Lumia 928 Blurry Photos

[mooreted]

I took some pictures at a concert last night and every single one of them is blurry and unusable. Here are some examples:

http://sdrv.ms/19OowVT

http://sdrv.ms/GZlqIi

http://sdrv.ms/1aQrBap

Can someone please explain how you take photos with this stupid phone?

Thanks.

 

[montsa007]

Either you messed with settings or shook the phone before the shot was taken.

 

[mariusmuntean]

it's the Amber update, if you have it installed. Nokia messed things up. try using Camera app instead of procam

 

[N_LaRUE]

I took some pictures at a concert last night and every single one of them is blurry and unusable. Here are some examples:

http://sdrv.ms/19OowVT

http://sdrv.ms/GZlqIi

http://sdrv.ms/1aQrBap

Can someone please explain how you take photos with this stupid phone?

Thanks.

I love how people blame technology over themselves.

Night photos, regardless of how good the camera is, are difficult to take. Unfortunately I can't see your photos (you can just post them into the thread you know) now but going by what's written so far my guess is that you moved the camera before the shutter was closed creating the blur effect. Being patient is important when working at night or dark places. Having a steady hand or a tripod would be best. You can try different settings in the phone to get the effects you want.

Just because the phone takes good shots at night or in the dark doesn't mean you can just point and shoot and get a great picture.

 

[icstars989]

Pretty much what n_La said. Even my Nikon D700 would have trouble with those shots without a tripod. 2 huge rules in Photography, you need light and if you don't have enough you need to be steady. For the 928 adjust your ISO to 800 and speed up your shutter. But like what has been said before, you need to be steady regardless of camera.

 

[psiu_glen]

Couple things, some as mentioned above:
Hold er steady;
Speed it up (motion on the last one)
You could tweak exposure a hair up to help with the above;
And I think manual focus would have helped the most, though I'm not sure how far out the 928 focuses.
Oh yeah. It is only 8 mp, so no magical 1020 zoom for us

 

[Jason Drum]

it's the Amber update, if you have it installed. Nokia messed things up. try using Camera app instead of procam

I had zero problems taking nice pictures with the Amber update.

 

[alv3st3r]

Avoid the camera shutter key and try to take pictures by tapping on the screen. It'll reduce the shake as opposed to caused by pressing the shutter key.

 

[mooreted]

I held it with both hands. Held down the button until it focused. Took the picture, and held the phone until the image showed up on the screen. Everything was set to auto.

 

[mooreted]

it's the Amber update, if you have it installed. Nokia messed things up. try using Camera app instead of procam

I will try that next time.

 

[mooreted]

I love how people blame technology over themselves.

Night photos, regardless of how good the camera is, are difficult to take. Unfortunately I can't see your photos (you can just post them into the thread you know) now but going by what's written so far my guess is that you moved the camera before the shutter was closed creating the blur effect. Being patient is important when working at night or dark places. Having a steady hand or a tripod would be best. You can try different settings in the phone to get the effects you want.

Just because the phone takes good shots at night or in the dark doesn't mean you can just point and shoot and get a great picture.

I was trying to be as careful and steady as I could. I'm not a photography expert, I just wanted to take some pictures.

 

[mooreted]

Pretty much what n_La said. Even my Nikon D700 would have trouble with those shots without a tripod. 2 huge rules in Photography, you need light and if you don't have enough you need to be steady. For the 928 adjust your ISO to 800 and speed up your shutter. But like what has been said before, you need to be steady regardless of camera.

I will try 800 next time, maybe that will help.

 

[mooreted]

Avoid the camera shutter key and try to take pictures by tapping on the screen. It'll reduce the shake as opposed to caused by pressing the shutter key.

I will try that, thanks.

 

[montsa007]

I will try that, thanks.

Make sure that setting is turned on.

 

[gapost]

Quit blaming the Amber update.

It looks to me like you were in the upper section and zoomed in quite a bit and tried to take it in a dark place. Did you try taking photos outside or in regular light?

 

[mooreted]

Quit blaming the Amber update.

It looks to me like you were in the upper section and zoomed in quite a bit and tried to take it in a dark place. Did you try taking photos outside or in regular light?

Outside in sunlight I can take pictures. I've never really used a camera before so I'm trying to read about photography, but I don't really know what I'm doing.

 

[Jason Drum]

I'd put money on a combination of using the shutter key instead of the screen and the dark atmosphere. Even when you are trying to be as careful as possible, movement will be captured. If nothing else, try to prop the phone on a stationary surface to hold it more steady.

 

[montsa007]

Use Blink Lens instead

 

[hopmedic]

Ok, I can't see the pictures because here at work they block SkyDrive. But based on what others have said, and your statement that you've not really used a camera before, let me offer some advice.

First, the lower the light, the longer the exposure, all other things being kept the same. This means that the sensor is gathering light for a longer period of time, and during that time period, motion will result in blur. How noticeable that blur is depends on a few things, but mostly the focal length and the amount of motion. This means that the more zoomed in you are, the more noticeable the motion blur will be. What all this adds up to is that while holding still while taking any picture is important, in lower light it becomes far more so.

While the camera on the 928 has OIS - Optical Image Stabilization - it can't account for all motion. The way OIS works in most modern cameras is that the lens (or in some cases the sensor) is stabilized by a gyro, and moves in response to movement of the camera body/lens. So if I'm holding my camera with OIS (shown below), and I move to the left slightly, the lenses will adjust to the right, to keep the image that is projected onto the sensor stable.



The motion that can be compensated for by the gyros is small, so even using a $2500 (retail) lens, I have to hold very still while shooting. Likewise, you need to keep very still with the 928, while shooting in low light, because it can't compensate for much movement, either. The OIS is not geared so much as to compensate for body movement as it is to compensate for the very minor movements of muscle twitching and even the pulse caused by the beat of your heart. Yes, a heartbeat can cause motion blur, and a good photographer will time the shutter-squeeze between heartbeats if he can in the situation.

The OIS in the 928 is a bit different than what I have in my high-dollar lens. In the 928, instead of having gyros to compensate for movement by moving lenses, the entire camera assembly is mounted on very small springs. So my guess is that the 928 can compensate for even less motion than my big lens, but hey, you can't fit all that junk into a phone, now can you? Still, the principle is the same - if the phone camera moves to the left a bit, the mass of the camera/sensor assembly causes the springs to flex a bit to the right, thereby keeping the image projected to the sensor lined up.

So here's a question to ask yourself the next time you're trying to take a low-light image: Just how much can those tiny springs flex to keep the image lined up on the sensor?

Does this help? Oh - and if you would post your images to the forum instead or in addition to SkyDrive, more people will be able to see them. :wink:

 

[unstoppablekem]

it's the Amber update, if you have it installed. Nokia messed things up. try using Camera app instead of procam

I would think they would improve the camera after an update, not make it worse.