OpenCamera is pretty damn good, offering pretty much all the manual settings you could want.
There is only one downside to it:
As far as I know, it can only use the phones (back and front) main camera lens. So if your phone has extra lenses for tele, night mode or whatever, OpenCamera can’t do anything with them.
OpenCamera can use both back lenses on my Samsung. My beef about it is that it’s manual-select only, whereas with the built-in app the lense selection is a function of the zoom level. It’s another dial to have to fiddle with often resulting in a missed photo.
That’s a massive downside IMO. I still use it, but not having access to basic things like the macro or wide angle lens or slow motion capture is a major issue that I always find incredibly annoying. My camera is a lot less useful with that app, and I tend to just not take pictures anymore because of it.
I opted for OpemCamera specifically because it allows so much manual control. I absolutely love it.
For someone seeking a point-and-shoot experience though, OpenCamera isn’t really there, and I don’t know any other FOSS app that does it right while striking a balance between clean UX, exposed features, and optimizing the ISO and shutter (dependent on environment, WB & lighting conditions) to take pictures crazy fast. There is also this odd bug on my device where the left and right audio channels are swapped during video recording.
IMO the Galaxy S4 and S5 series absolutely nailed the perfect camera UX with the stock app, most since then have just been “inspired” by iOS and aren’t all that intuitive.
Closed source, modified GCam is the only alternative I can think of
the LineageOS default cam can use all the lenses, but doesn’t have any useful manual settings.
Nope, not on my one+ 9pro at least. It’s the same as opencamera, but without the manual control. So it’s even worse.
Edit: no it does have access to all lenses actually, the auto-focus on the macro lens just doesn’t work (making that one useless). It still doesn’t do slow-motion though.
Oh wow, so it’s even worse than I thought. It works on my one+ 5t, but maybe because I’m running DivestOS? Or one+ has just closed down the camera api on newer models
it does have access to all lenses actually, the auto-focus on the macro lens just doesn’t work (making that one useless). It still doesn’t do slow-motion recording though.
OpenCamera is pretty damn good, offering pretty much all the manual settings you could want.
There is only one downside to it:
As far as I know, it can only use the phones (back and front) main camera lens. So if your phone has extra lenses for tele, night mode or whatever, OpenCamera can’t do anything with them.
At least from my experience.
OpenCamera can use both back lenses on my Samsung. My beef about it is that it’s manual-select only, whereas with the built-in app the lense selection is a function of the zoom level. It’s another dial to have to fiddle with often resulting in a missed photo.
Interesting, so it seems to depend on how accessible the manufacturer makes their camera api?
Does that make sense? I don’t know much about how this all works, to be honest
I don’t know how it works under the covers, but your guess seems reasonable to me.
That’s a massive downside IMO. I still use it, but not having access to basic things like the macro or wide angle lens or slow motion capture is a major issue that I always find incredibly annoying. My camera is a lot less useful with that app, and I tend to just not take pictures anymore because of it.
I opted for OpemCamera specifically because it allows so much manual control. I absolutely love it.
For someone seeking a point-and-shoot experience though, OpenCamera isn’t really there, and I don’t know any other FOSS app that does it right while striking a balance between clean UX, exposed features, and optimizing the ISO and shutter (dependent on environment, WB & lighting conditions) to take pictures crazy fast. There is also this odd bug on my device where the left and right audio channels are swapped during video recording.
IMO the Galaxy S4 and S5 series absolutely nailed the perfect camera UX with the stock app, most since then have just been “inspired” by iOS and aren’t all that intuitive.
Closed source, modified GCam is the only alternative I can think of
Yeah, the only alternative I know of would be Gcam with unnecessary permissions removed.
Other than that, the LineageOS default cam can use all the lenses, but doesn’t have any useful manual settings.
Nope, not on my one+ 9pro at least. It’s the same as opencamera, but without the manual control. So it’s even worse.
Edit: no it does have access to all lenses actually, the auto-focus on the macro lens just doesn’t work (making that one useless). It still doesn’t do slow-motion though.
Oh wow, so it’s even worse than I thought. It works on my one+ 5t, but maybe because I’m running DivestOS? Or one+ has just closed down the camera api on newer models
I updated my comment, I was mistaken.
it does have access to all lenses actually, the auto-focus on the macro lens just doesn’t work (making that one useless). It still doesn’t do slow-motion recording though.
Ohhh, okay. Gotta say, wouldn’t have surprised me though.
So you basically have a fixed focus distance, or is it all over the place because the auto-focus freaks out?
It’s fixed focus, but at the maximum distance which is pretty close the minimum distance for the regular lense.
Oh, that sounds annoying. If it’s any consolation, there’s clip-on macro lenses for closer focus that can be had for just a few bucks.
Speaking from experience, you can produce some really cool shots with those, if there isn’t any other solution for that problem.