Hi Guys,
So I picked one of these phones up recently and treated myself to a phone upgrade. I must say, so far I am extremely pleased and impressed with the device so far. It's fast, feature packed, all what I expected and more. First time with a MIUI device and must say I like it.
However one of the constant criticism of a phone in this class, is the camera quality and everyone saying to use GCam.
I've tried many different distro's, builds and version of GCam and starting to confuse myself now... So just wondered which one you guys use, that offers best results and least likely to crash. As noticed a lot don't like the video section...
I've used: Arnova8G2, BSG, MTSL, MWP, Nikita... among many others. And must say I find BSG the most effective and reliable, but still the occasional crash.
So which one do you use, and why...??
Also, the stock camera doesn't seem that bad... I tried it on a couple of things today and expected bad results, but thought they fine...
Lastly, with the GCam mods, one of them seemed to be fully enabled/unlocked, but can't seem to find that now. One of the features I liked was the after effects of touching up images. I believe the settings were, Auto/Enhance, *Dynamic*, Vivid, Warm and Cold filters. Dynamic is the one I want to use as this looked really good, however everytime I see it now it says I need a "Google 1" subscription to use it, which I didnt previously... any ideas?
Cheers, Lister
howdy lister
yeah i picked up one to in the week , note 11in argos for £169 ( 4/128) . i dropped my x3 nfc and the touch screen developed a mind of its own
right first the image tuning options you mentioned are in google photos , you may have turned on use 3rd party gallery app in which case it will use a different one . so just turn it off again and should use google photos again ( if you haven't disabled it ) . i use google snapseed to edit photos , and its free .
as for the camera it looks like you've done the same as me and tried every version there is lol . I'm no expert with the settings but I've learned how to change a few reading various bits n bobs . at the minute I'm playing with MTSL v7.2 . its pretty much the same as every other version you'll try , ya cant get rid of that overall image softness . I've read a few comments covering various xiaomi phones saying it seems to be an issue no matter which phone or version you try . so for now i suppose we'll have to put up with the soft pix , but night photos are pretty decent , actually absolutely brilliant compared to stock app
and on the plus side the video looks a lot better i think , can shoot 1080p @ 60fps and the blurriness seems to have disappeared when you pan quickly . plus the overall detail seems to have improved too compared to the stock camera app.
i'll try and upload my xml ( never done it before ) , have a play with it and see what ya think
Me: BSG Gcams
Heeey Mero,
Ditto, the same... I bought mine from Argos too, same price, same spec. . It was my birthday last week, and thought I'd treat myself after making my trusty Samsung Note 1 (N7000) last like 10yrs almost. Bought it 2nd hand, and modded it from Android Gingerbread (2.3.6) to Android Pie (9.0) and also had a Samsung S5 (with IR) and thought it was about time I had summit newer/faster...
The IR was the main selling point, hence went down the Redmi route...
Right up until the day, I was due/set to get the Redmi Note 10 5g, as it was around £159 and the Note 11 was like £200+ . On the day, they switched, the Note 11 came down to £169 and the Note 10 5G went up to £209. Choice made... (both had pros/cons, came down to price).
Ah awesome thank you for pointing me in the direction of Google Photo's being the issue... I couldn't workout why one minute it was available and the next it wasn't. I tried multiple version and tried to go back to original GCam as thought that had it, could never find it again.... lol. So that will massively help me, thank you...
As for which GCam..... yep, pretty much tried them all. Those above were the main reliable ones, but tried many many others too.... Some worked ok/fine, others would produce green-ish photos, others crashed when switching to videos/settings... So could never find one that would be reliable. Used the stock camera yesterday and thought this aint bad, what's all the fuss about....?? Admittedly only viewed them on the phone's screen and not exported them yet... But yeah seemed ok...
In all the reviews online they talked about the soft-ish photos, but I couldn't see this on the phone itself, they all looked sharp and clear. The Night Photo's seemed to be impressive, but I guess low light photos will be awful unless use GCam.
With the stock app, I selected 1080p (I think it was 30fps) however when I looked at the output video data, it said 1280x720... hey, who stole my frames?? I bet if I selected 720p, it would be summit like 720x480 lol.
I think I tried that MTSL 7.2 as one of the first ones, as read that in one of the guides/reviews I think, but moved on to the 8.1, 8.2, 8.4 and recently 8.5 builds (downloaded so many.... lol ) Will have a look and see if still have it, or will download it again...
Thank you so much for your help, very much appreciated... Would be good to try your xml file too, if possible....
Many thanks, Lister
no worries lister , hows the cat
i think for the money ya cant complain really , screen and speakers are brill . haven't run into any more lagging issues than i had with the X3 and its a hell of a lot lighter too . plus we should see android 12 soon as its out doing beta testing ( cant see em fixing the video quality though )
1st of all the green photos can be cured by turning on auto white balance (common issue from what I've read )
And i'd put money on it that the 1080p video is actually an upscaled 720 , it lacks so much detail it cant be true 1080, but like i said i think theres a big improvement in the mtsl version .
right here's a link to the gacam i'm using .. MTSLCam_V7.2 ( from the celsoazevedo site ) , i've used the snapcam version .
and my xml
let me know what ya think of it , i dont wanna try and change it again as i reached me limits of tinkerig lol
The Mero said:
no worries lister , hows the cat
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Cat is fine... The Mero, just fine.... lol
Yeah, ya not wrong... for the money, the spec and features are great for such a low cost phone. Screen, speakers, storage...
Over the Note 10 5G, which had an IPS screen (and people complaining about seeing it in sunlight). When I took the Note 11 out yesterday to take some photos, I thought if the IPS was bad, this was awful... As couldnt see anything on the 11... then all of a sudden Auto Light kicked in, and became super bright. As at home, I had set the brightness about mid-way... which was bright enough for indoors.
I'm not seeing the battery as super powerful, perhaps I'm a tough crowd to please...? lol. As everyone raved how long it lasts, but me just tinkering away, playing/testing things (not gaming or video watching) just with apps... And see the % decreasing quicker than expected...? But idle wise, it lasts long enough...
Yeah Android 12 is on its way... I've tried to egg it along, downloaded it manually and put in "Downloaded_ROM" folder or whatever it was called. Downloaded the "MIUI Downloader", and enrolled to receive earlier within Settings itself.... Still no joy... It'll come when it's good and ready... lol Also, apparently may even get Android 13 too...
I think your right, I reckon it's upscaled too... Will try it with GCam and see if any difference. Hopefully they will fix that in an update, as did recall seeing something about that in a review....
Sorry to sound dumb, crazy.... Do you know where/how I can import that file...?? I can't find it anywhere within the Settings (unlike some of the newer versions). I can see where to Reset or how to Export.... and in top right corner says "Using Defaults Config".
Cheers, Lister
lets begin with the brightness .. again I've seen a few comments about the light / proximity sensor being a bit dodgy . best thing to do is leave it on auto brightness , if the sensor works it should automatically boost the brightness higher than you can manually .. or alternatively turn off auto brightness and turn on sunlight mode , that's supposed to boost it in strong sunlight .
and to load up the xml file . . first go into gcam settings and right at the bottom you'll see config save , tap it and it'll say save .. just type in a name and save it . that will create a folder called configsettings 8.3 in the internal memory . then in your file browser / manager look for the folder configsettings 8.3 and copy the xml file into that folder . then back to the camera again and double tap between the left ( camera switch button ) button and the shutter in the middle , that should bring up the xml selector and tap the name ending xml . that gives a drop down list of installed xmls and just select the one you want , tap ok and the camera will restart and your good to go
There's a "Turn On Sunlight Mode" ?? Oh wow, I never knew.... though I do now, cheers. So it appears I had this on already, yet the display is set to manual brightness. Prolly went I set it at about 50% for indoors use. That would kinda make sense. As it seemed dark for about 5 to 10 seconds, then the brightness ramped up all by itself so that I could see the screen. So looks like it could be ok, just the few seconds of darkness was like, what ???
Oh boy, I had NO chance of finding that hidden (double tap) setting between the switch/shutter... Talk about Alice In Wonderland rabit hole hidden feature... ;-) Awesome, thank you sooooo much for all your help. I shall test some of these features now .
What do you think about setting up the lenses, as between various camera modes, these are either enabled by default, hidden or called by their focal lengths I assume, such as 0.6, 1, and 2. Although in Settings it has Main Camera, Telephot, Wide.... I guess that just leaves the 4th thats not set as Macro ?
Cheers, Lister
I just use the main 50 / 12.5 MP lens . The ultra wide is pretty useless tbh and the macro is just as bad . I don't know why they even bother sticking them on . And yeah a lot of features are buried in there , I spend most of me time trying to remember where the one I want is . I'll have to do a few test shots and post em so people can compare . Oh and by default the app shoots at 8mp for some reason . There's a fix in there to set it to 12.5 , I've enabled it in the XML , although I don't think there's any extra detail in the photos
well on closer inspection gcam is crushing fine details , almost a water colour effect . back to the drawing board again
Lister Of Smeg said:
Hi Guys,
So I picked one of these phones up recently and treated myself to a phone upgrade. I must say, so far I am extremely pleased and impressed with the device so far. It's fast, feature packed, all what I expected and more. First time with a MIUI device and must say I like it.
However one of the constant criticism of a phone in this class, is the camera quality and everyone saying to use GCam.
I've tried many different distro's, builds and version of GCam and starting to confuse myself now... So just wondered which one you guys use, that offers best results and least likely to crash. As noticed a lot don't like the video section...
I've used: Arnova8G2, BSG, MTSL, MWP, Nikita... among many others. And must say I find BSG the most effective and reliable, but still the occasional crash.
So which one do you use, and why...??
Also, the stock camera doesn't seem that bad... I tried it on a couple of things today and expected bad results, but thought they fine...
Lastly, with the GCam mods, one of them seemed to be fully enabled/unlocked, but can't seem to find that now. One of the features I liked was the after effects of touching up images. I believe the settings were, Auto/Enhance, *Dynamic*, Vivid, Warm and Cold filters. Dynamic is the one I want to use as this looked really good, however everytime I see it now it says I need a "Google 1" subscription to use it, which I didnt previously... any ideas?
Cheers, Lister
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey Lister, just came a cross your thread and remembered my old self few months back when I was in the same situation. So I just bought Redmi note 11 after using my LG G3 as a daily driver since 2015. That poor fella got admitted in ICU and eventually passed away RIP lol
Anyways, long story short, Im using this Gcam on my Note11 android 12 stable beta.
It also works fine on eu.
The results are just mind blowing as you can see how this photo was rendered despite of low lighting and 2x zoom.
Install the apk from here :
BSG: MGC_8.1.101_A9_GV1zfix
Download MGC_8.1.101_A9_GV1zfix by BSG.
www.celsoazevedo.com
And select English, if you are using any gcam version delete that first, then lunch the app and allow all the permissions, now double tap in the same location that I've mentioned in the screenshot and slect the xml config file that I've given here or get it from this link :
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oup9zmuD5fyI-LrlaZs4NsjgeFA3MkDV/view?usp=drivesdk
Boom you are good and there is so need to customize anything.
A little note; If you wanna capture micro shots then do not use this gcam port, instead use the stock camera as it displays the picture upside down lol. I have tried to solve this issue with my own configs but failed alas!! Rest is all good to go.
Also use google photos for extra stunning tunning of photos.
I hope this would help.
Peace 🫴
The Mero said:
well on closer inspection gcam is crushing fine details , almost a water colour effect . back to the drawing board again
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi The Mero,
I've not had chance to test the camera out yet, as was out all day yesterday... Sorry to hear your experience didn't go to well, although hopefully from the recent post below this will help both of us.... Who knew that Xiaomi would market their phone as a 50MP camera, when really its only a 12.5MP and via other apps only 8MP. The front facing camera is more high def than that... ;-) cheeky fella's... lol.
NotClawGenius said:
Hey Lister, just came a cross your thread and remembered my old self few months back when I was in the same situation. So I just bought Redmi note 11 after using my LG G3 as a daily driver since 2015. That poor fella got admitted in ICU and eventually passed away RIP lol
I hope this would help.
Peace 🫴
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi NotClawGenius,
Sorry to hear of your loss... ... Aye, my old trusty Note N7000 was still working fine until yesterday. Now it just drains really quickly (with a new/fake battery, as they no longer manufacturer them). When I first got the battery, it held really strong, when it got to 1% it still wouldnt shut straight down. Now a full charge lasts like 8hrs if that... lol. Then it got so slow, its driving me insane. Admittedly, I am running Android Pie on a phone that shipped with Gingerbread... lol
Anyway, thank you sooo much for your post above, in such great detail too.... Hopefully in the next couple of days, I will get chance to go out and about and take some test photo's and try. I see what you mean by the Macro lens though, odd how it's rotated.
Thanks again, much appreciated guys...
Lister
Lister Of Smeg said:
Hi The Mero,
I've not had chance to test the camera out yet, as was out all day yesterday... Sorry to hear your experience didn't go to well, although hopefully from the recent post below this will help both of us.... Who knew that Xiaomi would market their phone as a 50MP camera, when really its only a 12.5MP and via other apps only 8MP. The front facing camera is more high def than that... ;-) cheeky fella's... lol.
Hi NotClawGenius,
Sorry to hear of your loss... ... Aye, my old trusty Note N7000 was still working fine until yesterday. Now it just drains really quickly (with a new/fake battery, as they no longer manufacturer them). When I first got the battery, it held really strong, when it got to 1% it still wouldnt shut straight down. Now a full charge lasts like 8hrs if that... lol. Then it got so slow, its driving me insane. Admittedly, I am running Android Pie on a phone that shipped with Gingerbread... lol
Anyway, thank you sooo much for your post above, in such great detail too.... Hopefully in the next couple of days, I will get chance to go out and about and take some test photo's and try. I see what you mean by the Macro lens though, odd how it's rotated.
Thanks again, much appreciated guys...
Lister
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wait what android 9 on a phone that got shipped with ginger bread. You should be thankful as it is still alive lol.
Yeah rooting it wasn't a big deal bcs I was using a custom miui port rom on my note 11 but when I heard of android 12 official beta update, I rushed to flash it for testing purposes lol . Having a bootloader already unlocked and recovery installed, it wasn't difficult for me to install magisk hehe.
Im sure you gonna like the quality, it is way better than the sluggish stock camera.
NotClawGenius said:
Wait what android 9 on a phone that got shipped with ginger bread. You should be thankful as it is still alive lol.
Yeah rooting it wasn't a big deal bcs I was using a custom miui port rom on my note 11 but when I heard of android 12 official beta update, I rushed to flash it for testing purposes lol . Having a bootloader already unlocked and recovery installed, it wasn't difficult for me to install magisk hehe.
Im sure you gonna like the quality, it is way better than the sluggish stock camera.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi NotClawGenius,
Yeah, the Pie on N7000 was a fairly recent affair... When I heard someone had ported it, thought I better try it. At first, it was fast and responsive for such an old phone. But recently its become really sluggish, with barely any apps on it other than stock from the rom. I think the battery dying is causing it to throttle/lag.
I loved the Note N7000 and the S2 i9100 phones, as they were easily mod'able and tweakable... With no issues, the most you would get, is a big yellow warning that you could reset. And the Android world is none the wiser.... Where as now modern Samsungs with their Knox Booooo..... Once you trigger it, there's no going back or restoring. Sure, you can restore the factory OS, but then you've broken the Banking/Security in the phone.
Do the Xiaomi's have such a feature? As in, if I do go ahead and unlock/mod/root it at a later day. Will it trigger/break anything further down the line....?? Will Banking Apps still work (providing root isn't active) and if I restored the official rom OS, will it go back to as it was with no hint/sign of rooting/tampering...??
Aye, hopefully in next couple of days I will be able to get out and take some more test photos, looking forward to testing this distro out. I must admit, I was fairly impressed with the daylight photos I took with stock the other day, so hopefully if this is an improvement on that, I shall be super happy...
Cheers, Lister
The sensor in the rn11 has 50m pixels , but they are in groups of 4 . They are arranged as red - green - green - blue . Each one captures the different colours then they get combined into 1 bigger pixel. A lot of people think the photo will have more detail of its set to 50mp but it's just an upscaled 12.5mp one , cause if it displayed all 50mp at their true colours it would look a right mess lol . And the 108mp sensor in the 10 pro produces 12mp photos as it's pixels are in groups of 9
Thanks for the post claw , I'll have a play about with that setup now
I checked the stock app against my old honor 9 ( still keep it for emergencies) . Back in the day it was said to be a pretty decent shooter but the 11 pretty much destroys it now . HDR was always crap on the honor and it really shows
And I read on the Russian forum earlier that a June security update was doing the rounds and there seems to be an improvement in the video quality . I haven't seen it yet but , but the UK will have to wait for the update I suppose , it'll probably get stuck at Heathrow
And I remember Installing a custom ROM on my old S3 claw .. I think I used triangle away to get rid of the " system modified " warning when I flashed stock back on there again . Ah the good old days lol
Lister Of Smeg said:
Hi NotClawGenius,
Yeah, the Pie on N7000 was a fairly recent affair... When I heard someone had ported it, thought I better try it. At first, it was fast and responsive for such an old phone. But recently its become really sluggish, with barely any apps on it other than stock from the rom. I think the battery dying is causing it to throttle/lag.
I loved the Note N7000 and the S2 i9100 phones, as they were easily mod'able and tweakable... With no issues, the most you would get, is a big yellow warning that you could reset. And the Android world is none the wiser.... Where as now modern Samsungs with their Knox Booooo..... Once you trigger it, there's no going back or restoring. Sure, you can restore the factory OS, but then you've broken the Banking/Security in the phone.
Do the Xiaomi's have such a feature? As in, if I do go ahead and unlock/mod/root it at a later day. Will it trigger/break anything further down the line....?? Will Banking Apps still work (providing root isn't active) and if I restored the official rom OS, will it go back to as it was with no hint/sign of rooting/tampering...??
Aye, hopefully in next couple of days I will be able to get out and take some more test photos, looking forward to testing this distro out. I must admit, I was fairly impressed with the daylight photos I took with stock the other day, so hopefully if this is an improvement on that, I shall be super happy...
Cheers, Lister
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unlike Samsung, Xiaomi is pole apart. I thought that after installing magisk, Ima use tweaks to run the banking apps but when I installed all my concerned bank applications, there was no such need of additional tweaks, they all just work fine even with root lol. Surprising isn't it
Naih there isn't any issue, Xiaomi just wants to test your patience at once and that is when you try unlocking the bootloader. If you try to unlock the bootloader for the first time, they just ask you to weight for 7 or 14 long days. I know this is frustrating but it is what it is . After that phase of your long wait you can unlock your bootloader finally yayee , install recovery and flash any of your good favorite rom. If you don't like the rom, just download the official firmware of your device from Mi official website. You can either flash it with your recovery or with Xiaomi flash tool. The good side of flashing with recovery is that your bootloader will remain unlocked, recovery intact and the downside of flashing with Xiaomi flash tool kit is that they will remove recovery and make your phone locked again. Ahhh now if you again want to flash a new room. You just repeat the above steps and weight for 7 or 14 days again. It is just like a maze bruuh
Don't worry I bricked my this Redmi note 11 more that 7 times and it was stuck in boot loop, but still I was able to use recovery and flash new kernels and brought my phone back to life.
Still I would not recommend you to flash a new rom as there isn't any big changes, all you get on a custom rom is android 12 stock experience that isn't too special and out of the universe. Soon android 12 will be out officially for redmi note 11 as beta testing is already in progress. I would definitely advice you to go on a custom rom if there was any about android 13 but for now that is a long journey lol , its gonna take a year or smth.
I will also switch to official firmware through Xiaomi Flash toll once the official update is out.
Those images are way too soft for me claw , still no fine detail coming through. Someone said gcam has a hard time getting fine detail outta newer sensors and I'm starting to agree . Doesn't matter which version you use they can't process the data properly
Newest version from bigkaka .. and boy does it blow the others outta the water . Loads of fine detail in the images now . I've changed a few things in settings , we now have 12.5mp images ( not 8 that seems to come as standard ) and wb has been set too.
Now this version uses agc not XML as the config file , so when I upload the config don't worry it's the right one , just pop it in the relevant folder as ya normally do.
Bigkaka v9
I'll post some stock Vs bigkaka shots in a bit so you can compare them , plus the config .. can't figure out how to do it from the phone lol