Camera app vs Google camera app

phrentic

Hi, I've been thinking about purchasing a Pixel 6 and installing Graphene.

I've used custom roms before, and the quality of photos taken by open source apps has always been an issue, because they can't properly utilize the camera hardware on the specific phone.

A question is I have about the stock Camera app for GraphenOS. Does it use all what's offered by the Pixel camera hardware on the phone? Or would I be better off installing the official/native google camera app (notwithstanding the privacy implications)?

Thanks

matchboxbananasynergy

phrentic You should take a look at this page if you haven't already:

https://grapheneos.org/usage#camera

The GrapheneOS Camera app is great, but it lacks some features like Portrait and Night Mode because they're not available via CameraX for Google Pixels yet. That will change, however.

If you have a need for the few things that Google Camera offers, it can easily be installed on GrapheneOS and it performs just as well as it does on Stock OS. You can also revoke Network access to it, if you're concerned about it!

MetropleX

phrentic As people have covered the GOS Camera already and while I use it day to day as my main camera and I would recommend it usage first and foremost:
There need not be privacy implications or worries for using GCam.
This can be done using just the GSF from the Apps app along with GCam either from the Play Store or if using in a non Play Services profile from Aurora.
Just ensure you properly manage permissions and revoke network where it can be. Just ensure that prior to sharing any images from GCam you pass them through an app like ScambledEXIF to strip EXIF data from them.

GrapheneUser789

Will grapheneOS camera ever support slow motion videos ? It doesn't seem to be listed in the camera extensions and doesn't seem available yet

matchboxbananasynergy

GrapheneUser789 https://grapheneos.org/usage#google-camera

We aim to reduce the benefits of Google Camera compared to GrapheneOS Camera over time, especially on Pixels. Many features of Google Camera will end up being available for GrapheneOS Camera in the next year or so via CameraX extensions including more aggressive HDR+, Night Sight and Portrait. Video features such as Electronic Image Stabilization (EIS), slow motion and time lapse are likely further away than within the next year. These video features could potentially be provided via CameraX vendor extensions or could be implemented via our own post-processing of the video output.

CodexAG

MetropleX what about when the stock camera goes possessed and starts taking photos when you open phone...doesn't that mean google camera is more prone to hacks than graphene?

Secondly does accessing the pixel 8 camera through graphene camera app still utilize the pixel camera's full potential for great photos?

Thank you.

phrentic

Thanks for all the very helpful replies :-)

strcat

Electronic Image Stabilization (EIS) is support now but the documentation hadn't been updated yet.

wuseman

CodexAG what about when the stock camera goes possessed and starts taking photos when you open phon

Sounds like a bug or a screen issue to me.

GrapheneOS

CodexAG It sounds like you're unaware of the default enabled double tap power to open camera combined with the volume buttons acting as shutter buttons. That's not a bug. You can disable the double tap gesture.

GrapheneOS Camera makes full use of the hardware. It takes different pictures than Pixel Camera because it uses it in a different way. If you prefer the pictures taken by Pixel Camera, you can use Pixel Camera.

CodexAG

wuseman maybe.

But what about the mechanics of the camera...is the picture quality the same if used by graphene camera app as stock camera app?

GrapheneOS

CodexAG Picture quality is subjective. You can use Pixel Camera if you prefer the results. GrapheneOS Camera uses the hardware in essentially the same way with a similar implementation of merging multiple frames on Pixels, but less aggressively and with a more natural look. There is no missing camera functionality on GrapheneOS. Pixel Camera works the same as it does on the stock OS, as do other apps.

tjk

I did a lot of testing with this around a year or 1.5 years ago. Google camera vs gos cam.

I found that i vastly preferred the grapheneos camera.
Video quality is equal as far as i can tell, but photos look much more natural on grapheneos cam.
Google camera has way too much image processing for my taste. The sharpening, contrast, saturation etc is turned up to 11. In my side by side comparisons, i always preferred the more subdued look.
Google cam also lacks support for lossless jpgs, and only really makes up for that by being able to shoot in raw format, but if I wanted to shoot raws I would use a real camera lol. I just use my phone as a point and shoot. At least when i was testing this, google cam would produce some strange color banding artifacts etc. I dont know if that was because of compression of images (while using hightest jog quality) being over-processed but it looked horrible in certain situations. Grapheneos cam is more consistent. Which i was extremely surprised by, coming from other custom roms where the camera quality was always terrible.

Grapheneos camera isnt perfect, they need to fix the issue where the time from the top bar will cover the settings button lol, but i think its way better. I used google cam for a long time before using graphenes too. Dont miss it one bit.

Murcielago

tjk

I agree with many of the points mentioned and I also like the more natural look of GrapheneOS camera better.

If I want to imitate the "Google look", I can always do that kind of in image processing and playing around with sharpen, denoise, (de)saturation and contrast as the "main ingredients".

Unfortunately, one aspect of the GrapheneOS Camera significantly limits its usability for me: The zoom slider.

I have a Pro model and regularly use not only the main- but also the wide-angle and zoom camera.

Trying to hit the exact zoom level is pain in the ass, especially because you always cover the zoom level with your finger and the slider doesn't lock in or gives a haptic feedback at the optical zoom levels either. So if you want to switch to the 5x optical zoom for example, you usually end up with something like nerve-wracking 4.7 digital zoom on the main camera.

If this is improved at some point, I think the GrapheneOS camera would be a really good alternative also in terms of handling.

Tryptamine

Murcielago 4.7X on a Pro level device does not use digital zoom. Any number between 2X and 5X uses a combination of the regular wide angle lens and the 5X zoom lens! Digital zoom is for anything after 10X. After 5X and before 10X it crops to the inside 1/4 (@ 10X) of the telephoto sensor.

Murcielago

Tryptamine

My point was not so much about "4.7x".

I used it to illustrate that using GrapheneOS camera's zoom slider makes it hard to hit the exact focal length of the built-in front cameras (as it is the case with the iPhone, Samsung and also the Pixel Camera) and therefore you often end up using digital zoom unintentionally.

Nevertheless, thanks for the info on how the interaction between optical and digital zoom works.

Tryptamine

Murcielago your welcome. Digital zoom is only for past 10X. Unless you drag your finger way up there, your not using digital zoom at all!