Still can't get the hang of this camera. What am I missing?

[jdhooghe]

Hello all, I've had my 920 since release and love the phone but the camera is always hit or miss for me. I've gotten into the habit of taking multiple shots just because I know I won't always get a good shot. Today, while eating lunch, our cat was being exceptionally cute and I took this shot:

http://sdrv.ms/YuAoXW

This is the kind of shot that I always want. A little while later, I took this shot:

https://skydrive.live.com/pagenotfounderror

Soft. She wasn't moving. I use the touch screen method. I hold my finger to the screen until I see the photo taken. Same thing happens with the hardware camera button. As far as I can tell, it's a crap shoot. Any tips? Anything I can do?

 

[anon(5370748)]

Your first link isn't working, so I'm assuming the attached thumbnail (cat laying down) is the good one and the second link (cat sitting and looking down) is the one you're unhappy with? The cat's face in the second one looks pretty sharp on my Surface Pro, but it looks like you caught the light at an angle that caused some flaring on the side of her head (the 920 is much better about flare than the iPhone, but all lenses - especially wides - can suffer from it if the light source is hitting it at the right angle.)

Can you elaborate a little more on what you're looking to fix? Also, are you on auto for all settings?

I always take multiple shots of everything I'm aiming at with any camera and cherry pick the best one of the lot. It helps me get a quick look at what I just shot and readjust if necessary (like in the case of flare), or with a phone with no manual exposure controls, I can choose a focus point that helps the AE produce a better image if it doesn't look quite right.

 

[mathewhayward]

Both photos look fine to me

 

[conanheath]

920 isn't a point, click, done camera. Its not even a good camera in my opinion. When you get a good pic, its good but I've had far more bad shots than good shots. I quit using camera months ago because every indoor shot I took had glowing eyes and I got tired of post editing. I have more soft, fuzzy shots than clean. What's the point of having HD screens when pics look like every '80s Polaroid my mom ever shot? Don't expect consistent results with 920 camera unless you carry a tripod and have time to tweak the settings before every shot.

 

[congusano]

920 isn't a point, click, done camera. Its not even a good camera in my opinion. When you get a good pic, its good but I've had far more bad shots than good shots. I quit using camera months ago because every indoor shot I took had glowing eyes and I got tired of post editing. I have more soft, fuzzy shots than clean. What's the point of having HD screens when pics look like every '80s Polaroid my mom ever shot? Don't expect consistent results with 920 camera unless you carry a tripod and have time to tweak the settings before every shot.

That, sadly is the truth. I feel like some people are afraid to admit that this hyped up camera isn't as great.

i absolutely loathe those who also say "its the person taking pictures, you need to learn how to use the camera".

That is bollocks.

 

[thaguy]

That, sadly is the truth. I feel like some people are afraid to admit that this hyped up camera isn't as great.

i absolutely loathe those who also say "its the person taking pictures, you need to learn how to use the camera".

That is bollocks.

let just hope a software can fix this issue.

 

[anon(5370748)]

920 isn't a point, click, done camera. Its not even a good camera in my opinion. When you get a good pic, its good but I've had far more bad shots than good shots. I quit using camera months ago because every indoor shot I took had glowing eyes and I got tired of post editing. I have more soft, fuzzy shots than clean. What's the point of having HD screens when pics look like every '80s Polaroid my mom ever shot? Don't expect consistent results with 920 camera unless you carry a tripod and have time to tweak the settings before every shot.

No, it's not a point, click, done camera. No phone camera is, especially in indoor/poor lighting conditions. We're not there yet, but the 920 is closer than any other phone that I've heard of that isn't running Symbian (808). The problem with this camera isn't the camera, and it's not even the user's photographic skills (you'll be happy to hear, congusano), it's where we are with camera tech at the moment, and the blown-out-of-proportion hype that surrounded this one. People are told that it takes amazing indoor pics, so they get these expectations that they will be able to freeze their children or pets hauling full-tilt around their dimly-lit apartments without a flash, and are shocked and horrified by the blurry mess. No camera that an average consumer can reasonably afford will do that yet, let alone a (relatively) cheap one the size of a worn-down pencil eraser that fits in the corner of a phone. Unless your camera has a red-eye flash (which is seriously irritating to the subject in a dim environment), or an off-camera light, a diffuser or a reflector (all unreasonable for a phone with a tiny LED flash) you're going to get glowing/red eyes with a flash.

The camera in the 920 is better than any other phone cam at shooting still objects indoors with no flash if you have a relatively steady hand, and it does take several shots to get the one you want sometimes. It's also very good for documenting spur-of-the-moment objects and events in good lighting. If you want excellent pictures and don't want to miss critical moments at family events, though, a camera is a much better tool than ANY phone.

So that being said, there are some steps you can take to get better results with the 920, and it mostly has to do with choosing your subject, position in relation to the subject and angle of lighting well, and always taking multiple exposures and cherry-picking the best one. You can learn to hold the phone steady and figure out by trial and error when to use the hard button and when/where to tap the screen. The two best skills you can have with any camera phone are patience and low expectations.

 

[Dave Blake]

920 isn't a point, click, done camera. Its not even a good camera in my opinion. When you get a good pic, its good but I've had far more bad shots than good shots. I quit using camera months ago because every indoor shot I took had glowing eyes and I got tired of post editing. I have more soft, fuzzy shots than clean. What's the point of having HD screens when pics look like every '80s Polaroid my mom ever shot? Don't expect consistent results with 920 camera unless you carry a tripod and have time to tweak the settings before every shot.

I have a 76 page thread that says your wrong filled with page after page of beautiful pictures taken by ordinary L920 users. What's the issue here? Is it that you don't know how to use the phone? Do you have faulty hardware? What do you think it could be? Take a look at this thread:

http://forums.windowscentral.com/nokia-lumia-920/200218-pictures-videos-taken-your-920-a.html

Now try to convince me the L920 camera sucks.

 

[Daniel Ratcliffe]

I have a 76 page thread that says your wrong filled with page after page of beautiful pictures taken by ordinary L920 users. What's the issue here? Is it that you don't know how to use the phone? Do you have faulty hardware? What do you think it could be? Take a look at this thread:

http://forums.windowscentral.com/nokia-lumia-920/200218-pictures-videos-taken-your-920-a.html

Now try to convince me the L920 camera sucks.

I have more photos to add to that!

 

[conanheath]

I have a 76 page thread that says your wrong filled with page after page of beautiful pictures taken by ordinary L920 users. What's the issue here? Is it that you don't know how to use the phone? Do you have faulty hardware? What do you think it could be? Take a look at this thread:

http://forums.windowscentral.com/nokia-lumia-920/200218-pictures-videos-taken-your-920-a.html

Now try to convince me the L920 camera sucks.

Am I the only person who actually takes pictures of people? The pics are nice and if I took pictures of random objects it would probably work for me too. I also wonder how many pics were taken to get one good one? But in real use situations, its useless to me.

I take pictures of my family and my friends for upload to fb, etc. I haven't taken one photo indoors that every person looking at camera didn't have glowing eyes, not red eyes, glowing eyes. I have a whole bunch of pics from Thanksgiving and Christmas that were useless until I post edited. I used my Razr Maxx for comparison in same pics with no glowing eyes. Flash on, flash off, tweaked settings, everything I could think of and still I got about 1 in 5 that was worth keeping. If they weren't blurry, they were dark without flash and if I used flash my family looked possessed. I could pick up my Razr and click away. Now I still had a few bad ones with it, but so many more usable pics all, without glowing eyes.

I have never had an issue with glowing eyes with any prior camera phones. So yes, point, click, done in a real life situation this camera is not. If I want to be a photographer and take staged pics of fruit and panoramas I will grab a real camera. But I want a camera phone. One where I can pull it out of my pocket and point, click, send at a moments notice without messing with exposure times and taking half a dozen pics so I can get one worth keeping. I would take some red/glowing eye remover software over all the other software they have on this phone.

 

[Daniel Ratcliffe]

Am I the only person who actually takes pictures of people? The pics are nice and if I took pictures of random objects it would probably work for me too. I also wonder how many pics were taken to get one good one? But in real use situations, its useless to me.

I take pictures of my family and my friends for upload to fb, etc. I haven't taken one photo indoors that every person looking at camera didn't have glowing eyes, not red eyes, glowing eyes. I have a whole bunch of pics from Thanksgiving and Christmas that were useless until I post edited. I used my Razr Maxx for comparison in same pics with no glowing eyes. Flash on, flash off, tweaked settings, everything I could think of and still I got about 1 in 5 that was worth keeping. If they weren't blurry, they were dark without flash and if I used flash my family looked possessed. I could pick up my Razr and click away. Now I still had a few bad ones with it, but so many more usable pics all, without glowing eyes.

I have never had an issue with glowing eyes with any prior camera phones. So yes, point, click, done in a real life situation this camera is not. If I want to be a photographer and take staged pics of fruit and panoramas I will grab a real camera. But I want a camera phone. One where I can pull it out of my pocket and point, click, send at a moments notice without messing with exposure times and taking half a dozen pics so I can get one worth keeping. I would take some red/glowing eye remover software over all the other software they have on this phone.

Check the latest posts of what do we look like. I just took one of people. In a nightclub. With my Nokia.

 

[WavingReds]

I have more photos to add to that!

I have no been adding pictures :<!

 

[anon(5370748)]

Am I the only person who actually takes pictures of people? The pics are nice and if I took pictures of random objects it would probably work for me too. I also wonder how many pics were taken to get one good one? But in real use situations, its useless to me.

I take pictures of my family and my friends for upload to fb, etc. I haven't taken one photo indoors that every person looking at camera didn't have glowing eyes, not red eyes, glowing eyes. I have a whole bunch of pics from Thanksgiving and Christmas that were useless until I post edited. I used my Razr Maxx for comparison in same pics with no glowing eyes. Flash on, flash off, tweaked settings, everything I could think of and still I got about 1 in 5 that was worth keeping. If they weren't blurry, they were dark without flash and if I used flash my family looked possessed. I could pick up my Razr and click away. Now I still had a few bad ones with it, but so many more usable pics all, without glowing eyes.

I have never had an issue with glowing eyes with any prior camera phones. So yes, point, click, done in a real life situation this camera is not. If I want to be a photographer and take staged pics of fruit and panoramas I will grab a real camera. But I want a camera phone. One where I can pull it out of my pocket and point, click, send at a moments notice without messing with exposure times and taking half a dozen pics so I can get one worth keeping. I would take some red/glowing eye remover software over all the other software they have on this phone.

Can you post a few from both the Moto and the 920? Curious to see what the conditions are like.

 

[conanheath]

Check the latest posts of what do we look like. I just took one of people. In a nightclub. With my Nokia.

I don't know how you were able to take a indoor pic with people looking at camera and not get glowing eyes. I have tried everything suggested. Now, the second one looks about like mine. A fuzzy '80s Polaroid.

I've already given up on this phone and not just because the camera. Any one of 920' problems I can live with but combined with OS issues its just not for me. I only have to deal with it until May and then I'm getting an Ativ. Only it will have an S4 on it and run Android.

 

[jfmanzo]

I don't know how you were able to take a indoor pic with people looking at camera and not get glowing eyes. I have tried everything suggested. Now, the second one looks about like mine. A fuzzy '80s Polaroid.

I've already given up on this phone and not just because the camera. Any one of 920' problems I can live with but combined with OS issues its just not for me. I only have to deal with it until May and then I'm getting an Ativ. Only it will have an S4 on it and run Android.

How many times do you have to make the same post?

You just seem horrifically incompetent. The fact that you claim to have to carry THOUSANDS of docs on your phone but somehow didn't know that you could use file manager to drag and drop documents onto it- and then claimed that there was no way to find those files- and THEN arrogated to advise a new user using this completely misleading information- just makes you sound like an imbecile. No, strike that, it makes you a troll, one who's posted and reposted his nonsense nearly 500 times now.

I'm light years from a professional photographer and I've been getting magnificent shots with my 920 (since Portico) in pretty much every lighting condition.

Please, just go. Leave.

 

[conanheath]

Can you post a few from both the Moto and the 920? Curious to see what the conditions are like.

I would but I've already deleted the pre edits and I can't remember which ones that I kept are from 920 or Razr. I'm anal about clean hard drive, Skydrive and storage space and I combined in a folder when I was done. I'll look around but I also got a new computer last month so I'll have to do some digging.

I gave up on camera after Christmas and Portico and just started using video. Video is great which is why I can't understand why I've had so much trouble with camera.

 

[LumiaDream]

Just a question, are you using a cover/case with your phone?

 

[conanheath]

Your right about one thing jfmonzo. It is time for me to be done here. I have become a little bitter about my 920 and the whole wp8 mess. I just assumed the #1 name in business software could come out with a descent mobile os and Nokia could come out with good hardware. What was I thinking?!?!? I ended up with a mediocre, unfinished os and problem laden hardware. I'm glad it is working for you but it has been a waste of money and time for me. I'll stick with my Surface RT and give MS couple of years to make a descent mobile OS and get some good hardware.

 

[JMBasquiat]

Hello all, I've had my 920 since release and love the phone but the camera is always hit or miss for me. I've gotten into the habit of taking multiple shots just because I know I won't always get a good shot. Today, while eating lunch, our cat was being exceptionally cute and I took this shot:

https://skydrive.live.com/pagenotfounderror

This is the kind of shot that I always want. A little while later, I took this shot:

https://skydrive.live.com/pagenotfounderror

Soft. She wasn't moving. I use the touch screen method. I hold my finger to the screen until I see the photo taken. Same thing happens with the hardware camera button. As far as I can tell, it's a crap shoot. Any tips? Anything I can do?

That's not softness, that's known as Depth of Field or DoF for professionals. The Lumia lens is a f/2.0 lens, meaning it has relatively shallow depth of field, producing images that are focused on the subject, but blurry in the background. This is normal for lenses that have that kind of low aperture, and are in fact prized by professional photographers for their ability to produce beautiful photos full of blurry lights (also known as "bokeh").

Other manufacturers try to hide the Depth of Field by oversharpening their photos during post-production, producing "sharp" but sometimes unnatural looking photos. Apple is known to do this, although its post-production algorithm is generally held to be of a very high-quality. HTC does this also, but the quality of its post-production is hit and miss. Samsung is also known to employ heavy post-production in its photos, leaving them "sharp", but also with clearly unnatural, over-sharpened photos.

In any case, I hope Nokia includes an option to "keep photos sharp", so that people used to overprocessed photos get the same "quality" with their Nokia phones.

 

[JustToClarify]

Am I the only person who actually takes pictures of people? The pics are nice and if I took pictures of random objects it would probably work for me too. I also wonder how many pics were taken to get one good one? But in real use situations, its useless to me.

yupp, OIS is nice for bragging rights but what majority of people really need is a xenon flash.