Question for those who have used a Focus for a while now

jalb

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I love all the phone reviews out there, but at the most, a lot of times, the person giving the review has had the phone for only a week. I am curious - for those of you using the Focus for a few months now, how is the camera? I am super disappointed in the camera on my Surround. The photos are washed out, low rez, and the camera takes forever to focus, if it focuses at all.
 
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cdook

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I like this phone. I think battery life could be a little better, but it's a solid phone. I love the design of it. Camera pictures are pretty good in the daytime, but blurry at night. I noticed the other day they have a blur reduction camera setting, but I have yet to play with it.
 

enahs555

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I have to disagree, my Focus camera takes wonderful shots.
Here is an example of one of my pics with my Focus (scaled down to save space):
http://forums.windowscentral.com/attachments/windows-phone-7-os-talk/18621d1302794646-photo-jpg

The annoying things about WP7 is that it does not save your settings. So every time you load the camera app, you need to go to settings and turn Wide Dynamic Range and anti-shaking to on.

It focuses plenty fast for me; I just wish the shutter speed was faster. What causes blurry images if the phone is moving (even slightly) while taking the image. The faster the shutter, the less of an effect moving has. So in order to take really good pictures you have to hold it perfectly still; and the closer things are the more still you have to hold it. It is hard and takes some practice, but once you get it really steady it takes really great pictures, I think. I find it is best to push half way and focus, hold it for a second and push all the way down to take the picture. And my hands are positioned not as one would naturally think in order to hold it still, but it works for me. Holding still is the key.



Keep in mind, if you are emailing your self the pictures, it is automatically downsizing it. The only way to get the full resolution pictures is to upload it to the SkyDrive or sync with Zune.


But, no matter if you have the best camera in the world, you have to have good content and GOOD lighting. All a good photographer is on the technical level is a good light meter, and good and moving around the frame of view for optimal lighting. The best photographer and the best camera in the world still takes crappy pictures with crappy lighting.
 

IamNabil

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To me, it is useless without the anti-shake, but with it on, the camera is 95% as good as the iPhone 4.

Sent from my SGH-i917 using Board Express
 

enahs555

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Also note, the shutter speed (see previous post first) is directly related to the ISO settings.
The darker the image, the longer the shutter needs to stay open to get enough light for a "good" picture, the software things. If you have plenty of light, you can use as low of an ISO settings as possible (faster shutter speed).

You can manually set the shutter speed/ISO settings as well, to see if that improves your photo. Remember, these are all things set automatically by default by the software; and with experience you can easily become 10000000 times better then the software.

Do you really think professional photographers use everything on auto?

Sure, often you will get lucky and all the auto stuff will be ideal; but play with it and see the difference.
 

Duvi

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not as good as my i4, but definitely better than my atrix. it's not the best, but this is with the default settings. after reading the thread, i wonder how much better it would have came if i changed it like others do.

WP_000001.jpg

night time, it's a different story. here is a pic i took of my good friend. this really sucked as it was at night.

WP_000014.jpg
 

cdook

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@duvi yea that's what I usually get too. I need to play with the ISO speed and the blur reduction an see if I can improve it.
 

Rico

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HTC makes average cameras in general. I really wish they'd partner with someone that makes better sensors and optics, or just put more resources into developing their tech.

Oversaturated colors aside, the iPhone 4 has one of the cameras you can get in a US cell phone, particularly if you want good-looking shots with point and shoot simplicity. It's also good for low-light shots. The Focus is very good, but not for night shots unfortunately, where it's a bit slow to focus. And as much as I love physical shutter buttons, I still haven't gotten used to the shutter button on the Focus, even after 5+ months. The different in pressure required to half press and fully press the shutter is so slight that it I basically have to wait for the on-screen focus indicator to appear to know if I'm half-pressing it or not.
 

enahs555

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Yes, I get shots as nice looking at Michael-Dallas with my Focus too.

@duvi, with the night time picture, what do you expect, you have the camera pointing at a light source in the background. It does not know what to put the ISO at.
 

hernandez_nj

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Just bought the phone yesterday and I love it so far

I know this thread is for those who have owned the Samsung Focus for a while but I just thought I would chime in. I just got it yesterday and I changed carriers just to get this phone. I bought 2 of them and gave 1 to my wife. I will have 2 phones then that I can test. I have been a Pocket PC, Windows Mobile and now Windows Phone user.
Here is my take so far.

What an improvement from Windows Mobile 6.5! Phone is very responsive. That was my biggest complaint of the previous versions. The Samsung Focus is very light, fits nicely in my hand, easy to do one hand operations and so far battery life is good.

Syncing could not be easier. I have the phone accessing my wi-fi at home and I no longer need to do any bluetooth or usb syncing.

The UI is great! What a refreshing interface.

Let's see how tommorrow goes.
 

firedancer1189

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I have had my Focus for about a month now. To be honest I don't have phone or data active on it yet as I am a transition market that was purchased by AT&T. It should be fully functional in a few weeks. That being said, I have strictly been able to use it with Wi-FI. So far the phone has been pretty solid. I haven't used the camera as much as I probably should yet but the few pictures I have taken with it turned out great.

The OS is so fresh and fluid that honestly where ever I seem to be with my phone out people stop and ask me about my phone, who makes it etc. The other day I was out to lunch with my boss. She had just recently purchased an iPhone 4 and I asked her how she liked it. She immediately started praising it and saying how much she enjoyed it. As she spoke of her phone I received an email notification on my Focus and pulled it out to check. She instantly set down her iPhone and was extremely fascinated with my phone. By the end of me showing her the features it has I could tell she had some cell phone envy. She wondered if she could get one and I told her she would have to switch carriers (My market is absolutely dominated by Verizon, that is why AT&T was offered the buy out of Alltel here instead of Big Red)


By no means is the phone perfect but what can you expect with such a fledgling OS? I see so much negativity by people on the forums that complain about the smallest and mostly non-important issues. I am just baffled by it. There isn't a perfect phone. If you go over to other forums there are just as many owners of iPhones, Android OS phones, Blackberry etc that are whining about ridiculous things. Kinda reminds me of the old cliche "If someone likes something they will tell three people, if they dislike it they will tell ten"

I have basically had everything but an iPhone thus far (I just could never bring myself to be that guy and sport one) and so far I haven't had a phone that has come close to this phone.
 

spitothec

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I am curious - for those of you using the Focus for a few months now, how is the camera?

I've had every iPhone, an Atrix, an Inspire, a Captivate, and 5+ Blackberrys.. the Focus crushes everything but the iPhone 4, and that's a close call. It's hands down the best phone-camera I've seen.. and from what I can tell from online photos, it's even higher quality than the 12MP camera on the newer Nokias.

If the camera is a major concern, this phone won't let you down. The only problem I have with it is that it "forgets" all of the settings you change every time you exist the camera app.
 

Duvi

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Yes, I get shots as nice looking at Michael-Dallas with my Focus too.

@duvi, with the night time picture, what do you expect, you have the camera pointing at a light source in the background. It does not know what to put the ISO at.
might be my problem... the iPhone 4 camera performs great at night. takes some awesome pics (for a phone's camera) at night.

if i compare it to my atrix or blackberry, then the camera on the Focus is great.

i'll probably take my Pre out and see how it compares at night. i remember it taking great pics at night, but this was almost a year and half ago.
 

TricBox

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You have to play with the camera settings sometimes, but I found it to do a pretty darn good job. I took photos at the circus and by playing around with the ISO and turning on the anti-shaking I got some pretty darn good action photos for a camera on a phone.
 

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