Phone image quality

[Planetdune]

When the Galaxy S9+ was released I bought it as it was advertised to have a good camera. I only need it for taking pictures of the kids but I never liked it. The images look fine if you watch it on cell phone but as soon as I copy them to my PC and open them full sized it looks HORRIBLE, I am not even joking. It is either blurry as hell, pixelated or both. This is with settings on max.

Pretty sure nothing I can do to improve things but my question, is it worth selling the S9+ and getting a new phone? Will it be better? I try to take my Nikon 5300 when possible, like on trips and such but for more casual shots the phone is handy. Just that the pictures I get are borderline not even watchable.. or worth saving.

Example images:
https://ibb.co/album/s9xRq7

Some or a tad better, some are a tad worse (I didn't want to use a real blurry shot caused by movement) but this is about the quality on average. So yea, I want better pics of my kids when not using my Nikon DSLR. What are my options or are mobile phones still really bad at taking images?

[s_bushido]

I know nothing about phones or the cameras they use, but those pictures don't look bad at all to me. Their faces look a little more blurry than everything else in the picture with all the toys, but that might have just been a focusing issue.

If you're looking for professional quality photography or something, then yeah you should probably get a dedicated camera. But just for snapshots of family life, this seems perfectly fine to me, tbh. I guess make sure you're not using any zooming in the camera's software, because that's a one-way ticket to Pixelville...and may be try to take more than one picture at a time to see which comes out better.

[Planetdune]

I know nothing about phones or the cameras they use, but those pictures don't look bad at all to me.

I guess this...

- - - Updated - - -

Those photos look pretty good quality.

.. is why we can't have nice things..

If this is considered "decent quality", why would they try to make actual good cameras

[Antiganon]

Google phones (pixels) have excellent cameras, going back as far as the Pixel 2. iPhone cameras are great as well. I have a OnePlus 7T and am very happy with the camera, as I was with my Pixel 2XL before that.

Most phones use the same image sensor anyway, usually Sony, so it's down to software optimization.

Not sure if you can reasonably do this because of the pandemic but if you can go into a phone store and take some test shots with their sample devices that would probably be the best bet.

The limitation with phones will always be in the ability to fine tune your camera settings. Some apps allow you to adjust your ISO or f/stop, but trying to do that on the fly by digging through 3 tiers of menus while relying on autofocus to get your kids faces just right is a recipe for frustration, as is trying to shoot anything more than 20ish feet away, due to lack of actual optical zoom on the vast majority of phones.

Think of your phone camera as a suitable replacement for a basic point and shoot. It's never going to replace a DSLR or even a good quality point and shoot.

[ldev]

Well I mean... First, sensor size:


M4/3 is considered a very small sensor and it's still 9 times bigger.

Second, look at the glass:



And glass is more important than sensor. And on phone it's bad. Very bad. Tiny.

---

I mean it's just a phone. Camera app applies auto filter (sky looks better on my iPhone pictures vs my Sony a7iii or vs my a6400 aps-c camera, and that's why color grading phone footage is a bitch - there's already filter that adjusts constantly is applied) - so on phone's screen pictures at bright daylight look very good. But yea, 4k phone footage looks like 720p on any full frame camera on PC monitor or TV.

What do you expect? You can't make a bomb the size of needle and expect it to demolish a skyscraper, same with phone cameras - they are compensating with softare and ML and what not, but size does matter.

[Themius]

Hmm they are pretty.. meh...

I've never really got it... like everytime someone has handed me their android phone to take a picture I'm shocked at the quality. Maybe the new s20 is far better but... the s9 wasn't.

[Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang]

I've gotten very good pictures from my Note, Note4 and S7 so far, but taking pictures from the kids, indoor to boot, is usually much harder, including with my DSLR.

Your examples are typically indoor-shots characterized by low light conditions. As a consequence the phone/camera will opt for a longer exposure time, which will cause blurring if there's motion, a given with young children.

Even with the DSLR, Auto mode will give me poor results, so even in decent lighting conditions, I will usually go for manual controls, selecting a high ISO value, to enable the shortest exposure time possible. Plus I will usually take multiple shots.

A bit hidden in the camera app, there is the Pro Mode which allows you to select ISO values, perhaps try raising it a bit depending on conditions and see if you get better results.

[Temp name]

For a phone sensor those are pretty good. If you want professional level photos, get a camera with a better sensor and good lenses.

[Zuben]

Phone cameras have come a long way, but considering size-limitations they've pretty much peaked or about to. Even so, the quality they're at is fine for a family photo album.

[PC2]

Phone cameras have come a long way, but considering size-limitations they've pretty much peaked or about to.

No I don't think so. There is a near infinite amount of information even in tiny volumes and there could be much better measuring instruments and algorithms for processing the data. Even if progress is slow and cameras are only 5% better a decade from now I would still geuss that we're not near any kind of ultimate ceiling or cap.

Google phones (pixels) have excellent cameras,

Yeah Google tries to put extra focus on their camera for each generation but it also makes them a bit more expensive.

[Egomaniac]

If this is considered "decent quality", why would they try to make actual good cameras

Your problem is you are expecting a phone to be a good camera. If you want a good camera...buy an actual camera.

And yeah, those photos are of decent quality...you won't win any major awards for them...but they're good enough for casual photos with the family.

[Antiganon]

No I don't think so. There is a near infinite amount of information even in tiny volumes and there could be much better measuring instruments and algorithms for processing the data. Even if progress is slow and cameras are only 5% better a decade from now I would still geuss that we're not near any kind of ultimate ceiling or cap.



Yeah Google tries to put extra focus on their camera for each generation but it also makes them a bit more expensive.

What I like is that the default OOB settings are for a very short exposure, making it super easy to get good photos of the kids.

Night mode is also awesome, but that requires a very long exposure to work well.

[Strawberry]

Low light situation problems.
Phones take good photos when there's plenty of light, when there's not enough light, phone cameras suffer tremendously.

You can clearly see in the first picture that the smaller child's hand is blurred. This is clear proof of slow shutter speed. The camera is trying to compensate for low light. And while phones do have good stabilization and most have some type of image AI, they will never be able to freeze a subject with slow shutter speed. It is not physically possible.

So, what I'm trying to say is - use the flash. Flash freezes subjects.

[smityx]

Beats my camera.

[Knolan]

Well, phone cameras will be inferior to real cameras, mostly they are considered good enough.

If you want a photo to print and put on your living room, you are better off getting a camera.

That being said, be mindful of lightning (low light and big light variation will kill the picture quality) and zoom (phones in general do not have optical zoom - though I believe S9 has 2x optical zoom - so zooming will kill the picture quality too).

[Zuben]

No I don't think so. There is a near infinite amount of information even in tiny volumes and there could be much better measuring instruments and algorithms for processing the data. Even if progress is slow and cameras are only 5% better a decade from now I would still geuss that we're not near any kind of ultimate ceiling or cap.

We're going to have to agree to disagree on that. Sure, there's room to make incremental improvements, but they are just that, incremental. For the technology cameras and lenses currently work with I don't think we're going to see notable strives anymore. A phone bought today is taking photos that will look fine a decade from now. To get truly impressive shots one needs an actual camera with a sizeable lens, or a completely new kind of camera technology that isn't so beholden to physical limitations.