New Fairphone 2 camera

[JobLeonard]

Thanks for the comparison-pics ben!

Of course, the camera apps available to us don’t give us fine-grained control over aperture/exposure/white balance settings, and I can’t tell from here if the lighting conditions are exactly the same (even if they feel the same, it might be that in one shot there’s twice or four times as much light - our eyes are just too good at compensating for us to notice), so we cannot not for sure how “fair” of a comparison this is.

(EDIT: just checked if there is any exif data, but that was stripped too - either by uploading to the forum or by default)

Still, as far as out-of-cam shots go the new camera seems to be a lot better at white balancing and exposure!

Just a bit of over-analysis from my side:

What happens on the green leaves in the old picture is that the green channel is clipping, or at least very close to it. You can see this in the histogram in photo-editing software if you zoom in: note how in the crops of the old photos the green channel is an island to the right of red and blue.

Old

New

Old

New

EDIT: IGNORE EVERYTHING BELOW ABOUT NOISE! Well, don’t ignore it, but be aware that it’s based on a flawed premise!

I just noticed the resolution of the old and new pics:
Old: 3264x2448
New: 2896x2172

This is definitely forum compression resizing things, so the conclusions about noise DO NOT HOLD UP. We need the original resolution pics for a proper comparision.

Actually, they “kinda” hold up, in the sense that when you upload your pics to facebook, they will usually be resized to 5MP anyway, so the difference in noise output actually does hold up in that sense, because downscaling from 12MP or 8MP makes a bit difference in grain here.

Noise profile

Check out the blue background, it’s really useful in getting a feeling for the noise and grain the cameras produce. Blue is a notoriously noisy colour due to both physics (high-energy photons = less photons for same energy range = more discrete capture = more noise) as well as JPGs (chroma subsampling)

Old

New

I amped up the local contrast on purpose to highlight the difference in grain, the new one is much better than the old one:

Old

New

(Also, the old pic shows a bit of a weird grid-effect that I normally only see when you take a noisy JPG with low-quality settings, then resize it a fraction smaller. Not sure if that is the upload to the web doing this, or something weird happening in-camera or in-app).

Ok, enough time wasted over-analysing this. Looks like it’s a real jump in quality and I can’t wait to test the new module myself!

Link to dropbox with these picture, in case uploading them compresses them too much:

fairphone2 test pics

(PS: @ben, did you take a comparison shot with the front camera too?)

[Farkas]

I use Open OS, and I got a delay with the stock camera app, and google camera. I tried a lot of other apps but still slow. When I tap the photo button, it’ll take the picture 0.5 sec later, which makes impossible to do instant pictures, always too late. When I use an iPhone, it’s an instant picture, it’ll take the picture immediately when I tap it.

[oli.sax]

Hello !
This new camera seems cool I didn’t ordered it yet but it’s on my wish-list

@chrmhoffmann and @snevas: well done for quickly making LineageOS compatible with the new camera!

I read in a UBPorts blog that this new hardware is not yet compatible with UbuntuTouch OS… I wonder if including the new modem files is enough to make it works, and if the Android6 base is needed or not?

[chrisse]

I have the same issue than @Farkas with Open Camera on Fairphone Open OS. I thought my kids were too fast

[tomchance]

I get the same, and I’m really reluctant to try LineageOS just for this feature. I like to play around with software, but also really need a reliable working phone that I don’t break!

[AnotherElk]

@Farkas

I use Open OS, and I got a delay with the stock camera app, and google camera. I tried a lot of other apps but still slow.

Ok, then perhaps Android 7 does this better and you could try LineageOS.

I just installed the new camera modules, and they work as expected using @snevas’s latest LineageOS test build.

[ben]

I could upload the original images to your Dropbox. I am sure the forum compressed them a bit.

Nevertheless, a great analysis! That you!

I did not order a new front camera. Don’t really use it.

[Jordi]

Received my modules 1 hour ago, the quality in low light conditions is far better (easy…), see the noise in these comparative pictures.

@RobertGraz, just made a quick and dirty test, I would say the flash works well (OpenOS).

[Wolf.K]

The sensor has two types of output format:

10/12-bit RAW, DPCM 10-8 compression

[Wolf.K]

Are new FP2s shipped to the customers already equipped with the new module?

[JobLeonard]

Thanks! Where did you find that information? But that’s the sensor, there’s more to a camera module than that, right?

I’m not familiar enough with the Android system to know if this means if third part apps could access these modes, or if there is some driver between the hardware and the Camera2 API that could force JPG output. This quick google result seems to suggest that RAW data access should be possible, is that correct?

[JobLeonard]

Hey Ben, you’re right, the forum compressed them, but more importantly resized them!

While this doesn’t affect the conclusions about white balance and channel clipping, the noise-question becomes trickier to answer (I edited my reply to avoid people being misled later). So I would like to have a look at the originals, yes

[Farkas]

So you mean this is due to the version of Android ? But so strange that just a few people are experiencing my issue ? Or just no one cares about having this instant pictures ?

Anyways thanks for the advice.

[BertG]

Answer: “It depends …”
Look here (posting no. 8):

Will the new camera module be in the new FP2 batches?

Hi there! I bought a FP2 on June, expected to ship by 31 october, and I was wondering if it will have the new camera module, or if I will have to buy it separately. I would prefer to get the phone directly with the upgrade, because otherwise I will find myself with an useless old camera module…

or above posting no. 39 by @Lidwien:

[jnsp]

I’m silently hoping that the headphone jack produces less noise on the new top module. That would actually be my first reason to buy a new module as opposed to the camera quality.

Can anyone with a new top module test or compare the noise of the headphone jack?

[Irina_Spitznagel]

Having my new modules build in for 10 minutes, I just tested the headphone jack. It sounds good. But I wasn’t unhappy with the old one either…

[abittner]

New FP2 camera and new FP2 top module arrived in Germany. Assembly and disassembly of old new modules went smooth, FP2 powerup detect new modules and showed a bluish notification on Android 6. Took a normal picture with the new module but I am not a photography expert, dont axe me any fancy questions ;). Thanks go to the FP2 team and everybody involved. Cheers.

[ben]

Remember to change the resolution of the camera for best quality. I my case, it did not change automatically.

[ungutknut]

I’ve just installed the new FP2 camera and it works quite well. But I’m unfortunately unable to do any compareable shots as there’s no way to fix the shutter speed and there seems to be a bug in exposure lock on open camera.

But from what I’ve observed so far:
) The view angle seems a bit wider now. Anybody knows what’s the (equivalent) focal lenght of the old and new camera?
) The Hi-ISO capability has increased massively. The level of detail on ISO3200 can compete with the LOD at base ISO on the old camera module. However noise is much worse on that setting of course. Maybe it’s just a less agressive noise reduction (which is great IMO) which again makes it almost impossible to compare.
) Subjectively I’d say that Hi-ISO noise is now better for about 2 stops.
) Dynamic range hasn’t increased as much as I hoped but I can hardly tell without being able to lock the exposure settings. However it is definitely better than before. Maybe half a stop or one and a half?
) White balance seems to be a bit more yellowish now at the same settings.
) Starting the open camera app is slow as hell. With the old module it already was a few seconds. Now it’s about 2-6 sec. (it varys strongly) until I can take a picture. Thats super annoying.

Here are a few full-res test shots (with full EXIF info) I made - four ISO settings from each module, ISO 100/400/1600/3200:

Old module:

New module:

As you can see I wasn’t able to lock the exposure on manual ISO with the new camera. Usually I do this by tapping on a spot on the screen that I want to have exposed right (in this case the little plant on the speaker) before releasing the shutter. Now it seems there’s no compensation in shutter speed for the manually set ISO anymore. Looks like a bug to me.

OS is FPOOS 17.08.1.1 with open camera 1.38.2.