps with Android on them they would rock especially the part where you have to retype your user name and password for playmemories with Android you could even add dropbox or other cloud services for your photos
[Xperia Z5 General] EQ2000:
I see that atleast with Camera FV-5 you now can change ISO and shutter speed so CameraAPI 2 is implemented. Sadly though you are still limited to 8,3MP 16:9 as highest resolution. RAW is supported (FV-5 states this to) but enabling it makes FV-5 crash until app data is cleared. Need to check with other camera apps that supports RAW and see how they react. Might be it is buggy but atleast it means they have the intention to implement it.

White balance seems to work as before but I find it a bit more accurate at higher ISO aslong as it aint to dark or it goes like before for a bluish/redish hue tone. Though hard to test right now as in manual mode the digital stabilizer is forcefully enabled making for higher ISO to maintain faster shutter speed. I dont know if it was a bug but on Lollipop the digital stabilizer did eventually after a bit of use get disabled permanently allowing for better image quality and lower ISO by default. I observed the same on my Z1 with Camera v2 mod. I hope the bug is still there! :laugh:

Quality has certainly improved though. Even with higher ISO it performs better. Post-processing seems to be of higher quality and edges just looks tighter with less artifacts despite higher ISO. Gives contrast edges a soft and pleasant touch making for a more natural photo with less smudging and more detail. :cool:

I'll test it out more but for now it keeps really high quality!

Comparision crop of pre and after MM at 200% size.
[Xperia Z5 General] devilmaycry2020:
The picture seem a little bit brighter and nothing more
[Xperia Z5 General] EQ2000:
Even if it was so one has 90 ISO more which means more noise yet it does look better which means it is better! But take a look at the green leaf edges, shadows edges and formation uniformness on top of the glasses container, apple edges and more. You have less harsh pixel stairs and instead they are smoother and less artifacts on contrast edges due to better post-processing quality. :cool:
[Xperia Z5 General] Timaustin2000:
Pretty much confirms what I thought I was seeing. I'm very glad that it wasn't all in my head - I neglected to take a direct before/after shot when I updated. That said, I have a few "standard shots" that I take and they were telling me that there were improvements.

Edge definition is certainly better - and not at the detriment of detail, I'm pleased to see. This really does come across when taking pictures of the spines of books: one of my standard shots is to stand two steps into the doorway of my living room at night with the lights off and fire a shot with the flash at the bookcases opposite. There is a clear and pronounced improvement on the legibility of wording, which is what tipped me off about the change in algorithms.

It also filters down to the digital zoom, which also seems cleaner - though still imperfect. It's a subtle tweak in things rather than a full-rebuild. That's what I like about it.
[Xperia Z5 General] dmc_universe:
Sony only know how to make a sensor, but limited in algorithm，from Z to Z5, no any improvement in it.
[Xperia Z5 General] Timaustin2000:
For EQ and anyone else curious about the book spine shot mentioned above, here it is :

https://flic.kr/p/EnQDkP

Now, I don't know about anyone else but I'd be surprised if there are many other phones that could do a better job.
[Xperia Z5 General] eng3:
I find that most photos on the Z5 come out "OK". On my old phone, I use to use an app called "A Better Camera". It had an option called "Dynamic Range optimization". I don't know exactly what it does, but I think it is similar to what I typically do with photos. I edit the photo and get the histogram levels then reduce the min and max range to only cover areas that are captured. It was very nice that "A Better Camera" could do this for me although the processing time was longer. Unfortunately without Camera2, I can't use "A Better Camera" anymore without it being super slow. I'm wondering, does anyone else do this "Dynamic Range Optimization"? There may be a different term but I think it is pretty common for even the most novice photographers. I'm wondering if there are any apps I can use to batch process my photos on my phone. I also use a software called "Noise Ninja" on my PC to reduce ISO noise. It seems to do a pretty good job. Are there any similar apps that can do this? Using these two largely automated processes, I can typically dramatically improve my photos. I just wish I could do these two things on my phone automatically.