Database Develop

Increase shutter speed on camera?

I noticed that in environments where the light source is low, the tytn 2 always tries to make pictures that are very bright and vivid. That's why the camera is really a pain in the ass to use when there's not much light. The screen moves really slowly and the focus is also really slow. This way it's almost impossible to make pictures that are sharp. When i shoot pictures outside, it focuses really fast and the pictures are sharp.
Personally, i can live with pictures that are less vidid and bright. Isn't there a way to set the shutterspeed at like 1/50 for all times? Because now it seems it automatically adjusts the shutterspeed to somewhere near 1/10 in those less light environments.

The camera app in the Kaiser is a piece of sh*t. Not only does it switch to night mode automatically without allowing any manual control over this, but the settings now list two options that are no longer adjustable:
- Prefix: for photo file names; in the Hermes you could set this to use date and time as the file name.
- Capture Format: there's only one choice: JPEG. This was the same in the Hermes while the Prophet's camera gave one more choice: BMP.
I am NOT looking forward to the next ROM update from HTC. It will probably take away something more from the camera that is useful!

Shutter speed is result of 3 issues:
-Ambient light (available light)
-Aperture
-ISO
You can manually make the shutter speed faster in a DSLR (camera with detacheable lens) but will probably result in an underexposed image.
So to make the shutter speed faster on the TyTN II you would have to either raise the ISO or widen the aperture. Both are not possible! The best you can do is increase exposure to +2 or use a flash.
The focus is slow because:
- the scene is dark! Hard for little crosshair to focus.
Try this tip, when focusing try to focus on a contrasty area of the screen! Avoid areas that are bland, one color, monotonous. For example focus on where the door pane ends and the wall begins!

CorruptedSanity said:
You can manually make the shutter speed faster in a DSLR (camera with detacheable lens) but will probably result in an underexposed image.
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On a DSLR you can usually change shutter speed, aperture size and ISO speed independently (in full manual mode). On a Canon DSLR and probably on most other vendors' DLSRs also, you also have "program" modes, where you can change one or two parameters and have the camera adjust the third parameter automatically.
The problem with Kaiser's camera is that it does not allow manual selection of Night mode. It switches to this automatically. At my home my TyTN II switches to night mode when I am taking photos in my living room at noon time on a cloud-free sunny day! I really miss my old JASJAM :-(
Edit: My comment in my previous post about the Prefix setting is actually explained in the instruction book, on page 205 in the English TyTN II manual. If you save your photos to a storage card then it follows a standard naming convention which I've seen is common with most digicams.
On page 204 there is a lovely explanation to the Capture Format setting:
Capture Format. Select the desired file format.
But they do not expand more on this to explain all the choices available.

when coolcamera decides to support the kaiser we will not have to worry about any of this, but for now, we need to figure out something. im sure somewhere in the registry we can disable night mode, or atleast i think we should be able to...

mikeeey said:
when coolcamera decides to support the kaiser we will not have to worry about any of this, but for now, we need to figure out something. im sure somewhere in the registry we can disable night mode, or atleast i think we should be able to...
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Indeed. I'm sure there are people here that are able to find out where this setting is beging saved.

Unfortuantely, it's much more than just software. Though a software update would be nice. It's also about the speed of the CMOS image sensor, in which HTC chose to be super cheap. And, to some extent the speed of the image processing chip in the phone. On camera setups like that's on the Kaiser and all other cell phones, plus on most web cams, etc etc, there is no setting for apature or ISO. It's all mimiced in software. And the software is only able to do what it does with the information CMOS is able to send it, and how fast.
Bottom line is, the camera in the Kaiser is not good. Period. Only way to truely get better is to wait for a new phone with better hardware.
To those camera buff types: Nobody expects DSLR quality out of a cell phone. But we do, and should expect a phone to be able to snap a picture in a normal room under decent tungsten lighting without the worry of blurry or dark pictures. Those two problems are never a result of the optics or size of the CMOS, but rather the speed of the CMOS and the quality/speed of the processing chip for the CMOS. If you put the CMOS in the Kaiser inside a Canon D30, you'd still get blurry and bad pictures.

I know the camera isn't that great, but the pictures it makes in darker environments are always very bright. So there has to be something that makes the camera adjusts its shutter speed to the amount of light there is. I guess this 'thing' can be found and can be changed, right?

scottwilkins said:
To those camera buff types: Nobody expects DSLR quality out of a cell phone.
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But we DO expect 3 megapixel quality out of a cell phone that states it has a 3 megapixel camera.
The Kaiser is capable of taking good pictures. I've seen numerous threads about the Kaiser's camera on many sites, including this one, and in nearly all of those threads there were people who were able to get great pictures. In one of the threads, someone had mentioned that they reviewed a pre-production Kaiser, and they said there was a huge difference between that camera and the production camera. I'll see if I can find that post...

Little kick

Come one, some whizzkid?

You'll probably have to wait for either HTC to release a new ROM for the Kaiser, or a ROM for another device with the same camera.

Awesome camera trick!!! (SPEEDY CAMERA FPS GUARANTEED)

This is more of a workaround then anything, but if you have a problem with the low lighting = low FPS try this....
Open up your camera, then turn off the screen with the camera still open.
Keep off for a few seconds....
Then turn it back on. Bam! Super fluid motion in the camera lens.
I have no idea why this works. Anyone have ideas?

redsrule2500 said:
I have no idea why this works. Anyone have ideas?
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Not to offend you, but mabe because it's been posted here several times
Just a guess

I've never seen it here...but why does it work????

redsrule2500 said:
I've never seen it here...but why does it work????
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its somewhere in one of these threads
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=365345
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=367065
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=369606

i think that a modertor should put this up on one of the sticky articles..
and in copy and paste the solution onto one of the stickys

wow cool, suprised I havent seen this before thanks for the info

Well, I'm also haven't seen this info before (how could I, the forum is loaded with humongous amount of info and it's virtually impossible to follow it all). But, anyway, this trick working like a charm, therefore redsrule2500, thanks a bunch!

Yes, it does appear to help the lag. Thanks.

Having taken some time in different light conditions I observe the following:
1
It does certainly work. However sometimes you need to turn off and on a couple of times.
2
If having done the on/off with camera app running trick, you point the camera at something very bright, the lag returns and you have to repeat the on/off trick.
3
Doing this trick reduces the cameras light sensitivity. So while it cuts out the lag/blurry focus on moving objects, it also reduces what the camera sees in dark conditions. For example before doing the trick, I focused the camera on people walking down a dark street with one or two street lights on. The people were blurry but the buildings were fine. I then did the trick. The people were no longer blurred as they walked. BUT, the camera no longer saw much of the buildings that were away from the street lights.
So to sum up.
Yes it reduces problems of focusing on moving objects at night.
But the price you pay is that there is a noticable reduction in what the camera can pick up in dark conditions.
It seems to be a trade off and so:
if there are no moving objects in the picture, you are better not to use the trick.
If there are moving objects, you need to decide whether it is more important that they are in focus or whether you want the camera to pick up as much detail as possible. If moving object focus is more important Do the trick.
Mike

oh my God!! it does work!
this is just so awesome!!!! woohoo!!!

mikechannon said:
...I focused the camera on people walking down a dark street with one or two street lights on.
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what are you doing in a dark street taking pics of people!?!
haha, just messing with you
i haven't tried this yet (dont use my camera much) but it has been posted before.

have you noticed that all focusand light effects dissapairs? I think it simply removes them, and thereby increasing the pref

Very handy trick. Thanks!

Awww cumon guys!!!
The 3mm aperture we have has to have a certain amount of time to grab the available light (simple terms for CCD charge accumulation!)
SO, HTC put in this thing called exposure control.
Sample time per frame is set to automatically check first seen light levels and set frame capture to best fit exposure/light level.
Try it in a big room at night, swing slowly around to a dark corner and then to a well lit area and you will see the frame rate change.
All you are doing is confusing the intial sample to default daylight.
We have a very basic camera but its a trade off with SPACE/POWER and a few other things.

Farsquidge said:
Awww cumon guys!!!
The 3mm aperture we have has to have a certain amount of time to grab the available light (simple terms for CCD charge accumulation!)
SO, HTC put in this thing called exposure control.
Sample time per frame is set to automatically check first seen light levels and set frame capture to best fit exposure/light level.
Try it in a big room at night, swing slowly around to a dark corner and then to a well lit area and you will see the frame rate change.
All you are doing is confusing the intial sample to default daylight.
We have a very basic camera but its a trade off with SPACE/POWER and a few other things.
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Click to collapse
While this is true, it doesn't mean this trick won't be helpful in a few situations.

AT&T Tilt Camera White Color Problem (Way too bright)

Hello guys!
I have the phone for 3-4 months now, and I used the camera only 3 times.
I noticed that the white color is very bright, and the photo becomes bad (please look at the photos attached). Can you tell me if your camera is having the same problem, or it's only me ?
If it's only me - do you have idea how can I try to fix it ?
Notes:
I changed the ROM 3 times /No difference
I changed the brightness/contrast in the settings, but there is no big difference ( the photo becomes better if I use brightness+contrast = max, but still the white is very bright)

both of these images are backlit... this is very hard for the camera to do, because the foreground is a low light situation... try to adjust the angle of the shot to avoid this situation. In the attached photos I have demonstrated what I am trying to say. These are pics of my 20 year old Cocker Spaniel, Sheeba. Notice in pic 01.jpg, her face is blown out. But in the second it is actually better, and in the third (as I move further around her) her face is now clearly visible.
Remember this is a Pocket PC, with a camera chip. Not a camera with a Pocket PC attached. With that in mind, this camera does a phenomenal job!
Hope this helps!
Also it looks like your lens is dirty, and make sure that the blue plastic is pulled off inside the battery cover...
For the picture of the child tilting the camera down more would have helped the light metering compensate better, see all of the area above his head, that is where most of the metering is taking place.

here is another example

You can also try lowering the brightness down to -1.5 or to your liking. It might help a little bit (it does to me)

Thanks a lot for the tips guys!
From what I'm seeing here the Tilt has just bad camera...
My wife has Samsung U600(with 3MP camera) and the pictures are way better than the Tilt ones.I guess I'll just use her phone.
Thanks again for your help!

You should try the camera outside in the daylight with a front-lit subject before you condemn it.... post some pics from your wifes Samsung for us to view then

Here is how the camera would have metered it (photoshop profile) had you not included the area where all of the light was.

The camera does work pretty awesome with the proper lighting...

Notice in the first two, pointing the camera down, so that the car is the majority of the picture, the camera meters for the car, overexposing the sky. Put pointing the camera up underexposes the car, but the sky is brilliant blue, instead of white....

Now I am not saying that this camera doesn't have problems... on the contrary, this camera has a light leak.. which is clearly obvious when every picture taken has the same Spike in photoshop's histogram. But an ounce of prevention, in this case is truly worth a pound of cure! Play with the camera, experiment with all of the settings, find out what you like best. But most important, just pay attention to the screen and move the camera up, or down, left, or right ever so slightly and watch how the exposure changes... It won't take long before you can take great pictures with it!
Oh yeah, and clean that lens every time you use it!

Odd camera quirks

I've just come back from holiday where I found myself taking quite a few snaps with the Diamond's camera rather than my usual camera simply because it was more convenient.
I don't normally bother with PDA cameras as they're pretty much rubbish but for quick snaps the Diamond's camera is not too shabby. However, I noticed some very strange quirks:-
1. It seems to try and detect the orientation of the camera using the G-sensor and rotates the image automatically. Most of the time it gets it wrong - is there any way to stop it from doing this so I can rotate my images manually? it really messes things up in Album!
2. In really bright light (such as shooting directly towards the sun) everything goes dark blue and grainy. It's actually quite nice (I have a Holga camera so quite into that sort of thing) but I can't think of an explanation for such behaviour!
See attached for an example.
Cheers
Dave

I got a very blueish picture on a bright day (though not against sunlight) too... Though taking a picture inside then yeilded fine colors (well, average quality). Dont know what cause it, must be a flaw in the color metering.
I really wouldnt use the camera for anything other than snapshots or when you dont have a camera around. Even at 3.2mpx like my old Canon A510 (a budget entry camera, hardly anything high end), the Canon beat the living snot out of it. I wont even begin to compare it with my F40fd (again, a budget cam).
Though I must say its much, much better than my old 1.3mpx K600i phone camera, lol.

I've certainly heard that overexposure can lead to a blueish tinge. So you might want to try manually cranking down the exposure and see if that helps next time.
In this case its more than a tint though, there is pretty much no red or green in the image and the contrast is off the charts. Interesting and fun pictures though.

The Diamond camera needs a UV filter as the chip is too sensitive to the high side of the spectrum. Mine is not as bad as yours- and I was taking photographs similar to yours, perhaps there are different back covers that provide filtering- I have the original Diamond cover.

i also had blue pics when taking pics against the sun but with my 4 megapicsel casio camera. last time it happened there where also ppl, (blue) in the pic lol. so, maybe it is not a diamond related problem.
have you tried using the inbuilt setups for exposure?
if i have no other choice an have to use the diamond as a camera i am always take out the back cover. another thing to try

Thanks all for the responses. I actually quite like the blue pictures, and since the behaviour is at least predictable I'm not too bothered. Instant Holga effect
With regards to the G-sensor guessing camera orientation however that is really bugging me. And also I've noticed that the camera on-screen controls don' t flip to portrait mode either.
Cheers
Dave

davew said:
Thanks all for the responses. I actually quite like the blue pictures, and since the behaviour is at least predictable I'm not too bothered. Instant Holga effect
With regards to the G-sensor guessing camera orientation however that is really bugging me. And also I've noticed that the camera on-screen controls don' t flip to portrait mode either.
Cheers
Dave
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Yes, also i am bugged of this. I've take a shoot of a contact image with the PDA in Landscape (the photo was right in this position).
Now i have my friend photo ALWAYS rotated of 90° and, if i rotate the pda, the photo rotate itself and it's NEVER aligned.
Now i can't assign the photo until i don't rotate it by the PC

Exactly - you take the shot and then try to view it in Album. Then you end up wiggling the Diamond around to get the orientation right. In slideshows the orientation is all wrong too.
The only way to fix it that I've seen is to go into the MS "Pictures & Videos" application after taking your shots and rotate each image manually.
Most digital cameras I have ever seen just leave the image alone

Mine is also very blueish (MDA Compact IV here) and it also auto-rotates for me
Hopefully we can find a way to at least turn off the auto-rotation, with some tweaks or new camera software!

The blue-ish tinge in a normal situation is probably just the white balance being off (or overexposure as another poster pointed out).
To get those mad blue shots I had to stand in the surf at the beach and shoot directly at the sun. When I tried the same shot at sunset I got normal colours (though still some vingette effect at the edges).
Attached is a shot from the same day, same place just at sunset.

Will changing radio improve camera?

Hi,
Something I've tried to to find the answer to, but so far have been unable to do so - the camera performance has always been terrible on my tytn2. I've tried a range of different roms, but none have made any difference to the camera.
My understanding is that it is important to have a radio that works with the rom you are using, but can I get better camera performance by using a different radio?
Currently I am using "07/10[Super Ram][CHOME][Manilla] Josh's Kaiser Roms+Kitchen "21929 Hybrid Light" - a great rom, and my radio is 1.65.16.25.
I would really appreciate it if anyone can give me any pointers with this or otherwise help me get better camera performance (the tytn2 is an amazing phone, the camera is the only problem I have with it).
Cheers

Moved as not ROM Development...
The camera is just whack anyway unless in ideal light situations.

Typically the camera will either work or not work at all depending on the Radio, unfortunately the Kaiser's camera (and all cellphone cameras in general) is not the greatest in low light so you are pretty much stuck with what you got.

Thanks for the responses. It's not so much the camera performance in terms of picture quality, but the terrible lag when taking pictures - there is a two second or more delay between pressing the camera button and the picture taking. This always results in pictures that are extremely blurred.

Turn off the full press and also the shutter noise...

I tried everything possible with my tytn to improve camera , however it was all pointless since it could not be done.

Well not quite. In my frustration with a few things which aren't perfect in Shifu's latest ROM (hey, it's pretty darn nice for the most part, even M2D is running well for the first time in my experience of over 20 WM6.5 ROM versions, mostly on the Elfin, 3 on this Kaiser), I did some searching for a camera video frame rate solution. Found one. I've already forgotten the link (since reading it this afternoon), but it's so simple there's no need to go looking. Here's the procedure. Works in any lower light situation, as in not broad daylight. Haven't test it it outside in daylight yet, but it might even work there, will find out tomorrow.
1) Open camera application.
2) Put hand over lens to create a black screen.
3) Turn off power. (This part is a bit of a stumbling block for those with slide to unlock or a password active - have to have those turned off for this to work.)
4) Keep the hand (or whatever, doesn't matter so long as it blocks light) over the lens for at least a second.
5) Take off the hand.
6) Press the power button again.
7) Start shooting when you like.
8) Enjoy what looks like 30fps video, much improved autofocus and shutter response times, and unfortunately, darker images. So still not a great low-light camera, but indoors in average conditions or even somewhat dim light it's not bad at all for a phone camera. Took me a few tries to nail down the procedure and be able to reproduce the effect every time, but five minute's practice at most.
Apparently the vast improvement in frame rate and general responsiveness globally in the camera's operation and settings dialogues is over-ridden if one points the camera at a light source or brighter reflective objects. I find it stays stable during a session even if I point it directly at a 20W halogen light from 6 feet away, but your mileage may vary.
Another tip would be to avoid the double-take of the autofocus algorithm. Bloody thing focuses on a half-press, then focuses all over again, blurring out then returning to sharpness, on full shutter press. So either go to half-press shooting, or use the D-pad centre button to shoot pictures and videos, as this is a single-stage switch.
In my case, running Shifu's latest ROM from December and his recommended radio, and just this evening flashing Kaiser-HardSPL-3.56, I find the video frame rate to be about 2 to 3 frames per second without this trick, and well above 20fps with the trick. Awesome. A little bit irritating too, having to do this silly little button sequence thing, but it's better than having to go hunting for my 'real' camera when a video opportunity presents itself and the Kaiser will take less than 10 seconds to get ready, and getting the proper camera will take over a minute of walking and digging and powering on... As has so often been said in web discussions of phone cameras, it's not so much the quality of your best camera that's important in everyday use, it's whether you have a working camera with you that counts. And this little trick makes the camera I ALWAYS have with me a whole lot more usable.
Now, if only there were a way to get Resco Audio Recorder to make clear 2-sided recordings of my calls. Worked like a dream on the HTC Touch Elfin. All I hear is remote, static-distorted voices with this Kaiser. Seems from discussions that this is a hardware limitation. Hope not. And it'd be nice too if the device weren't cranky about my 8GB microSD. Seems a tad unstable at times. Same for considerable numbers of other users, so maybe another hardware limitation? Hope it's drivers, and that some genius presents an update.

GerardSamija,
Yeah that's an old trick but not perfect as tends to dim the light and when hit by a large light flips back to the slow fps another one is to remove the plastic cover on case covering lens.
I gave up using camera unless outside & it's the same issue on Touch Pro even with the built in flash "well light really"
2 Side Voice Recording on Kaiser **WORKS**

Thank you very much for that stylez. I'm reading through the pages of that thread, and while so far the latest CAB there hasn't quite made decent quality two-way recording for my Kaiser, it's considerably improved from what it was yesterday. Nice.
Trying the 'old' camera trick (sorry for re-publishing ancient news - I've only had this Kaiser a few days, so just getting caught up. On testing it this morning I found a number of tries didn't work at all. Not sure why. Then just now I tried it again and it worked fine, though delivering only about 15 to 20fps, not quite smooth. I did back to back tests without and then with the trick, and there was about a tripling of framerate from A to B. Guess I'll just have to keep practicing to get it down solid.
And I probably will remove part of the shielding over the camera lens, carefully. The lens in the body itself has a flat glass cover so no real risk of damage there, as it's recessed behind the battery cover. Occasional cleaning of dust is necessary anyway with a pocketable camera, so this just adds the step of slipping off the battery cover to do that. The phone I have was used for a few months, then left in an office drawer for over a year. Not a lot of wear, but obviously some fine scratching of the coating on the camera lens protective filter. Removing it will improve imaging, and the glass lens cover beneath is about the same as on my old HTC Elfin. That one has held up very well.

I hear windex helps.

ChumleyEX said:
I hear windex helps.
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lol ya i gave up using the camera really, i know im just caring around a big brick, with the advantage that its touch screen and has a keyboard... otherwise its not used much for anything else, unfortunately there are a million other phones that would meet this basic need, though im not getting burned by HTC again or any other phone maker...

I'm getting better at the timing with tricking the camera into responding quickly for stills, and getting 15fps and better almost all the time. This afternoon was fairly sunny here, and I shot a few videos of my son at the playground. Checking them later on my Asus 901 they look quite good. And contrary to many comments saying pointing at bright light kills the effect, I was able to shoot almost directly into the sun without losing frame rate.
Oddly, VLC gives an audio codec cannot be found error. Guess I'm off for yet another codec hunt. Windows 7 has mostly been pretty solid in supporting things like that, but I guess VLC stands apart from the OS in terms of codecs.
Windex? Nah, bit of a rub with a shirt end is fine. It's not a camera for making museum grade images. It's convenient, when I don't want to carry a bulky HD camera with proper optics around with me.