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Does My S4 Camera Suck?

blairharrington

blairharrington

Senior member
Just got back from a week in Rome. I'm a dual citizen so this trip wasn't something that rare for me.

I took a series of photos using my S4 Active camera. Flash was off and I shot in auto, rich-hdr, and night modes.

I'm looking back at my photos now and something just doesn't sit right with me. I'd like some feedback here on my photos. I think the issues arise with some or all outdoor shots. Also I attempted to use auto-backup using Google+ and only half my photos showed up on the site. Settings doesn't show me any reason why that would be. I cannot disable the 'while charging only' setting on the app. I was forced to backup half my photos using Dropbox. (I took roughly 250 on the trip, only providing this album as a sample for feedback.)

On a related note, does anybody know if DropBox using the full size of the photo during it's uploads? These photos I'm sharing are full size via a Google+ auto backup upload.

GALLERY:

https://s4activerome.shutterfly.com/pictures/8
 
For a phone camera I actually think most of those look pretty good. For sure some of the night shots show a fair amount of noise, but with no (or a severely limited) flash capability you are going to get noise in dark settings. You could always do a little post processing to get rid of a good amount of the noise if it bothers you. The daytime and well lit shots look fine to my eye.
 
DaveStall said:
For a phone camera I actually think most of those look pretty good. For sure some of the night shots show a fair amount of noise, but with no (or a severely limited) flash capability you are going to get noise in dark settings. You could always do a little post processing to get rid of a good amount of the noise if it bothers you. The daytime and well lit shots look fine to my eye.
Click to expand...

These photos were uploaded first to Google+ and auto enhanced by default. I think I'm seeing a lot of noise in the daylight outdoor photos too. Something just looks really off here with all shots taken outdoors. Day or night.
 
Some of those look good, the dark ones look a little noisey, which is to be expected from a cell phone camera.

Remember when using HDR mode, that the phone will take multiple shots, so its very important to hold the phone very still. These HDR images can end up being blurry unless its really a bright day.
 
JoeMcJoe said:
Some of those look good, the dark ones look a little noisey, which is to be expected from a cell phone camera.

Remember when using HDR mode, that the phone will take multiple shots, so its very important to hold the phone very still. These HDR images can end up being blurry unless its really a bright day.
Click to expand...

Samsung does a nice job of reminding you to keep your phone still when shooting in HDR. It's just annoying that it tends to revert back to 'auto' mode no matter what you do. There is nothing in Settings to lock down one mode.

I'm not happy with my S4 Active's performance for outdoor day and night shots. My old iPhone 5 appears to blow it away in these scenarios.
 
I noticed a big difference in outdoor shots if you changed the AWB - auto white balance, to either sunny or cloudy, not auto.

I have an s4 GPe (Google play edition), best phone camera I have seen.
 
JoeMcJoe said:
I noticed a big difference in outdoor shots if you changed the AWB - auto white balance, to either sunny or cloudy, not auto.

I have an s4 GPe (Google play edition), best phone camera I have seen.
Click to expand...

So you change it accordingly every time depending on the weather?
 
They look OK, I'd also second the opinion of not shooting in HDR mode all the time.

Also is that gnocchi in the penultimate picture?
 
blairharrington said:
Samsung does a nice job of reminding you to keep your phone still when shooting in HDR. It's just annoying that it tends to revert back to 'auto' mode no matter what you do. There is nothing in Settings to lock down one mode.

I'm not happy with my S4 Active's performance for outdoor day and night shots. My old iPhone 5 appears to blow it away in these scenarios.
Click to expand...

The camera on the Active is supposedly inferior to the S4, as is the screen.
 
blairharrington said:
So you change it accordingly every time depending on the weather?
Click to expand...

I found the cloud/sun setting not to be too different, the big difference I saw was with inside vs outdoor. Without using the sun/cloud setting, the outdoor images were grey and dull.

Here are few of pix from my s4 GPe, not great, but I was impressed with the phone.

IMG_20130928_163006.jpg


IMG_20130928_145407.jpg
 
The colour balance seems a bit off in some pictures, but it's particularly an issue with the indoor and low light shots. However, indoor and low light shots are notoriously hard for not only smartphones, but also point-and-shoots.

I suspect this is normal behaviour for the S4, if the reviews are anything to go by.
 
JoeMcJoe said:
I found the cloud/sun setting not to be too different, the big difference I saw was with inside vs outdoor. Without using the sun/cloud setting, the outdoor images were grey and dull.

Here are few of pix from my s4 GPe, not great, but I was impressed with the phone.

IMG_20130928_163006.jpg


IMG_20130928_145407.jpg
Click to expand...

No offense but I think these photos look terrible. It's like I'm looking at a claymation of mountains. I feel this way about some of my S4 shots too.
 
The iPhone 5 camera is really good... for a cell phone.
A 5 year old point and shoot is better than the best cell camera available today, including the Nokias.

I think you expect too much from them.
 
I don't know if anybody confirmed the s4 active uses the s3 sensor but that was the rumor.

Anyway, every single news release and review of the Active mentions a sub par camera... Some stating a smaller sensor than regular s4 in order to make size and keep water/dustproof. You can't compare the Active to the regular S4 like your title suggests. They simply aren't the same.
 
Low light shots kinda blow with mine too. Well lit stuff is surprisingly good though, enough to make my Wife jelous. She has an iphone 4S fwiw, and is a photobug much more so than I.

Anyone that owned an HTC Evo4G and lived with the ungodly shutterlag for a year or two would be less critical of a cell phone camera that can snap em as quick as you can tap the button. 🙂
 
Honestly I dislike my S4 camera. You need lots of light and even then you get a lot of blurry shots. I made my wife take all the pictures on her iphone 5 on a recent vacation.
 
gorcorps said:
I don't know if anybody confirmed the s4 active uses the s3 sensor but that was the rumor.

Anyway, every single news release and review of the Active mentions a sub par camera... Some stating a smaller sensor than regular s4 in order to make size and keep water/dustproof. You can't compare the Active to the regular S4 like your title suggests. They simply aren't the same.
Click to expand...

It was an oversight regarding the thread title. If there is a way to change it let me know. Also wtf can't we link photos within a post? This forum needs a refresh/update.

I'm not satisfied with my S4 Active's camera. It's fine for indoors but really suffers at night. I'm not crazy about its outdoors shots either at times. Are there any excellent Android smartphone cameras?
 
JoeMcJoe said:
The iPhone 5 camera is really good... for a cell phone.
A 5 year old point and shoot is better than the best cell camera available today, including the Nokias.

I think you expect too much from them.
Click to expand...

I disagree. I think we are at a point where they should be better by now.
 
blairharrington said:
I disagree. I think we are at a point where they should be better by now.
Click to expand...

They're not. First of all, most smartphone cameras still have no "real" optical zoom. Second, their sensor is smaller. And don't get me started on the lack of other manual controls.

My eight year-old Canon A310 takes better pictures at night - when I saw the pixel snowstorm in the Roman sky, I cringed...

Also, don't rely on HDR all the time. It's overused, like lens flares in an JJ Abrams movie.

It could also be that the Samsung color reproduction is just not your cup of tea. Before digital, there used to be people who liked the look of Fujifilm and Scotch/3M negatives, as opposed to, say, Kodak or Polaroid. Same thing today: Canon people don't like how pictures look on Nikon, and Panasonic will look slightly different than Sony.
 
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