Camera improvements : the state of cameras on sailfish

Please provide a reference to back up your claim that unlocking the bootloader degrades the camera. People keep repeating this statement over and over, but from what I have been able to find this has not been the case for a long time now. At least since the Xperia XZs got the upgrade to Android 9 Pie, and for any Xperia 10 I/II/III out-of-the-box: https://www.xda-developers.com/sony-xperia-android-pie-unlock-bootloader-drm-fix-camera/

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I got my Sony Xperia ZX Premium after unlocking the bootloader (running LineageOS) also fixed this way, see the XDA-Developers link by @d.geelen „…Members tobias.waldvogel, mbc07, munjeni, and others discovered ways to restore the lost functionality by either modifying core system libraries or simulating a locked device without root. Sony likely intended for the DRM-related features to be broken after unlocking the bootloader, but it’s unclear whether the camera taking green pictures is intentional… .” I’m wondering why this shouldn’t be possible in SailfishOS as well.

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At least we can see in the above pictures that the picture quality in low light is worse under SFOS than under Android.
But that might just be, as said the post treatment which is of lower quality.

That is not post treatment. On SFOS, you get a dark screen/display befor pressing the shutter, not so with Android.

The 10 III already makes really nice looking photos in good ligting conditions. Only problems are when it gets darker. That is why I think it could be the use of Camera API and not Camera 2, because Camera 1 doesn’t allow for control of exposure. And I didn’t see any manual control of exposure either in advanced camera.
If SFOS really is stuck with default exposure I guess that would explain atrocious night performance?

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Time to test: CameraExposure QML Type | Qt Multimedia 5.15.10

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In the cameragallery demo app from jolla, camera dependant controls are exposed:

This works:
camera.exposure.exposureCompensation.toFixed(1)

I wasn’t able to get shutterspeed working on the Vollaphone.

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I think ISO / Shutterspeed might be more important? But…

It’s not exposre we’re stuck with but shutterspeed?

I just did a more extreme Sony (10ii) and GS290 comparison and as in my previous tests, the Sony is over saturated and darker. The Voll/GS290 colors are closer to ‘real’ but the camera pushes the exposure compensation more than the sony. All in all, the GS290 takes ‘better’ pictures in low light conditions (and overall for color fidelity). But that’s using the same software. Soooo… time to build a test app that allows you to try to get to a similar compensation level. …

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The Xperia X erases its Camera-DSP firmware for de-noising, sharpening, brightening (for low-light conditions) and likely some additional filters / effects, when the bootloader is unlocked. I have no information how newer models handle that, but also no info that this was changed. Still many of the observed effects on newer models can be attributed to that, because they are similar to what the Xperia X shows under Stock-Android before unlocking the bootloader versus SailfishOS, LineageOS etc.

“Easy photos” with high brightness and contrast are fine on the Xperia X without Camera-DSP effects, but in low-light situations the difference is extreme and other, smaller differences can be seen when magnifying critical scenes (e.g., foliage with the sun behind).

I also would be interested to know, if Sony has changed that.

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Here for example you can see an Xperia XZ with unlocked bootloader (because it’s rooted, as you can tell from the magisk screen) and yet all the advanced digitally-restriction-managed features are still working: Sony XZ Premium | Android Pie - YouTube

I’m not an Android expert by any means, but from what I can find online the problem here really is with the OS (sailfish) and not the device (sony). It is also acknowledged here and in other threads that a likely cause is that the camera application is just using an old, outdated, no longer supported API (v1) which simply does not offer much advanced functionality (such as exposure, shutter speed, etc), and that using the newer v2 API may be the solution.

I recall a ‘call to arms’ by Jolla around the release of the 10III to work on Camera2 support together with the community, does anyone know the state of that?

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I suggested that use of v1 API could be the culprit, but I am not 100% sure it is the actual cause. I can’t wait till we get v2, so we can use all cameras on 10 III as well as get access to more tunables. But we can’t know for sure if it will fix dark performance. So those experiments made by poetaster are super useful to find actual issue.

I found the original thread here: A foundation for future development
Unfortunately there appears to be no progress, at least nothing mentioned there.

You are right though, the original reason for switching to Camera2 was/is to use all four cameras instead of just the one supported by Camera1. I can very well imagine that sony’s work to make all four cameras work and perform well all went into Camera2 only. Let’s hope so at least :crossed_fingers:

I have to agree, camera2-API makes a difference compared to camera1-API. You can test it when installing Open Camera Android app on Xperia 10iii. I also tested the difference on Xperia 10 plus as well as XA2 plus and ultra.
Sadly, the SailfishOS app Advanced camera seems to no longer have the HDR option in the 64-bit built for the Xperia 10iii which would truly have the best camera if the problem with switching to camera2-API could be solved.

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Hi there, where do I get
“installing Open Camera Android app on Xperia 10iii”
?

From Aptoid store?

Thanks!

You can download it with Aurora Sore https://auroraoss.com or directly from the developer Download Open Camera

Here is the developers site: https://www.opencamera.org.uk

Or on F-Droid, which should be a must-install on a Sailfish X phone.

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Talking about Open Camera: is anybody able to change settings within the app? Settings dialogs don’t appear correctly on the screen, and if they do, scrolling them isn’t possible.
Xperia 10 III, SFOS 4.5.0.18.

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I can mostly confirm on my Xperia 10 II:

  • clicking on the buttons in the main screen works and has the expected results;
  • clicking on the three-dot “kebab menu” opens a menu with more buttons and acronyms; it is not apparent at first but you can drag to scroll and reveal more options. That menu works, too.
  • clicking on the cog in the top-right open a settings page. Trying to open its sub-pages does not work, there seem to be some drawing issues. So I cannot access and change the options in these subpages.

I totally missed that Open Camera can do this on App Support.

This is a tree, at ~11pm, lit by distant street lighting alone. No flash.

There’s a setting for RAW which I presume works.

So Android camera apps don’t go through Sailfish/libhybris at all? Why then do more recent apps refuse to even start?

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Why advanced camera has been not adopted as per default camera app?

The only features which Advanced Camera app lacks compared to the default
camera app is the “Enable QR code recognition”.