Camera - xperia s - focusing problems and poor images

[#1]

Firstly this phone is fantastic and I have already conmverted several friends from apple to sony.

Last night I though I would really test it out - went out with a few mates, each with different phones and every time the Nokia N8 took better pictures.

Honestly - my xperia took ages to focus and 5 out of 9 shots were very very poor. In direct comparision the N8 - once he had it set up, took photos faster and each one was in focus - non of this waiting while it figures out what its doing,.

In day light - mine wins no problem - in pubs and low light areas I found this phone to have major problems with focus, and tiime delay in pressing and actual capture of images --- dont get me wrong - I can take it out of my pocket - press the button and hey presto - a photo very very quick --but what is the point when its not in focus and then I have to try again, then again, by which time, my mates are laughing as they have unlocked their phone, aimed and took a good photo.

SONY -- please look into this --  is this my handset or systemic?

Looking at the response this is systemic - if this is a software issue then please sort it, if hardware - recall and replace.

For those of you with the problem - the best photos I can get are to disable face detection, scenes to OFF,,focus mode - have it on touch or infinity, metering centre. At least on these settings I get more than 1 out of 10 photos which I can use.

THIS IS STILL AN ISSUE!!! SONY PLEASE RESPOND!

Message was edited by: batman1056

[Uliwooly]

it seems that you haven't checked my last posts where I do show poor performance, I will suggest that you double check the forum guidelines, your rude behavior and personal attacks aren't helping anyone

[#3]

In response to the deleted message from the_purpleangel:

I will cross the fingers...

I think it might be a software problem. The Xperia Arc has the 8 Mpx CMOS retroiluminated Exmor-R IMX105PQ chipset, the same as iPhone 4S. With iPhone 4S and images taken with poor light conditions, I have obtained simply brilliant results. So this makes me think that Sony needs to push up in it's work with image processing software.

Anyway I have been testing with a Galaxy SII and in poor light conditions the images taken aren't as good as expected also. But Samsung camera sensors aren't supossed as good as this Exmor-R sensor.

[Uliwooly]

if you have issues with your Xperia S, remove the back cover and post your SI number and on the right you will see something like

12W11 lets see which phones have this issue, this might help narrow down a hardware issue.

and remember the forum guidelines

Keep it nice and friendly.

[the_purpleangel]

I do hope so.

This one though was taken in full daylight from a suitable distance and still terrible results.

Resetting the camera and starting again gave me this:

It's very odd.

[#6]

this discussion is not helping... it is very clear that some of us (if not all) are having major issue with the camera and focus ... cn someone from Sony acknowledge this and suggest ways to resolve this.

The pictures i m getting are unacceptable for a Sony 12 mp flagship product.

my phone got 12W12 , if that helps...

[utsavshah]

I am really impressed with the picture quality of xperia P. ❤️

The jpg compression is really good.

I just checked it out on phonearena, check it yourself if you haven't.

But still feel ashamed of my xps' quality. 

Is it because of the fast capture thing?

[Xad]

Having skimmed through the PhoneArena review it seems the focussing problem exists on the XperiaP as well:

As far as videos are concerned, 1080p footage looks okay, but the continuous auto-focus rarely serves its purpose if a close-by object is introduced in front of the camera. There is a front-facing VGA camera present, but its quality is mediocre at best.
Source: PhoneArena

Yet another Sony product struggles to focus; i'm starting to wonder if this is a hardware limitation, if that is the case then the 12mp advertisement means absolutely nothing when the camera can't even take photos/videos in-focus.

[#9]

Comparison btw  S3 , Iphone 4s , SXS

http://www.gsmarena.com/piccmp.php3?idType=1&idPhone1=4238&idPhone2=4212&idPhone3=4369

12mp failing badly infront of 8mp .. so thiss means the 12mp is nothing just a trick to attract ppl 😐

PS - The 8 megapixel camera on  S3 basically the same Sony BSI sensor used on the iPhone 4S.

[Xad]

Any news on whether a camera focus fix will be included in the ICS version of the OS?

I'm starting to think it's a hardware limitation because of the lens the XperiaS uses. On top of being super slow, it sometimes can't lock on to focus.

Is there anything coding wise that the developers can do to make the lens focus faster, or is it going as fast as it can?

I know that the sensor itself is the same as the iPhone 4s (which takes very nice photos and focuses super fast), so i'm guessing the issue must be the actual lens. Did Sony make the lens/camera or is it some other company?

Photo of the camera/lens i found:

  iPhone 4s lens here

If it does turn out to be a hardware/lens issue, will a hardware fix ever be offered? Or will Sony be busy pushing out their next phone model?

[#11]

i used to have alot of problems with my camera on the .67 mainly in a dark room and getting it to focus, this was on the .67 02 firmware, after changing to the .73 CE and then updating it to .75 my pictures are MUCH better, i will do some more tests tonight in a dark room and see how they turn out,