Camera Resolution and Emailing Photos

[Bleser]

Hi folks,

My wife and I recently moved to WP8 devices (from Android), and we're loving it.

My wife got an 8XT. Love the phone, and she is really impressed with WP8 so far. However, I've been a bit on the fence about the camera. It is fast, but images are grainy and the white-balance is typically off, as well as the ISO set too high when left ot 'auto'. This is all with either the HTC or default camera app. Her older Samsung Galaxy S2 was slower, but photo quality was better.

What settings are you guys using? I've got her phone set to limit the ISO to 800, which helps. I don't see a setting for resolution, which is weird, as I don't know what it is using. My Samsung Ativ S Neo has this option available to set, so I don't know why I don't see it on the 8XT. Also, reviewers generally say the 8XT's camera is "very good", so I don't know why I'm not seeing it.

Another question is probably more with WP8 itself. When I email an image as an attachement, it seem to auto-compress the photo to about 350KB. Is there a way to send the full/unaltered image? That could be part of the problem I'm seeing.

Thanks!

 

[Microsoftjunkie]

One thing to note first. "Auto" is automatic destruction of photos. More inside pics than anything. Inside photos should always be used at a slower shutter speed, something auto or any settings with the stock app can't accomplish.

So for starters, buy an app. Either ProShot or a highly reviewed app.

And to prove what I'm saying, just take an inside shot (low light), using stock app then using a 1/2/.5 shutter speed in one of the apps. Its like night and day.

8x user here, same camera sensor.

You can't change the email part, but you should've made a "Room" to share photos with, or at least use bt as I don't see any compression.

 

[Bleser]

Thanks, I'll give that a try. I'm trying to make this as simple as possible as this is for my wife and she could care less about photo settings - 'auto' worked quite well on her GS2 so she expects it to work well here, too. Will the 'auto' mode of somethign like ProShot be an improvement?

We have a room, and will share that way, too. But, my grandparents are only about as advanced as email, so that is where that question came from. They sometimes print the photos we email, and if they try to print the compressed stuff it will look horrid.

 

[dorelse]

Thanks, I'll give that a try. I'm trying to make this as simple as possible as this is for my wife and she could care less about photo settings - 'auto' worked quite well on her GS2 so she expects it to work well here, too. Will the 'auto' mode of somethign like ProShot be an improvement?

We have a room, and will share that way, too. But, my grandparents are only about as advanced as email, so that is where that question came from. They sometimes print the photos we email, and if they try to print the compressed stuff it will look horrid.

I don't know if this will help or not, but, I upload my photos to a Picaca Web Album for the grandparents to see. Any physical prints my mother wants, I send to Walgreen's and she picks them up a her local store.

We're working on the part where she prints them herself to Walgreens, but you know...by the time she gets the steps all written down on her recipe cards, the process changes slightly and she can't do it. Now I just have them printed to Walgreens and tell her they're ready.

 

[Microsoftjunkie]

Not really. Auto settings seem about the same on all apps, but the beauty with ProShot is that you can pin different user configured modes.

Do your grandparents have a WP? If not , they can still still have access to your "Rooms" photo folder. If they do, they can just use that folder in the Walgreens app to print.

 

[Bleser]

I don't know if this will help or not, but, I upload my photos to a Picaca Web Album for the grandparents to see. Any physical prints my mother wants, I send to Walgreen's and she picks them up a her local store.

We're working on the part where she prints them herself to Walgreens, but you know...by the time she gets the steps all written down on her recipe cards, the process changes slightly and she can't do it. Now I just have them printed to Walgreens and tell her they're ready.

Not really. Auto settings seem about the same on all apps, but the beauty with ProShot is that you can pin different user configured modes.

Do your grandparents have a WP? If not , they can still still have access to your "Rooms" photo folder. If they do, they can just use that folder in the Walgreens app to print.

Yes, this is really just the method my wife uses to send them "moments" throughout the day. When they want to print real photos, I usally hand them over on a thumb drive. They live in a rural area and have satellite Internet and NO cell coverage, so they don't even have smartphones. I think I'd have to text them an invite, and they don't have texting phones.

The grandparent thing was really just a side story; my primary focus was how to get "orignial" images off my wife's camera roll beyond accesisng SkyDrive. Android emailed the orignial photo; WP8 seems to auto-compress; I wish I could turn this off.

Does ProShot expose resolution settings for the 8XT?

 

[Bleser]

Based on the knowledge I gained here that the 8X and 8XT share the same camera sensor, I found some good photo settings guides online and played with that. I thought I'd share my settings in this thread since I am now VERY happy with the photos the phone is taking.

From the default, I set this:

• Aspect Ratio - Normal (was wide) - based on suggestion that this matches the sensor's dimensions and results in better overall quality.
• Sharpness - Loweset - this was the single-biggest change! The graininess I was seeing was really just amplified by the default sharpness setting. Moving this to lowest really 'improved' the quality as it softened things up and really got me to where the photo quality was with previous phones.
• Exposure - Lower - This helped a lot with indoor shots where sunlight was coming in a window. Faces were being very washed-out at the default setting; this reduces detail in dark areas but makes the overall image much more natural.
• Saturation - Lower - I'm still on the fence about this one but some colors were just way too vibrant and this results in a more natural look. It washes out some colors a tad too much, but overall the image is improved.

Thought's I'd share. Thanks for everyone's responses.