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

[jmclachica]

I think the is with the software, i have good camera until i updated my firmware to ICS and thats when my camera focus had been slowed and pictures it took is so dull now.

[Prometeo24]

Hi everyone!

I'm new here, bouth mi Xperia S only a few days ago,

I haven't tried it much so if any of you have some tips, they wil be welcome!

I've been using the camera a bit and, at night, it disappointed me a little, BUT, during the day, is really good.

Actually I'm using the following configuration: (I have my phone in Spanish, so I'll try to be as clear as possible)

Scenes: deactivate

Auto

Resolution: 12 MP

Focus Mode: Multiple auto focus (I had a Motorla Razr previous to this phone, and I used the touch approach, wich gave me excellent results, I haven't tried it yet with the Xperia, but it is worth to try)

Image Stabilizer: ON

Measurement: Center

Hope I could help you all!

Regards!

[zhuhang]

Yes, u're right. That's the cause of focus problem.

Im also using normal and use only camera hardware key. Seldom got problem.

Just that the picture can't be 100% clear even if my hands a a bit unstable. Stabilizer doesnt help.

OP, Please mark helpful or correct answer.

[JPiferrer]

Thanks for the advice... last question, does anyone knows how to get "lower noise" images? Regards!

[dantistruct]

What I do to get lower noise try setting ISO from Auto to 100, the ISO would make it more / less sensitive to light thus in low lighting it would set itself to 800 for a brighter and better picture however you will get alot of noise from it, I set mine to 100 during the daytime / good lighting / cloudy days etc. at night I'd set it too Auto / 800.

[AntCW]

Hi All

POTENTIAL FIX

Just registered on this site as like a lot of us, i have been looking at this thread since it started for an answer to the poor focusing in low light or dark environments.

Wanted to share that i have found this issue to be software related but need to do further testing.  I carried out a PCC repair, followed by SUS repair, followed by Factory data reset, followed by Settings reset. 

I done the above process one after another, then thought would give the camera a try before restoring my data.

TO EVERYONE WHO HAS BEEN READING THIS THREAD THERE IS HOPE AFTER ALL

(not from sony)

I took around 30+ pictures in different lighting conditions with partial light and no light available.  I was shocked to see that autofocus focused very easily even in no light and very fast and didn't do the typical search for half an hour like it does in slightly low light.

when using the flash with red eye reduction the flash and autofocus sync much better seeming to sync differently.  The flash works much better than normal and pictures come out 100% better with no blurry faces etc.

I then restored my data through PCC and gave the camera a try again and back to square one!!

This issue must be due to some software setting currently in the phone which is reset during a repair.

I will be doing further testing this week to do a restore with different settings (not restoring all settings) to try to identify if possible what causes the camera to behave like this after the restore.

Hope this helps all that read this, and for anyone to give this a try (backup your data first) so that as many of us as possible can try to find how this issue re-occurs after a restore.

Will keep you updated on what i find.

Regards

Ant

[Prometeo24]

Mmmm Interesting what you say @antCW.

So if the problem came up again after restoring your data, then there's problem. I haven't done any back up using PCC but, apparently, the problem is there.

Thanks a lot for your help, please keep us posted!

[gempzchak]

Hi !! everyone

i don't know wheathr sony is goin to fix this issue or not but i have come through this issue using a third party application named

"ICS Camera" it is available free of cost from the google play

this helps me to take a clear pic even at night

before i couldn't even defeat the xperia u with my xperia s

but i'm not ccompletly satisfied with the camera bacause i don't want to use any other apps other than the main camera but unfortunately sony is careless to fix this issue

Hope they are still tryin to fix this camera issue

[AntCW]

MY FOCUSING ISSUE FIXED!!!!!

Hi

Following on from my previous post on Oct 23rd, I have done another repair going through the 4 stages as described in my above post and tried a different restore option from PCC.

As the camera went back to how it was behaving before with the focusing issues after doing a restore the first time, when at the restore screen in PCC this time where you can choose what to restore, i chose to restore everything apart from the 'settings' option.  I unticked this option and completed the restore.

After the restore finished turned my phone off and back on.  I have since tested the camera with the same conditions as mentioned in my first post above (full light in the room, partial, and no light) in my front room.

The camera is now working great, im impressed with full light, partial and no light pictures with the flash and focus syncing decent like it did when first doing the 4 repair stages.  It manages to focus virtually everytime with only 1 red focus square out of around 30+shots, and when this happened took my finger off the physical focus button and pressed again and focused no problem.

I have used manual settings not auto scn, ISO 100, etc.  Manual settings give much improved picture over auto scn settings.

For me now, this focusing issue has been resolved   Ill update this thread further if i do find any issues with focusing.

Give this method a try and let me know if this fixes your camera too :smileyhappy:.

Regards

Ant

[Prometeo24]

Hi @Ant!

I'm gonna trust you and do what you say, I'll keep you posted!