Hello,
in May 2020 i did some photos with the old camera module and today (September 2020) i did some photos from the same scene with the new camera module. I used OpenCamera from F-Droid.
Here is the rough comparison. I don’t know if the forum software did any changes.
(It is not the same time, not the same angle and the sun might be different.)
old module (May 2020):
new module (September 2020):
Greetings,
chb
Thanks, chb. What do you think of the photo taken with the new camera? To me it looks like something the old camera would produce, like in my own photos. For example, there is lots of noise even in the brightly lit sky of you zoom in a bit, especially in the upper corners.
Hello,
thank you for your comment. I think the photos look similar, but I am not very experienced in evaluating photo quality. But I noticed that the release speed is much faster with the new camera module.
Greetings,
chb
When I got Android 10 I used the old module for a day before I put the new one in, and in the stock camera app I didn’t notice a shorter shutter lag after I put in the new module. I didn’t try the combination of Android 10 + old module + Open Camera though, so the improved release speed in Open Camera, that I see as well, might in fact be due to the new module and not just because of Android 10.
Well, the picture from the old module is just 2,000x1,500 pixels, while the one from the new module is 4,000x3,000 pixels; i.e. 4 times larger (while it’s only 3 times larger spacewise).
That makes a comparison a bit complicated.
Don’t do that!
If you want to judge the quality, take the full resolution to do so.
Zooming in a bit means, that the software doing the zoomin is calculating what you get to see. Possibly - I really have no idea - this is even more complicated or results in more noise with the tetracell technology.
That’s exactly what I meant, I should have been clearer, sorry. If you click the image the browser will show a scaled down version of the image, so you have to zoom in in order to get to full resolution. The problem is easily discernible at 100%, no need to zoom in beyond that.
You can thank the forum software for that. It shrinks photos above a certain file size (5MB?) down to, in my case, 50% size without warning. I’ll try losslessly cropping the upper half of the image and post this for a more direct comparison.
Edit: cropped version of the stock camera photo is here.
Edit 2: I just realized that you were of course talking about the images posted by chb. But the questionable comparison notwithstanding, don’t you think that the noise in the photo, clearly visible at 100%, is quite disappointing for the new module?
Hello,
the forum software did the shrinking of the first photo from May 2020. Originally they are both 4000 x 3000.
I uploaded the photos again here:
Greetings,
chb
Although there is noise in both photos, there is remarkably less noise with the new camera module (also because with the old camera modules there was a lot of noise).
I have to say I agree, the new camera photo does look better (though still quite bad IMO). But I’m not convinced this can’t simply be explained by the different lighting/weather conditions. There is obviously more light in the new picture; according to the EXIF data they were taken at the same aperture and ISO settings, but the exposure time is twice as long for the old picture.
I hope someone (with two FP3s?) will make a comparison not only using the stock camera, but also using a gCam port. I expect that the new module might have a slight edge over the old one with the stock app, but none with the gCam port. And hopefully FP will improve the photo app, not everybody wants to install a gCam port from questionable sources.
Hello,
I uploaded some more Photos for comparison. All were done with OpenCamera.
May 2020
Old_May_2020_001
Old_May_2020_002
Old_May_2020_003
Old_May_2020_004
Old_May_2020_005
Old_May_2020_006
Old_May_2020_007
Old_May_2020_008
Old_May_2020_009
Old_May_2020_010
Old_May_2020_011
Old_May_2020_012
Old_May_2020_013
Old_May_2020_014
Old_May_2020_015
Old_May_2020_016
Old_May_2020_017
Old_May_2020_018
Old_May_2020_019
Old_May_2020_020
Old_May_2020_021
Old_May_2020_022
Old_May_2020_023
Old_May_2020_024
Old_May_2020_025
Old_May_2020_026
Old_May_2020_027
Old_May_2020_028
Old_May_2020_029
Old_May_2020_030
Old_May_2020_031
Old_May_2020_032
Old_May_2020_033
Old_May_2020_034
Old_May_2020_035
Old_May_2020_036
Old_May_2020_037
Old_May_2020_038
Old_May_2020_039
Old_May_2020_040
Old_May_2020_041
Old_May_2020_042
Old_May_2020_043
Old_May_2020_044
Old_May_2020_045
Old_May_2020_046
Old_May_2020_047
Old_May_2020_048
Old_May_2020_049
Old_May_2020_050
Old_May_2020_051
Old_May_2020_052
Old_May_2020_053
Old_May_2020_054
September 2020
New_September_2020_001
New_September_2020_002
New_September_2020_003
New_September_2020_004
New_September_2020_005
New_September_2020_006
New_September_2020_007
New_September_2020_008
New_September_2020_009
New_September_2020_010
New_September_2020_011
New_September_2020_012
New_September_2020_013
New_September_2020_014
New_September_2020_015
New_September_2020_016
New_September_2020_017
New_September_2020_018
New_September_2020_019
New_September_2020_020
New_September_2020_021
New_September_2020_022
New_September_2020_023
New_September_2020_024
New_September_2020_025
New_September_2020_026
New_September_2020_027
New_September_2020_028
New_September_2020_029
New_September_2020_030
New_September_2020_031
New_September_2020_032
New_September_2020_033
New_September_2020_034
New_September_2020_035
New_September_2020_036
New_September_2020_037
New_September_2020_038
New_September_2020_039
New_September_2020_040
New_September_2020_041
New_September_2020_042
New_September_2020_043
Greetings,
chb
Thanks, that’s great! If I look at somewhat similar images from the old and new cameras, they share the same type of problems, mainly overshapening and noise compounded by compression artifacts especially in the corners. The new camera does seem better, but I still find the improvement disappointingly small knowing what other, also much older, phones can do.
I like the second one of the two you chose. It shows the crappiness of phone camera’s hardware in general. Have a look at the (slightly) distorted lantern at the left and the (slightly) distorted shed at the right. I don’t use stock ROM (I use /e/), does the stock app rectify the perspective appropriately? If so, and if OpenCamera doesn’t (because it doesn’t know enough about the optics and sensor), I would still prefer Stock…
I didn’t expect I would defend the cameras here, but isn’t this just an effect of the small focal length that you will get with any small smartphone camera?
Hello,
today I did some new photos (all with the new camera module) for comparison of the original Camera App (V2.0.002) and the OpenCamera App (V1.48.2) from F-Droid.
New Camera Module - 22nd September 2020 - original Camera App
New_22nd_September_2020_Camera_001
New_22nd_September_2020_Camera_002
New_22nd_September_2020_Camera_003
New_22nd_September_2020_Camera_004
New_22nd_September_2020_Camera_005
New_22nd_September_2020_Camera_006
New_22nd_September_2020_Camera_007
New Camera Module - 22nd September 2020 - OpenCamera App
New_22nd_September_2020_OpenCamera_001
New_22nd_September_2020_OpenCamera_002
New_22nd_September_2020_OpenCamera_003
New_22nd_September_2020_OpenCamera_004
New_22nd_September_2020_OpenCamera_005
New_22nd_September_2020_OpenCamera_006
New_22nd_September_2020_OpenCamera_007
New_22nd_September_2020_OpenCamera_008
Greetings,
chb
Wow! Thanks for the comparison photos!
I think OpenCamera has more noise than the stock camera actually. Otherwise quality is somewhat pretty much the same.
@chb
Could you do a comparison under bad conditions? Low-light, moving, etc…
Sorry if I didn’t make my point clear.
That’s what I meant by “crappiness of camera’s hardware in general”. In camera industry you could either work against this distortion by optical magic I guess, but at least with software tricks. I guess phone manufacturers could take the second approach, but in this case the specifications of the hardware (optics and sensor) would have to be known to the software. I could imagine that stock app might be able to correct the distortion. Can someone prove this?
Thank you @chb!
Is it just me, or do those photos look almost identical? For example, view the tower in the first photo at 100%.
Well… Isn’t it the point? To take nearly identical photos to compare?
Though if you look very closely, some details are different.
I meant the quality, @Alex.A. 
The photos that I looked at very closely and at a distance don’t strike me as a sensor upgrade. Perhaps this is because the camera software (or driver) isn’t taking advantage.
What differences are you spotting?
Less noise.
Otherwise I must say I agree. That’s why I asked if @chb (or someone else) could take photos in bad shooting conditions to see if there is an bigger improvement on this side
