Camera & Camera2 API - missing features & bugs

Any chance to get that permission on CalyxOS for e.g. OpenCamera?

I am very interested in this as well, so I would be very happy if those people who understand what is going wrong and have a solution also drop any possible solution in the corresponding issue on gitlab: https://gitlab.com/CalyxOS/calyxos/-/issues/976

The CalyxOS developers have said that their claim for devices supported by them would also be a decent camera performance on the software side.
I think they are more than busy with Android 13 at the moment, so it would certainly be good to offer a solution in that issue :slight_smile:

2 Likes

Wow I played around with Open Camera on my FP4 and even with just 12MP it takes the app forever to focus - not to speak of the limitations that are mentioned in this thread. It would be super cool, if for now CalyxOS could include the stock FP4 camera app and install as system app :-/. The stock CalyxOS app seems quicker, but has nearly zero configuration optionsā€¦ I never thought the cam could be such a mess!

I think once a solution for the stock camera will land in LineageOS it will then be used for the other ROMs as well - at least thatā€™s where my focus is. OpenCamera could in theory be built-in easier (like for /e/-os). But it wasnā€™t tested for android 12 yet, there could be additional problems.

But itā€™s probably better if the keep the ROM specific development discussions in the separate threads. This thread should be more about issues and internals about the camera implementation in the stock rom. To help us understand the issues and make Fairphone improve it :slight_smile:

8 Likes

Did you at least switch to Camera2 API? (even with the other problems described here it is quite okay to use Open Camera)

ā†’ Settings (Gear Icon in the upper right corner) ā†’ Scroll down to the 5t option from the bottom ā†’ switch to ā€œCamer2 APIā€

I switched to C2-API, but still focus seems incredibly slow :-(. I tried to take some photos of a puppy, which moves and looks around rather quicklyā€¦ no chance for a stable pictureā€¦

Wait until the puppy gets tired and falls asleep, itā€™s much easier then. :smiley:

But seriously, I have some problems with Open Camera too. Itā€™s the iodĆ© version though, the normal one just crashed on iodĆ© OS. Sometimes, it literally takes seconds until the shot is taken and sometimes I even have to kill the app because the white frame (indicating the camera is about to take a picture) isnā€™t disappearing anymore. Is it the same for you?

Thatā€™s what I mainly observed with the stock camera app. I try to take a picture and sometimes (but way too often) it looks like itā€™s taking a picture, but nothing happens. I need to close the app and restart itā€¦ didnā€™t use Open Camera for regular photo-taking actions. Seems like taking photos with FP4 is a journey anyway :-1: .

1 Like

GCam (without proper access to all the APIs) takes pictures in a fraction of a second, so I donā€™t think this is related to Camera 2.
Letā€™s focus on this Camera 2 API / wide-angle / SYSTEM_CAMERA nonsense here, having camera apps that can actually do something useful with it is (sadly) an entirely different topic.

4 Likes

Any updates on whether fp is working on letting us access the wide angle on other camera apps? I want to record some wide angle footage at 60fps but thatā€™s not possible with the stock app even though they use the same sensor as the main camera

1 Like

Hi and welcome to the forum

Better to ask fairphone for real time information

Yeah I wish they would be of help. I bought mine through a third party so all I get from support is automated messages saying I should contact the seller. They wonā€™t be able to help me with software questions Iā€™d assume

It depends upon the third party and where you are. If you bought in the EU/UK etc. you can use support. and benefit from a five year warranty that includes OS support if it is the default OS.

See warranty conditions:

Surprisingly I was asked if my problem still exists after I got the answer I wrote here:

I explained again that they basically can read this thread about details (and that it is not really specific for Custom Roms, but also when using any other camera app, no matter which OS is in place).

4 Likes

I donā€™t know what to say. :man_facepalming: At least the person Iā€™m communicating with understands whatā€™s the underlying problem and actually talks to the developers. But it seems some people there are just clueless.

5 Likes

Sometimes they seem to under-rate the community knowledge and expertiseā€¦ this problem is such a show stopper.

3 Likes

And on the other hand they constantly tell the people to check the forum or contact an Angel when they are out of ideasšŸ™Š

Will as well open a ticket and list this, as well as all other observations after a few more days of use.

4 Likes

Reply from support:

I actually have some more information to share about this. Hereā€™s a quote from one of our developers:

Thereā€™s no standard way in Android to work with those high resolutions, wide angle camera etc. Regular Android apps (installed via Play etc) can only access standard feature sets of Android (Android SDK etc). Anything thatā€™s not covered by the SDK is just not accessible for regular apps. Preinstalled system apps (like our own camera app) can have access to everything we give them access to, including device-specific custom camera features.

Just to clarify: wide-angle support, high-resolution and other such features are not ā€œexoticā€ or unique to Fairphone. But Android just doesnā€™t provide a standard way to implement them. There are ways to make some such features accessible to 3rd-party apps (AndroidX, camera extensions), but thatā€™s not done on FP3 and FP4, and is not a trivial topic at all.

The problem is well-understood, but not as easy to resolve as it seems. For now we are focusing our efforts on more impactful issues like those related to calls and data connectivity, or smaller issues which arenā€™t as time-consuming. In the meantime, the request to implement the Camera2 API is kept on hold but the team will come back to it when they have the resources to spare.

Well, I guess the multi-camera API, which is available since Android 9, is a unicorn then. *sigh* Iā€™ve already replied back, but I guess we wonā€™t see any significant progress in the foreseeable future.

15 Likes

Damn thatā€™s sad to hear.

As much as I love my FP4, the software side keeps being annoying, in spite how little it even does compared to full stock.

Ah well, hereā€™s hope itā€™ll get resolved in the future regardless.

3 Likes

Hello.

Iā€™ve been using my FP4 for ~6mo now and while the camera has most of the same functionality of my previous phone (a very old Samsung Galaxy S5) Iā€™d like to suggest THREE missing features that a phone from 7 or 8 years ago had, which were really useful for lots of reasons. Iā€™m using the stock ā€˜Cameraā€™ app and these missing features are not covered above, I think

1 ā€“ The ability to voice control the camera to take a snap. Is this possible with the FP4? This is incredibly useful when you want to stick the phone into a space to say snap a serial number or something you canā€™t see easily and you canā€™t hold the phone in two hands. My old S5 would take a picture when prompted with the words ā€˜Cheeseā€™ or similar. This was a stock Samsung camera app option (not a Google voice command), just like having the grid and I miss this feature on my FP4 a lot. Is this hidden somewhere or just not available? Please can I seriously request this feature be added to the stock photo app please?

2 ā€“ The photo previous option. Again this was a standard Samsung camera app option to keep the just taken picture on the screen for a few sections and the length of hold or to not show a preview was controlled in the Camera app. The usefulness of this feature was you could quickly see whether the recently taken picture was fit for purpose or youā€™d have to take another. The great thing with the preview was that you didnā€™t have to go into another app to see the result. With ā€˜1ā€™ above, you could one-handed reach the phone into a space, say cheese then view the screen for 3 to 5 seconds then reach in again if it was blurry or not composed properly. My FP4 seems very antiquated in these respects and since a camera is such a part of a smartphone I think this is poor.

3 ā€“ A native photo viewer. Again old Samsung Galaxy phones (presumably all phones) allowed the user to go straight into a photo viewer within the camera app and zoom in, share to other apps etc. This worked even from the photo preview. The camera app on my FP4 seems to want me to use a ā€˜Google photoā€™ app, which I donā€™t use. Iā€™d like to request a reasonably useful viewer available within the camera app, like other phones have without the need to use a cloud service, which I presume Google photo is. Why not use the button to the left of the shutter to allow the user to head to the file section to view the picture there, or give them the option to specify where this takes them, to the app or service of their choice, rather than Google photos when lots of people must use services from Synology, Dropbox etc etc. This seems a very limited and closed system. It also wouldnā€™t be so bad if the FP4ā€™s native ā€˜Filesā€™ app allowed the user to view photos taken on the FP4 with the built in camera app to be viewed in the Files app. You allow video to be viewed in VLC but the photo implementation is completely backwards and a real problem. When I try to view an image, a photo taken on my FP4 with the built in camera app and then try to view it in the built in Files app I get the message ā€˜Canā€™t open fileā€™! I mean!

Who dreamt this up and then implemented such a frustratingly awkward camera and file view system with massive feature gaps, and force-linked to apps or services that not everyone uses when the camera is such an important feature? Especially as there are lots and lots of other linked services out there. Please tell me Iā€™ve just not enabled some in-built option or you are actively working on all these three almost ubiquitous (except here) basic features.

Please do reply.

Thanks!