My FP4 arrived yesterday, and the default camera does not save images in RAW/DNG format. I’m a photographer, so that’s an important thing for me as well. I’ll be searching for a replacement Camera app until such time as FP add that to the default app.
If anyone has suggestions for a good RAW-saving camera app on the Play Store, I’d appreciate it!
I’ve installed Open Camera and will have a play with it for the next few days. I’ve also installed Adobe Lightroom (I have an account) to see what their camera is like, as it also saves RAW files.
For completeness sake, I thought I’d let everyone know what I’ve done about a camera app. As a photographer I do like the RAW files, even though it’s only photos on a mobile phone. It gives me options for more creativity when I don’t have my camera with me.
I’ve decided on Open Camera - free, no ads, open source. Its UI does need some work, but its not bad. One of the really good things about it is that it saves the RAW/DNG files into your camera roll, where I have OneDrive set up to back them up to the cloud. No more having to plug my phone in to my computer after a walk to get my RAW files off of the phone. That makes them easy to remove from the phone and keep things tidy.
Lightroom camera is great, but I don’t now use it because it saves RAW files deep in a Lightoom folder somewhere, and doesn’t automatically save a JPG version in your Camera Roll.
And one more thing - the camera on the FP4 is not 48MP, it’s 20MP - that’s what the RAW files are. The 48MP must come from a digital enlargement process.
The actual wording used in all of Sony’s marketing, and all of the reviews is “effective megapixels”. That’s not the same as megapixels. If it were they would not use the word ‘effective’.
What I believe it really means, is that the sensor is a 12MP sensor (my bad, I originally wrote 20MP) and which uses algorithms - digital enhancement - to increase that by 4 to 48 effective MP (under each square of the the Quad-Bayer Filter there are 4 ‘sub-pixels’).
All mobile phone cameras must use algorithms to process their images to the JPG output that you see on your screen, otherwise they’d be really bad. This is for simple physical reasons, including, but not limited to, the amount of light falling on the very small sensor (compare that to the light that falls on a much larger DSLR sensor through a vastly larger lens) and the ‘cross-contamination’ caused by such very small pixels being crammed so close together to make the small sensor.
Don’t get me wrong, you can take a good photo on a mobile phone with good light and with proper processing of the RAW image, and this is a good mobile phone sensor. But in this case the RAW (i.e. unprocessed by an algorithm) image is indeed 12MP. The processed JPG files produced by the built-in app are enhanced to 48MP.
I so agree! The marketing is, well, interesting (and a little confusing!) but I really just want to take good photos. If I find out what lenses are used and if there’s a profile for Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Camera RAW I’ll let everyone know.
The issue is that in the FP3 the camera had 48MPs which were tied to a bayer array and could only output 12MPx.
In the FP4 each photosite can be processed separately hence the 48MPs gives 48MPx in selected situations. The output can be much smaller depending on a) user selection and b) what is offered by the software.
Of course I can’t really see any of the real detail, this is all hearsay.
Having each photosite accessible was a great move… Instead of relying on the camera itself to process data from the photosites, it can now be offloaded to the phone and done in software
I guess this explains why the night photo in the FP4 gallery thread looks pretty good, although I’m sure gcam can unlock some more of that sensor’s potential
Does it work with stock cam app? I remember from the first reviews that there is work to be done and updates to be provided for the cameras. Was this probably part and was it already fixed?
@Incanus where have you found the RAW option in Open Camera on FP4? Have you experimented with the shutter speed? I can’t believe doesn’t go slower than 1/2.
I have no FP4, my ‘best’ one is a FP3. It was just a question which camera app offers raw shooting in general.
The maximum shutter speed of half a second on the FP4 was mentioned her too:
But I remember another threads with this topic. Maybe I can find it later.