Video capture losing focus: Broken camera?

Help Fairphone 2
,
1

Hi all,
I have problems using the FP2 back camera for capturing video. After the first 1-2 frames the camera loses focus completely, and the rest of the video is blurry. I have tried with “Open Camera” app and with the stock camera app with the same result.
Here is a sample video, shot with the stock app.

I have contacted user support, but there is no reply yet.

Is anyone else having this problem? Any ideas how to fix this?

Best regards
Dimitris

UPDATE: I got feedback from user support. I must send the phone back and they will replace it. I will write again when I have this settled.
UPDATE 2:

  1. I have sent the phone back. It has been confirmed that it arrived and that I didnt break anything, so now I am waiting for the new one.

  2. There are a couple of suggestions below to use apps with manual focus. Maybe they are worth a try.

2

HI there, I have the same problem.

3

Hi, I have the same problem. I initially thought it was only in low light, but it’s happening all the time.

5

Hi,

I have the same issue but support is very slow, I’ve already opened a request for another problem (defective LCD screen) 5 days ago, but I haven’t received any answer…

6

I have got the same problem. I also found this sample video on Youtube from a website called areamobile which shows the same problem:

So is this a software or a hardware problem?

7

This youtube video is also shot close to my place (but not by me). Maybe it is a problem affecting the Fairphones in Berlin?

To me it seems like a hardware problem, the camera is probably defect.

The support replied to me after more than 15 working days. I guess they are dealing with the first wave of technical problems, and are probably overloaded.

8

Yes, i have the same problem! Camera looses focus on video capture
after a few seconds…

9

I tried shooting some footage at the weekend and encountered the same problem. I thought maybe the camera just wasn’t very good, but seems it might be a hardware issue?

Either way what I experienced was a massive downgrade on my previous smartphone camera.

10

I had the same problem with focusing while checking out my FP2 camera this afternoon. And I found that the exposure didn’t worked too. That puzzled me, setting exposure is done by software. So this seems to be now hardware bug.
But I was sure that it had worked before.

By the way I’m using CameraMX app.

So I played around with the video camera and found that I was able to change between auto focus and fix focus and auto exposure and fixed exposure by tapping at the white rectangle on the image. So I can shoot now videos with fixed and auto focus and the problem of the pumping auto focus and unsharp videos is gone at my setup.

Please give it a try.

Maybe there is someone out there who has more experience with focusing at CameraMX and can explain more in detail how to use it.

Good luck!

11

Sadly, same problem here :frowning:
Don’t wanna send my phone, …afraid of getting more problem after sending…
Please report here process of your experience !
Thank you all
Lg ivi

PS; but my taken picture are sharp and clear, maybe only a software bug?

12

Guys I found a great solution,try this app
Cinema FV 5

With this app you can focus by hand and still sharp!
Please report.
Lg ivi

1 Like
13

Same problem here.
Cinema FV-5 Lite does work for me but this feels more like a “workaraound” than a solution.

Does anyone know if there is already a response from the fairphone team on this issue?

With regards,
Peet

14

As an update from my end, I tried CameraMX and got slightly better results. I got less blur in the image, but it still had problems auto adjusting the light to moving objects.

That makes me wonder if this could be a software issue and hopefully something they’ll be able to resolve.

15

Same problem too. Hope the next update of the OS will fix it ! :thinking:

16

I’m having the same problem. Photos focus fine, but the video is immediately out of focus. A friend of mine who also has the fairphone also experiences the same problem.

Is this really a hardware problem? If yes, a big part of the cameras seem to be affected.

17

Whether it’s hardware or software it would be nice to have some official comment from Fairphone on this. It seems clear from the thread that this is a widespread issue.

18

I have a similar problem. Nearly for every second video I’m capturing the camera loses focus after a few seconds for approximately half a second. This happens then several times when I’m recording.
This is off topic. But my phone also suffers from ramdom reboots.

19

Same for me.
I work around it by using opencamera, setting the focus and selecting “lock focus” (keylock icon). Then I can shoot the video. But can’t wait for a real fix.

20

Thanks for the suggestion Jaymanu, I downloaded Open Camera recently so will try that.

21

Hello,

i am having the same problem wit my FP2.
It is not possible to take a sharp video with my FP2 at all.
i havent tried other than the default camera app up to now.
The recent firmware update (Fairphone OS 1.2.8) unfortunately was no help.
I am a big fan of fairphones philosophy, but this problem is really a no-go.
I already talked to other people who were interested in the fairphone 2 but i could not recommend the FP2 any more, having a nearly unusable camera (video, but also bad picture quality) .
Why is no fairphone employee giving some hints or tipps here on this forum post?