FP2: Rotated / flipped images by the "selfie" camera

Help Fairphone 2
,
1

With several different operating systems, my FairPhone2 shows rotated (preview) / flipped (captured) images by the “selfie” camera when used with the Camera2-API.

Apps which show the issue include

  • SimpleCamera (by simplemobiletools),
  • CameraXBasic sample app (Google), and
  • Threema (using the built-in camera support).

OS versions include:

  • stock FPOS (gms) 19.11.2
  • FPOS (gms) 20.12.0 beta
  • /e/ OS 0.13
  • /e/ OS 0.15

The following is a detailed description of the problem. Does this sound familiar to you? Does anyone have suggestions for further analysis?

This bug report can also be found in Issue #177561470 of the Google Issue Tracker. However as nobody there seems to have a FP2, the work on the issue has stalled…

Kind regards
Ingolf

Issue observed with the CameraXBasic sample app as well as other apps (e.g. Threema) which use the CameraX library from androidx/Jetpack.

The preview of the front (“selfie”) camera appears rotated by 180deg (in addition to the expected mirroring). Altering the orientation of the phone between portrait and landscape has the expected impact, but the preview is always the mirrored image rotated by 180deg:

If the front camera is pointed at a sheet of paper with an upper case letter F, the preview image is as follows:

*
*
**
*
****

i.e. the vertical stroke is at the left, and the top horizontal stroke is at the bottom.

The preview of the rear camera is working as expected. Also, images actually taken with the front camera do not show the rotation by 180deg; however, they still appear mirrored (flipped at a vertical axis) which might or might not be considered a bug, too.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE:

  1. Open the CameraXBasic sample app
  2. Switch to front (“selfie”) camera
  3. See the preview image rotated by 180deg
  4. Rotate the phone around the line of sight (the sample app will switch to the rear camera, so switch back to the front camera after rotating the phone)
  5. Watch the preview rotate accordingly but still keep the erroneous overall 180deg rotation

OBSERVED RESULTS:

The preview of the front camera is always rotated by 180deg in addition to mirroring

EXPECTED RESULTS:

The preview should be just like a mirror.

1 Like
2

I guess it’s the same issue as mentioned in the Fairphone bugtracker, feel free to report it down there.

1 Like
3

I have the same problem. Is there any way to fix it or should I wait for a new update and hope that it works then? :slight_smile:

4

You may want to watch this ticket in the FP issue tracker. I do not know about the current state of the issue.

Kind regards
Ingolf

3 Likes
5

From the issue tracker mentioned above:

Short term workaround: install another camera app (e.g. Open Camera).

Long term solution: if everything goes according to plan, we might have a fix by the next maintenance release.

3 Likes
6

By the way, Google has implemeted a fix which has been merged into the androidx-main branch. So hopefully, apps which use the CameraX library from androidx/Jetpack will soon show the correct orientation of the preview.

7

Same issue here, 1 month ago Karsten Tausche said (Front camera preview is sometimes upside down in photo mode (#21) · Issues · Products / Android 9 on the FP2 · GitLab) that this should be fixed with the 21.05.0-rel.1, but I have that and still have this issue.

8

If so, please report to Fairphone, without being aware they cannot work on it. However first you could try to clear cache (and probably storage) of the Camera App. Go to Settings-Apps-select Camera app-storage-clear cache

3 Likes
9

This topic was automatically closed 182 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.