topic Re: Different camera quality on phones, same exact settings in XPERIA archive

Different camera quality on phones, same exact settings

Lieniitte — Tue, 17 May 2016 19:52:08 GMT

Ello, everyone who is reading this!

So me and my mother both have Sony Xperia Z3 phones. Same exact model, D6603.

one day we were out for a walk and took the same photo of the setting sun at the same time, right next to each other. And noticed that my camera's picture was a lot worse, even though both of us were using the exact same settings and both were using Superior Auto. We know it's only 8mp. I will try to add images with captions at the end of the thread if possible to show what I mean.

So we did a few more tests indoors and yes, my phone takes not only pictures not as vividly, but also blurrier. No I have not dropped it, no I have not ruined my phone in any way.

So then my mom for certain reasons bought a second phone of the same, a Z3. This was a couple of weeks ago. She decided to use the new one and transferred everything to the new phone. Yet when she tried the camera, she said it was also bad quality, like mine. Now I didn't see it then, so I can't say if it really was. But she said she messed around with settings and the problem was fixed and then we tested all 3 phones side by sade at the same time in many different instances and yes, her old one and new one were both good quality, and mine terrible.

Then i decided that I will take her old phone. So we reset her old phone, I transferred everything to it and tried the camera. It is terrible. It worked perfectly when my mother was using it. Now when I put it on my account, it is terrible, just like my old one. I haven't even downloaded many apps yet. And the settings are exactly the same. My mother tried messing around with it again, but nothing helped. All are using Android 6.0. Now when taking photos with all of them side by side, her new one is the only one that takes good photos that are not blurry and have good quality. Again, they all have the exact same setting in the camera when taking the same picture.

Now I know that her old camera, the one I am using now, has the capability of taking good pictures, because it did when she was using it just a few days ago. So what is the problem? how do you fix it? It's really making me frustrated.. The only thing I found online about anything changing the quality os something about bootloader. But I don't know what Bootloader is and I don't think it was the factory reset that changed the quality, because I never did a factory reset on my original phone and all of them were bought at the same store.
All phoes were updated to Android 6.0, but the update changed nothing. My original stayed bad quality and my mother's original and new ones stayed good quality. Her old one only became bad after reset, but it was still Android 6.0.

I have put an explanation of the pictures above each one. None of these pictures are edited in any way at all. All are exactly as they came from the phones. And with the sunset pictures, they really were at the same time. Yes I know a sunset changes, but even after we finished taking pictures, the sunset was still there and it looked like it did on my mother's phone, not like on mine. This is why we noticed a difference in the cameras, because I took a photo of the same exact sunset as her and it came out not like it should. none of my phone's pictures come out good, but all of hers do.

All of these happen to be taken with Superior Auto mode, but the result is the same even if we use Manual mode with same exact settings. And the same issue is there when using the front facing camera.

Sunset picture with my original phone, terrible.

Sunset picture taken with my mother's original phone at the same time as the one above with my phone. And the file is actually cropped and in worse quality than before, so the original of this picture was even better quality than you see here .But the color difference is huge between this and the one with my phone.

This is a screenshot. This is a zoomed in part of a picture taken with my original phone, the one I had from the beginning.

This is a zoomed in part of a pucture taken with my mother's original phone while she was using it and it had not ben reset to defaults. The picture was taken at the same time as the above one with my original phone. The phone this one was taken with is the one that wa afterwards reset and I am now usng, and it now takes pictures like the above picture instead of like the one below. So that just proves it's not a defect in the phone, that it is possible for this phone to take good quality pictures again.

This is one taken with my mother's old phone, after the reset, now when I am using it.

This one is taken at the same time as the above picture, but this is with my mother's new phone. When you zoom in you can see that the difference in qualiy is about the same as the 2 pictures above that are zoomed in.

Re: Different camera quality on phones, same exact settings

Uliwooly — Tue, 17 May 2016 19:56:52 GMT

@Lieniitte

I can't see the pictures just yet, but if the camera quality it's not good, you can contact your Local support to get it inspected, check if the are scratches on the camera lens.

Re: Different camera quality on phones, same exact settings

Lieniitte — Tue, 17 May 2016 20:12:51 GMT

@uliwooly wrote:
@Lieniitte
I can't see the pictures just yet, but if the camera quality it's not good, you can contact your Local support to get it inspected, check if the are scratches on the camera lens.

Thanks for the reply. But it's defintiely not scratches. The same phone that was good was suddenly bad after reset. It has to be something in the settings somewhere, or the software, or something.

I live in Norway, I would have to go to the store and even then I don't know how possible it would be.

Is there a reason you can't see the pictures? When I open the thread I see them there. Will anyone other than me be able to see them?

Re: Different camera quality on phones, same exact settings

Lord_viridis — Tue, 17 May 2016 20:13:29 GMT

Problem is, even if both on auto, you gotta make sure each frame is exactly the same too.
SA will analyse the WHOLE frame and adjust based on what is inside the frame. It means pictures can come out far different if even a few inches out of frame

Re: Different camera quality on phones, same exact settings

Lieniitte — Tue, 17 May 2016 20:16:39 GMT

@Viridis wrote:
Problem is, even if both on auto, you gotta make sure each frame is exactly the same too.
SA will analyse the WHOLE frame and adjust based on what is inside the frame. It means pictures can come out far different if even a few inches out of frame

Thanks for the reply. But this has been tested multiple times. Literally, on about 20 different occasions, in 20 different places. If it was just something about a mm difference, you would think that at least some of the time my old phone would have the better picture. But it's always mine that has the bad one. Ans for instance, with the sunset photos, both me and my mom each took about 10 photos. And all of mine were bad, all of hers were good and we were not using tripods or anything, so there was definitely a difference by cm or inches between each picture on the same device even, so if it was that kind of a problem, you would think that there would be a difference between photos on the same device, but there wasn't. And the result is the same even in manual mode with the same setting turned on. And it's the same with the front facing cameras too. And it's not me that's the problem either, because the result is the same if my mother takes the photos on all devices and the same if I am the one who takes them.

Re: Different camera quality on phones, same exact settings

Lord_viridis — Wed, 18 May 2016 00:45:07 GMT

Are they both on same firmwares?

Re: Different camera quality on phones, same exact settings

Lieniitte — Wed, 18 May 2016 01:29:47 GMT

@Viridis wrote:
Are they both on same firmwares?

All 3 phones have all the exacy same numbers, exact build number, system version, everything is the same. I just checked. Of course, I didn't check the phone that used to have good quality pictures before the reset, but I assume it was the same everything then too, since they're all the same now too.

I've been messing around with settings for another hour now and still have no difference. Quality is just bad on 2 of the 3 phones. Before reset was bad on 1 of the 3.

Really frustrating, especially because the phone I switched to took good quality photos before we switched them up. It's the whole reason why I started using it instead of the one I had before. But now that one is just as bad.

I'll take them into the store where we bought them tomorrow, but I'm not holding much hope that they will know what the issue is.

Re: Different camera quality on phones, same exact settings

Uliwooly — Wed, 18 May 2016 01:57:02 GMT

I can see the pictures now, they are not taken at the same time, you can tell that on the first picture was focused on the bottom, the second was focused on the sunset, which will make the clouds look amazing, again, this is based on what you've posted, I don't see anything wrong with it, only on how you use the camera

Re: Different camera quality on phones, same exact settings

Lieniitte — Wed, 18 May 2016 03:36:27 GMT

@uliwooly wrote:
I can see the pictures now, they are not taken at the same time, you can tell that on the first picture was focused on the bottom, the second was focused on the sunset, which will make the clouds look amazing, again, this is based on what you've posted, I don't see anything wrong with it, only on how you use the camera

Thanks again for the reply.

But I can guarantee with 10000% certainty that it is the camera's fault and not the person taking the photos.

I only posted a couple of images, I have tons where this same things happens.

I can see why people would say they're not taken at the same time, because the pictures are so different. But that's exactly the problem. The camera of my phone is much, much worse. Not in focus and terrible colors. This happens in every situation we take photos with all the phones. In the original post I mentioned the bad camera not being in focus and having worse colors, the sunset picture is one of many like that. If needed, later today when I see my mom I can take both (all 3) phones and take a photo of something with a tripod, so all would be from the exact same place and somehow find a way to post a time stamp of when it is taken to prove it's the same time. I guarantee they will be vastly different just like in the photos I origianlly posted.

And the darker photo of the sunset, I did focus it on the sunset. Because with my old phone, an htc, the area where you focus the camera with touch focus would really change the overall picture. A lot. And even though I realized it doesn't do the same with this Z3, I still have a habit of touch focusing it like I did with the htc, because as mentioned, it really is supposed to change a lot. So I still do it even though it doesn't change a thing on this phone.

I am actually a photographer and I know how all of that should work and it just doesn't with this camera. The sunset photo is simply zoomed in because when seinding it from my mother's phone it changed the size of it for some reason. The darker photo is not focused elsewhere, it is blurrier because the camera just takes blurrier pictures overall. Same outdoors and indoors. And the camera that used to take good photos before factory reset now takes photos that are just as blurry as well. So the camera itself does have the capability to take good photos like it used to. But since the reset it just doesn't.

I also guarantee that they were taken at the same time. We stood there for about 5 minutes. In that time we both took about 10 pictures each. Every single one of mine came out this way and hers that way. I even went into manual mode and changed a bunch of settings thinking it is just something in the settings of Superior Auto causing this problem. I know manual mode very well as a photographer, but that didn't help a thing with this camera in that situation or any situation with is since then.

The pictures really are at the same time.
And it's got to be something in the software or settings that are found elsewhere and not in the camera itself, because the camera that the good sunset photo was taken with is now just as bad as the other after we reset to factory defaults.

I had noticed that the camera wasn't as good as it had been advertised right when I got the phone but I figured people were just exaggerating how good it is supposed to be. That is until we compared mine and my mother's phones.

If it was just the way that the photos are being taken that's the problem, then all the photos taken by me would be bad, no matter if I take them with my camera or my mom's camera. But that's not the case. it's the camera, no matter who it is taking the photos.
I apologize if I come off angry, I'm not. But I am frustrated with the issue, since I bought the phone for the camera, then switched to my mom's old one because the camera was better, yet the problem came up again after a reinstall.
I also thought about maybe it being an app that I use and she doesn't causing the issue, but I haven't installed many yet and I deleted all the ones that she doesn't use and restarted the phone and the problem was still the same.

Now it looks like maybe something was wiped when the phone was reset to defaults and I wonder what it might have been, software or settings or what. I'm not a technical expert by any means. But I do know cameras.

Re: Different camera quality on phones, same exact settings

Uliwooly — Wed, 18 May 2016 18:42:27 GMT

@Lieniitte

You should get your device inspected by your Local support

Re: Different camera quality on phones, same exact settings

Darthpilsner — Sat, 21 May 2016 08:40:43 GMT

Did you unlock the bootloader? I hear if you unlock the bootloader the camera quality goes down for some reason

Re: Different camera quality on phones, same exact settings

Uliwooly — Wed, 25 May 2016 01:26:24 GMT

@Darthpilsner

That's a great question, unlocking the bootloader will affect the camera, even if the bootloader was relocked

@Lieniitte