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

[PVV]

I am very dissapointed with the Sony Xperia S camera too. Unless the picture is taken outdoors on a sunny day it is of a really bad quality or even worthless at all. My 5 year old Nokia N95 with 5mpx sensor takes so much superior pictures under any conditions that I cant even compare them to that garbage that does my Xperia S in most cases. I really hope that this issue will be adressed by Sony soon, cause the quality of a phone camera is the one of it most important features for me...

[luis_DR]

And the real thing that i am dissapointed about is the really bad support we are getting about this issue. Just like you, there are a lot of us experiencing this camera issues, but I dont know why they dont give us an answer if it's going to be fixed or not.

[Buknoii]

bought mine 2 weeks ago and so disappointed with the camera.. is there a fix for this?

[Uliwooly]

as you can read on the threads above this issue it's not on all the Xperia S, that's interesting you are a new user and you find this thread, can you elaborate on your issue?

[#6]

No and Never..Trust me.. the camera is completely faulty..Once again, the camera.. the hardware...not the software... It was really really disappointing but nothing we can do except to accept the faulty hardware. If I am not wrong, sony has never ever talked about image quality XS gives. They did boast on screen quality not image taken with  TWELVE MP ...ONCE AGAIN, TWELVE MP. Poor you and me..we've been foolished...

[tom-phils]

I think so too the problem is with the focusing problem, there is a specifice range where the camera gets faulty. I am not sure with this but there are cases that the 9 mp settings is better than 12 mp, I tried to use both and I can tell that the 9 mp is better, Can any owner of XS try this also. But still the there is something very wrong with the sensor or the focusing mechanism. I hope sony would reply soon. I also did a side by side comparison between SII and XS. From the sample itself I can tell there is no difference between the 8 ans 12 mp, Crazy already thats additional 50% more pixels than SII right so how come the two looks exactly the same. (mine is XS and my friend's is SII and additional I am a sony fan just to be clear here)

[luis_DR]

uliwooly wrote:
as you can read on the threads above this issue it's not on all the Xperia S, that's interesting you are a new user and you find this thread, can you elaborate on your issue? 

And just because this issue is not with all Xperia S, we should not get any kind of support? Yes-No?

[Uliwooly]

That message is for Buknoii, if he is a "real user" or maybe he is just someone that created a second or third account.

[#10]

its all to do with the sensor in the  camera, sure its a fancy exmor sensor but how big is the sensor size? ...... its a 25mm sensor and  just because sony have it as a 12mp camera doesnt mean its going to take wow  photos, the sensor is to small to manage 12mp the colours get confused the bleed in to eachothe appering less sharp and so it doesnt look as good as it really should that is why the 9mp looks better. sony would have to totally re design the camera (and maybe phone) if they wanted to replace the sensor size with something more suited to cope better with 12mp like say a 43mm sensor (that you would find in a point and shoot digital camera)

its a hardware problem that you can work around if you know what you are doing with your camera.

[luis_DR]

wolfking wrote:
its all to do with the sensor in the  camera, sure its a fancy exmor sensor but how big is the sensor size? ...... its a 25mm sensor and  just because sony have it as a 12mp camera doesnt mean its going to take wow  photos, the sensor is to small to manage 12mp the colours get confused the bleed in to eachothe appering less sharp and so it doesnt look as good as it really should that is why the 9mp looks better. sony would have to totally re design the camera (and maybe phone) if they wanted to replace the sensor size with something more suited to cope better with 12mp like say a 43mm sensor (that you would find in a point and shoot digital camera)
its a hardware problem that you can work around if you know what you are doing with your camera.

I know that the sensor is small, but not because of that is supposed to not know where to focus in/ what to focus in, plus the high noise on pictures.  Does the 4S have a bigger sensor? no. it uses the same as the Xperia S, but 4S takes better pictures (in low light conditions). what ever it is, there's something wrong with the camera and they should do/say something about it.