Still having Camera Focus / Softening Issues in Portico

[ARVI_SD]

anyone knows when it will be improved/receive updates for the camera?

i have been using with portico for a while but still the focus issue is not fixed 100%.

really bad to see the camera has so much potential but not able to capture the images with good sharpness

 

[TK2011]

How much softness are you seeing? Gross or just minor that you have to zoom in to notice? Just curious. A sample picture?

I believe auto focus on this camera misses target on occasion. Usually it's when you are aiming kind of plain scene without much contrast. When it happens, I see very blurry output, it's very obvious. It doesn't happen often enough to bother me a lot though.

 

[ZiiimZooon]

I think mine has that problem too..

Are any of these pictures considered as sharp or just good for the L920?
https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=74C72DE0931E6801!166&authkey=!AFuAybvRwKMXP_Y

I also found out that when the camera focus, it starts to make it sharp but in the end it softs the picture :/

 

[ARVI_SD]

softness is lot noticeable

when i half click on the camera button and comparing against the actual picture taken.

at half click the frame is sharp and focused 100% but the picture is awfully soft.

i know its a case for everyone with portico or non portico. wanted to check if there is any update coming at all to fix them.

 

[Alex Kj]

anyone knows when it will be improved/receive updates for the camera?

No, there hasn't been any word from Nokia about this. I'm sure they are aware of this, though, and will release some auto-focus and auto white balance improvement patches in future.

 

[TK2011]

Your pictures in the pictures thread looked perfectly normal to me. Lots of people including me "liked" your posts! lol

And not sure how you can say it's a problem for everyone. Mine certainly doesn't have that kind of problem.

 

[dht1986]

I have the same issue. Unless contrast in the scene is very sharp, the camera never gets a focus lock. I find this is particularly a problem when taking pictures of things at a distance - like landscape views. When it does get a focus lock, the pictures are great, but this often doesn't occur.

For those who (like myself) complain about soft pictures, is your phone actually getting a focus lock? I find that the camera seems to pass right through the focus point during the auto focus, but never catches it.

This isn't a problem with all 920's though. A colleague of mine recently got the 920, and I was able to get an autofocus with his camera in the same situation that I could not with mine. In case anyone is curious, I installed the Portico update.

 

[NinjaPenguin777]

It seems like the 920 does really good up close photos, but when the shot gets further away, the shot gets worse. That's how it has been for me

 

[ARVI_SD]

Your pictures in the pictures thread looked perfectly normal to me. Lots of people including me "liked" your posts! lol

And not sure how you can say it's a problem for everyone. Mine certainly doesn't have that kind of problem.

Thanks and i really love the pics from the camera and i use it a lot for pictures and videos. but im sure it can do better if there is some software fix for the auto focus/lock the image.

as others in the thread point out the problem is bigger is your in a outdoor with objects far apart. (preview and half click seems to capture great but the outcome pic is not)

 

[TK2011]

I have the same issue. Unless contrast in the scene is very sharp, the camera never gets a focus lock. I find this is particularly a problem when taking pictures of things at a distance - like landscape views. When it does get a focus lock, the pictures are great, but this often doesn't occur.

For those who (like myself) complain about soft pictures, is your phone actually getting a focus lock? I find that the camera seems to pass right through the focus point during the auto focus, but never catches it.

This isn't a problem with all 920's though. A colleague of mine recently got the 920, and I was able to get an autofocus with his camera in the same situation that I could not with mine. In case anyone is curious, I installed the Portico update.

It happens once in a while with certain scenes (like grass field) but for me it usually works fine if I just try again. I think the AF sometimes doesn't converge properly if the scene has nothing obvious to lock on. DSLRs also have this kind of issue where if your AF area has only tiny objects (as seen by the camera) that are hard to lock to. My Nikon D7000 manual specifically warns about such case. 920 has much wider depth of field and AF error probably shouldn't happen as often though. It would be good if they can improve it but I wouldn't hold my breath for an update.

 

[ARVI_SD]

ok. got it.

here is one example of the softening issue. when i half clicked it - focus was right on pier and buildings on the background. if that wasnt the case - i wouldnt be disappointed.:unhappysweat:

 

[TK2011]

ok. got it.

here is one example of the softening issue. when i half clicked it - focus was right on pier and buildings on the background. if that wasnt the case - i wouldnt be disappointed.:unhappysweat:


View attachment 27533

It's a down sized image so I can't tell for sure, but the pier and buildings in the middle seem pretty sharp to me. Are you talking about softness of the buildings on the far left? If your lens was clean, I think it's just optical degradation you always find on corners of any lens (especially wide angle ones like this). Sometimes it's not noticeable and sometimes it's more obvious like this one. I've seen it happen on my pictures and many others in the pictures thread. Most times interesting objects are in the middle of picture or the corners are simply bokeh'ed out, so people just don't notice them, but it's usually there. Nothing particular wrong with your phone and it's not SW fixable.

Some reading material for anyone interested in corner sharpness:
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/mtf.htm

 

[barareklam]

I am having same problems, difficult to find focus point, if object is closer to the phone it is sharper for me. Close up shots are the most sharp one.
Regarding complaint about "preview looks sharp and then I take picture and it is not that sharp anymore" I believe that following is going on, software have two algorithms for displaying pictures, " previev mode" which is fast real time and does not interpolate between the pixels, and then photo viewer which display pictures with "smooth" pixel-interpolated software. At least that is the case on my Lumia 920. Because when I upload hi-res picture to skydrive and then compare very same picture on my phone and on PC screen it is much sharper on PC.
I have posted suggestion on microsofts user voice to improve photo viewer to show picture sharp as they are, now it is to users to vote for this proposal

 

[tositem]

It seems like the 920 does really good up close photos, but when the shot gets further away, the shot gets worse. That's how it has been for me

Yes, i also notice this. BTW, after the portico update, the same issue still occurs and the bad thing is: my battery drops up to 18% within an hour with wifi off & data turned off. Weird, isn't it?