Andy I can take a well deserved nap :) Zzzzzzzzzz

What - you wake the old git up after just 4 minutes.....! :)
Will reply when I - hopefully - wake up :)

    lcalamar as far as I understand it across both stock and GOS and both cameras, the zoom slider switches between cameras as you use it.

    It can all depend on the light level too as to which camera get's used, in lower light settings the main camera is retained when zooming not the telephoto and this behaviour is the same between GOS Camera and GCamera I believe.

    User: Yeah I got that... I think it's more a subjective issue then, because it indeed feels a bit imprecise to have the lens switch at 4x + something, even if the GOS camera does the exact right thing

    Dev: The telephoto camera on Pixel 6 Pro doesn't work well under low light which is why. It works exactly the same way in our app and Google Camera. People think they're using telephoto in Google Camera but they aren't
    Google Camera has no manual switching, just zoom shortcuts and it uses the same dynamic switching for 6 Pro it's only the 6 Pro telephoto using that.

    Source: GrapheneOS [Matrix] Community

        omori also the Google camera is available at the playstore. (It took me a while to figure out that I didn't have to side load or do anything tricky to install it.)

          MetropleX oh cool!

          if i understand, using the slider on the gos camers does use the optical hardware 4x zoom on the p6p. 😁

              lcalamar Yes you can leave EXIF data on and check it after taking a picture which should reveal which camera was used. I don't have a Pro.

                Wo Guys – all this action has woke the old git up – both bemused and amused thanks.
                I smile because these days people are totally lost without an App to tell them what is what?
                Let us return to my old school methodology? And sanity!
                First off; both old film and digital cameras don’t like telephoto shots in poor light. Even still subjects taken with tripod mounted camera will give some grain or noise. ( Which some will use for artistic effect )
                So let us indulge this old git with the simplest experiment:-
                Take any picture and note its details of frame size by pixels and while we are at it, note the file size. Now in camera gallery or photo editor take a crop of about a quarter of the photo then determine that the new frame size and file size is roughly one quarter of the original.
                You have just replicated digital zoom – simple!
                So for the last bit of the experiment to see if you are indeed in optical zoom territory:-
                Take a picture with normal lens of say a brick wall (no sky, no windows or doors) then zooming in take another picture. The frame and file size of both pictures should be roughly the same if not exactly the same. If so, you have optical zoom – simple!

                No Apps needed to tell you this – joke :)

                lcalamar Correct - the GOS camera does not provide the 4x optical zoom feature that the P6P has.

                P6P DOES NOT HAVE OPTICAL ZOOM
                Optical zoom means a lens that actually moves in order to change zoom.

                What P6P has, is 3 distinct camera sensors. 4 if you count the one in the little hole in the screen.

                One of the differences in the 3 cameras is the magnification of the lens associated with them. If you're looking at the back of the phone, the first lens/sensor you see is the main, then next over is a lens with a wider angle, and the third one in the rectangular hole is more zoomed in.

                The HAL on P6P switches between sensors dynamically as the level of zoom and other conditions change. Typically, it will switch to the zoomed in lens at a magnification of about 4.5x (not 4x -- google camera mucks around with the numbers, the real number is higher). Make sure that there is adequate LIGHT and that your scene is far enough away that the camera can actually focus!

                Works like this; at 1.0 it will use the MAIN sensor. As you "zoom in", it will apply digital zoom (combination of cropping and scaling). When it reaches the threshold for the next sensor, it will switch over to it at NO digital zoom, then as you continue to zoom in, it will apply digital zoom to that as well.

                IMO its a kind of a fraud. Scaling kills image quality so shouldn't be used. Even cropping is annoying. It would be much nicer if we could distinctly select each sensor and then decide if we want to use any crop/scale.

                You can usually see a slight visual "jump" when it switches, but to know for certain, put your finger over the different lenses, then you can tell which one it is actually reading from.

                I can promise you that GrapheneOS will use ALL of the different sensors available on P6P.

                    abcZ Hey Thanks, was hoping someone else would step in with practical knowledge obtained first hand – as I have just been reading and surmising. You also confirm Graphene-OS org statements.

                    abcZ Optical zoom means a lens that actually moves in order to change zoom.

                    Movement is a relative term – so the sensor could be manipulated to move leaving the lens stationary. I take your words as is – yet it can be said that “zoom” can historically refer to any magnification over a standard lens view – as the eye sees it. Hence when we get down to it we are talking about a telephoto lens vs a zoom lens which has the optical ability to change the zoom or focal area.
                    I suspect the 6 series Pixels have just a telephoto lens to switch to as you describe so well? There again if you need to be pedantic…. Pixel 6 Pro gets a 4x periscope camera which allows 4x optical zoom and up to 20x digital zoom.
                    My first link is fairly simple stuff but perhaps contains too many examples to comprehend and assimilate in one go but there again I am 72…! :)

                    https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/google-pixel-6-vs-pixel-6-pro-which-camera-is-better/
                    My second link is more to my techy liking…

                    https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/google-pixel-6-vs-pixel-6-pro-camera/

                    “With Quad Bayer pixel-binning, four adjacent pixels combine to form a single pixel measuring 2.4μm. Google claims this allows the 50MP to capture 2.5 times more light than the Pixel 5’s primary camera.” Love it…!

                    Spare a thought in this tech for tech’s sake digital camera soap opera – 3a RIP.
                    “you might not even care or notice; the differences can be so slight in some situations. In fact, there are even ways that the Pixel 6a beats the more expensive phones.”

                    https://www.androidpolice.com/pixel-6-6a-6-pro-camera-comparison/

                    Now compare 3a with 6a… Enjoy...

                        a month later

                        SquirrelMaster hi any chance you have updated low/high config files for the updated gcam? (Really liked the configs you shared, but they are no longer compatible)

                          Some of the early posts claiming the telephoto lens on the Pixel 6 Pro doesn't work with GrapheneOS Camera have been removed. Google Camera's 4x zoom button is highly misleading because the telephoto lens is used at a dynamic range based on light level. Indoors with decent lighting, you usually need to go to at least 4.7x zoom before it will switch to the telephoto lens. It tends to only switch immediately at 4x in daytime outside. The telephoto camera needs more light and it avoids switching to it as early in bad lightning conditions. You think it's not working with GrapheneOS Camera because you aren't zooming far enough while with Google Camera you don't realize that it hasn't switched to it because you're using the 4x zoom button. This is a common misconception. It works the same way in the stock OS and GrapheneOS with both GrapheneOS Camera and Google Camera though. The dynamic switch is part of the underlying OS camera HAL.

                          SquirrelMaster Google Camera doesn't have 'fake HDR'. GrapheneOS Camera takes advantage of the same multi-frame merging provided by HDR+ on Pixels. It has a more subtle look in GrapheneOS Camera because the OS provided HDR+ is less aggressive and designed to avoid adding significant latency or giving the photos an HDR / high exposure appearance.

                            It was made clear in earlier posts - but appreciate the clarification.

                            well, thanks for explanation, even I don't use the phone camera except for rarely shots, and I've only GOS camera installed, when I've tried GCam from Aurora Store or from MWP, they was giving half the weight of the same pic compared to GOS Camera and I don't understand way...