Lumia 925 camera issue: washed out and blurry photos

[Meridius55]

I was really hyped up about getting this phone after my 4 years old HTC HD2. I love the software, the macro shots, but the regular daylight photos are.. horrible. I tried using several camera applications, cleaned the lens, held the phone as steady as I can, played with the options, still, the photos look really washed out and blurry.
I made these with all options on auto:

http://abload.de/img/wp_20140724_20_08_02_dpj09.jpg
http://abload.de/img/wp_20140724_19_55_57_34kwm.jpg
http://abload.de/img/wp_20140724_16_55_05_2ijfc.jpg

my HTC HD2 in comparison: (auto)

http://abload.de/img/img_20121229_0433380tjd1.jpg

Is that supposed to be normal?:straight:

 

[Thomas Schindler]

The issue with the Lumia 925: it takes great shots, but not on AUTO mode.
Set iso @100 fixed, the white balance fixed at the one you need. You will get a def. improvement already.

Against washed out effect: Remember its a F2 lens, so during daylight the shots can have significant amount of ghosting effects, like every lens shot wide open in this region of F2 (you can see it in your pictures where the sun is directly shining at the leafs), as well as obvious softness because of the large aperture. F2 is nice during night, however a major drawback during daylight. To counter this, increase clarity and contrast during post processing.

Hope this helps a bit

 

[Meridius55]

Thank you, I'll play around with the ISO settings, and I figured the "tap to focus" also has a huge impact on the exposure/quality of the picture.

I also noticed that the preview picture shortly after shooting looks much sharper and more colorful then the final picture. Maybe it's the jpeg compression or some sort of stupid post processing. Is there a way to prevent this?

 

[Rodrigo Mendes]

I was really hyped up about getting this phone after my 4 years old HTC HD2. I love the software, the macro shots, but the regular daylight photos are.. horrible. I tried using several camera applications, cleaned the lens, held the phone as steady as I can, played with the options, still, the photos look really washed out and blurry.
I made these with all options on auto:

http://abload.de/img/wp_20140724_20_08_02_dpj09.jpg
http://abload.de/img/wp_20140724_19_55_57_34kwm.jpg
http://abload.de/img/wp_20140724_16_55_05_2ijfc.jpg

my HTC HD2 in comparison: (auto)

http://abload.de/img/img_20121229_0433380tjd1.jpg

Is that supposed to be normal?:straight:

No, it's not normal even with auto settings. You have a faulty device or a very dirty glasses lens.

 

[Rodrigo Mendes]

The issue with the Lumia 925: it takes great shots, but not on AUTO mode.
Set iso @100 fixed, the white balance fixed at the one you need. You will get a def. improvement already.

Against washed out effect: Remember its a F2 lens, so during daylight the shots can have significant amount of ghosting effects, like every lens shot wide open in this region of F2 (you can see it in your pictures where the sun is directly shining at the leafs), as well as obvious softness because of the large aperture. F2 is nice during night, however a major drawback during daylight. To counter this, increase clarity and contrast during post processing.

Hope this helps a bit

Don't get me wrong, but these photos are absolutely terrible. Even for Auto Settings. And it's not normal.

 

[supershi80]

Thank you, I'll play around with the ISO settings, and I figured the "tap to focus" also has a huge impact on the exposure/quality of the picture.

I also noticed that the preview picture shortly after shooting looks much sharper and more colorful then the final picture. Maybe it's the jpeg compression or some sort of stupid post processing. Is there a way to prevent this?

Your Device is ok, the problemis the postprocessing photo process that ruins your images and this issue start with Amber sw and continues with Black sw

You have 2 solution by now:
1) dowgrade to Portico (on my 920 I solved the pp issue in thi mode ;-) )
2) Hope that last upgrade (Cyan) will solve it

 

[Meridius55]

No, it's not normal even with auto settings. You have a faulty device or a very dirty glasses lens.

Lens are clean, macro shots and 1080p videos look great. It's the classic daylight landscape shots that look... bad.
Some macro shots:
http://abload.de/img/2014_07_25_09_08_25_pbhu4n.jpg (classic "real tired of your sh.t human" look)
http://abload.de/img/2014_07_25_09_30_06_p2auk8.jpg

regular pic with low iso, and manual wb
http://abload.de/image.php?img=2014_07_25_10_32_30_p06uwi.jpg

with altered contrast and saturation in proshot
http://abload.de/image.php?img=2014_07_25_09_29_34_py8umq.jpg

 

[Thomas Schindler]

Looks good to me now?! Or are you still not satisfied?

 

[Meridius55]

Looks good to me now?! Or are you still not satisfied?

If the pictures are intended to look like this it's fine, I'm just worried that I might got a faulty device, one of the 6 lens misaligned or something.

 

[Thomas Schindler]

What seems to be the problem? Sharpness? Because you should not look at the picture at 100%, its misleading. Its a F2 lens as I said, and therefore sharpness during daylight is almost impossible without some degree of ghosting. Other devices have like F2.4 lenses, which makes it better, however they have far worse low-light performance. Color balance and exposure seem to be fine now in my opinion.

 

[Rodrigo Mendes]

Lens are clean, macro shots and 1080p videos look great. It's the classic daylight landscape shots that look... bad.
Some macro shots:
http://abload.de/img/2014_07_25_09_08_25_pbhu4n.jpg (classic "real tired of your sh.t human" look)
http://abload.de/img/2014_07_25_09_30_06_p2auk8.jpg

regular pic with low iso, and manual wb
Bild: 2014_07_25_10_32_30_p06uwi.jpg - abload.de

with altered contrast and saturation in proshot
Bild: 2014_07_25_09_29_34_py8umq.jpg - abload.de

Still bad pics, very bad. I don't know, looks like a faulty device for me.

 

[Roderick Aspiras]

Maybe you have a defective camera part or something. With the Cyan update my L925 takes a bit better pics now.

 

[Thomas Schindler]

Why bad?! How you define bad picture? Sharpness? Contrast? Colors?

 

[Meridius55]

Took some pics on Margaret island, do they still imply a defective camera? I tried using the sharpening feature in proshot (set it to "2") to reduce blur.

http://abload.de/img/2014_07_26_18_02_13_p1dam7.jpg
http://abload.de/img/2014_07_26_18_07_45_pwalrr.jpg
http://abload.de/img/2014_07_26_18_12_02_pp2zr6.jpg
http://abload.de/img/2014_07_26_18_15_06_pv7y1z.jpg
http://abload.de/img/2014_07_26_18_20_47_psxbx3.jpg
http://abload.de/img/2014_07_26_18_20_59_ppya6w.jpg

 

[Thomas Schindler]

For me the pictures look absolutely fine. And if you are using ProShot, use the custom filter and Custom Settings modes to adjust the color appearance for night shots, where Auto WB usually totally messes up the picture with false color rendition! Best feature ever.

 

[Rodrigo Mendes]

Took some pics on Margaret island, do they still imply a defective camera? I tried using the sharpening feature in proshot (set it to "2") to reduce blur.

http://abload.de/img/2014_07_26_18_02_13_p1dam7.jpg
http://abload.de/img/2014_07_26_18_07_45_pwalrr.jpg
http://abload.de/img/2014_07_26_18_12_02_pp2zr6.jpg
http://abload.de/img/2014_07_26_18_15_06_pv7y1z.jpg
http://abload.de/img/2014_07_26_18_20_47_psxbx3.jpg
http://abload.de/img/2014_07_26_18_20_59_ppya6w.jpg

Some pics are very bad, like the second and the last one. How do you use the camera app? Maybe you just use wrong focus mode, I don't know.

When you use the button, you need to press the first stage, wait for the focus and press more stronger to take the pic. If you choose the touch focus, you need to choose the subject you want in screen.

Still that, I don't know, your pictures are very weird at all.

 

[Thomas Schindler]

Rodrigo please explain WHAT is "bad" about the pictures?
The second one is clearly shot with too cold White balance, due to its shadow environment. That's why you can see some heavy post processing in addition the sharpening artefacts of the ProShot App.
The last one is shot against the sun, dynamic range is visibly limited due to sensor size, and this is how it shows!

Please explain, why they are strange and please provide a counter example how they SHOULD look like. Because I cant spot any problem there. The only problems are wrong White Balance, hard environments for every camera where dynamic range is limiting or simply processing of the camera app.
The pictures are sharp! There is only blur, where ghosting appears due to large aperture of the 925. Even the corners are reasonably sharp.

Please, provide 100% crops (!!) of your 925, just for comparison... mine looks exactly the same, I would even say a bit softer around the corners.