Camera pictures have the wrong resolution

[Sturm Flut]

I noticed that the camera-app on both arale and krillin does not take pictures at the native resolution of the camera chip.

krillin chip resolution: 3264×2448 = ~8 MP
krillin output resolution: 2448x4352 = ~10.6 MP

arale chip resolution: 5248×3936 = ~20.7 MP
arale output resolution: 2880x5120 = 14.7 MP

So in the first case the image is scaled up (?) quite a bit, and in the second scaled down a lot.

[Harald Walker (4-walker)]

I've been wondering if it is related to the aspect ratio of the display.

MX4:
Display: 1920 x 1152 pixels = 1.666
Camera: 5248 х 3936 pixels = 1.333
Image captured: 5120 x 2880 pixels = 1.777

Not quiet. But basically the life preview of the camera is also not showing the full image as it would otherwise have to show black bars to fit a 1.333 aspect ratio image on the display.

Not sure if the image captured is scaled down or cropped. Scaling 5248 х 3936 to 5120 x 2880 should show some visible distortions but it doesn't look like it.

[Christos (christosmichaelas)]

I thought I'd post too that it is also affecting me, using Meizu MX4, 15.04 r2.

Res of images I take are:

1440 x 2560 72dpi - Why so low? Does not change when editting general in-app settings.

For me, many images appear to have been scaled down after being taken, making edges very apparent.

Any updates on this?

[Harald Walker (4-walker)]

Christos (christosmichaelas), I wonder why you only get 1440 x 2560 on the MX4. On my MX4 (Ubuntu Edition) I get 5120 x 2880, which is also not correct.

[Christos (christosmichaelas)]

Harald, just to make sure, I took a few more photos and can still say they are at the same resolution (1440 x 2560), even after changing all settings I could in the app.

I had a look at your example photo, and thought I'd link you one of mine:

http://imgur.com/MUY8bgc

Apologies for the lighting, I attempted to enable flash, but when I select the flash as "on", the screen flashes, but no camera flash is produced.

Just to be clear, I'm using the MX4 Ubuntu Edition as well, with all updates installed.

[Ivar Mossin (ivar-mossin)]

I can confirm this behavior on MX4.

Back-camera produces images with 1440x2560 resolution, while front-facing-camera produces 3120x4160 images. I thought the front-facing-camera was only a 2MP chip?

[Harald Walker (4-walker)]

Seems strange that we have MX4 with two different results. Is it something Meizu configures on these phones?

I read on the mailing list that qtubuntu-camera provides the available resolutions. Is there a way to verify what is being returned by qtubuntu-camera?

[Christos (christosmichaelas)]

I just thought I'd give what Ivar said a go, and yes, I do get 3120x4160 on the front facing camera. This obviously must be wrong, but rear camera only produces 1440x2560...

Very strange issue...I'm not sure how we could verify another apps functionality vs camera, other than installing terminal and installing it by other means than the Store?

[fabio cognigni (c-fabio)]

I confirm.
My MX4 Ubuntu produces images front-facing camera 3120x4160 and rear camera only 1440x2560.
It 'strange and frustrating

[Massimo Rossello (maxrossello)]

Confirmed. 2560x1440 back camera, 4160x3120 front camera on Meizu MX4 updated to 15.04 r3.

[fabio cognigni (c-fabio)]

I contacted Meizu assistance that tells:

"Salve, il suo prodotto non è difettoso , è il software ubuntu che non gestisce ancora i 20 mpx , deve attendere che aggiornino il sistema operativo . Cordiali Saluti "

translate

'Hello, the product is not defective. The Ubuntu Software is not yet 20 mpx. You must wait until the operating system update. Sincerely'

It's correct the statement from assistance, It is possible know what is the problem!

Thanks
Fabio

[Alan Pope 🍺🐧🐱 🦄 (popey)]

This also affects video recording. I set arale to 1080p and got a 720p video out.

[Bill Filler (bfiller)]

we are debugging and trying to fix, stay tuned

[Bart Decruyenaere (bart-decruyenaere)]

I have, sort of, the same problem Meizu MX4
resolution of pictures with back camera (should be 20,7Mp) : result in real life 1440x2560 (3,69Mp)
resolution op pictures taken with front camera (should be 2Mp ): 3120x4160 (12,98Mp)

I also noticed that when I use the zoom which is digital and thus should reduce the number of pixels in the resulting photo, the photo's keep the same resolution (1440x2560).

After the recent update of the app, nothing has changed on this subject (maybe this is normal).

[fabio cognigni (c-fabio)]

I do not think it's normal .
And I do not think Canonical should take six months to solve this problem , due to the S.O.
Without whatsapp and without a decent camera the phone is not usable .

[Harald Walker (4-walker)]

Bart and Fabio- bug fix is in progress and fix should be in next OTA-8 release. But I agree this is taking too long.
What I find strange is, that different MX4 users see different behavior. I hope the developers have an explanation for that.

Since this issue is related to many different device types, maybe it would be a good idea to add it as test app to the Pilot app, so we can all help testing before it gets released.

[Ivar Mossin (ivar-mossin)]

So it has been delayed until next year? Isn't this bug of rather high importance? I vote for increasing the importance even higher.

Bill Filler: You said 14th of August that "we are debugging and trying to fix, stay tuned". Still debugging and trying to fix?

Is there anything we as a community can do to help? Are there some patches we can test out? Need some extra logging? Are you able to reproduce at all? Which components are actually involved here? With some guidance on how to proceed, I would be more than willing to help out. It is, after all, my only camera, which happens to be working at some 15% of the announced quality. You know, the one I have been, and will be using for my vacation photos to be stored for years to come.

[Consumology (hans-georg-schmid)]

I feel exactly the same as Ivar. If it is not a hardware problem then there should be some workaround to get this camera working the way it should. Has anyone tried a reset yet? Are any newer MX4 affected as well?

[Dylan Coakley (dylan-coakley)]

Honestly before the phone was open for sale this should have been tested and sorted. Seems they tested the bare minimum and slapped Ubuntu stickers on the box.

At a minimum this should have been sorted before Christmas. (When everyone wants to take nice pictures) Seems it takes 6 months+ for high priority bugs to get fixed.

[Massimo Rossello (maxrossello)]

Looks like the MX4 went sold out, no intention to sell more, so the support for the phone gets low priority.
If this is true, then it is a true idiocy, since we could never trust to buy an Ubuntu phone again having missed a basic feature like this.

[Florian Boucault (fboucault)]

Hi folks, the fix is under testing right now and should land in development images within a few days. Sorry it took so long, hard to believe but it was a tricky bug to fix.

[Consumology (hans-georg-schmid)]

This is great news, sigh! If the fix turns out to be working, how can I make that work under OTA-8? Will there be an update of the Camera App that fixes this or do I have to switch to ubuntu-touch/devel/meizu.en, try the camera and when it works, switch back the channel ubuntu-touch/stable/meizu.en?

[Dylan Coakley (dylan-coakley)]

Sounds good Florian. Will OTA-8 users get a camera-app update including this fix?

[Consumology (hans-georg-schmid)]

Any chance this will be in OTA-8.5?

[Florian Boucault (fboucault)]

Hi guys, unfortunately the fix required changes to the system that will only be part of OTA9. Good news is that it's landed in the development images as of today!

[Consumology (hans-georg-schmid)]

So I updated to the ubuntu-touch/devel/meizu.en channel today and then after running available updates I got offered camera app version 3.0.0.611. The rear camera now has a 4:3 option (20.7MP) and a 5:3 option (15.2MP), the front camera has a 4:3 option (13MP) and a 5:3 option (7.8MP). There is also an option to toggle the shutter sound. But also after restarting the phone and de- and reinstalling the app everything was still in the same old wrong resolution.

I then switched to devel-proposed/meizu.en and this solved the problem. The app stayed the same, but it was working now with the promised resolution!

Switching to ubuntu-touch/stable/meizu.en or ubuntu-touch/rc/meizu.en makes the camera disappear, the app is also not showing up in the store then.

Switching to ubuntu-touch/rc-proposed/meizu.en brought the fixed camera back again without any further doing. This image (build-number r191) seems to be stable enough for daily use at the moment, so I will stay on it for now and enjoy my "new" camera!

Big thanks to the developers for finally fixing this annoying bug!

[Florian Boucault (fboucault)]

You're welcome :)

[Florian Boucault (fboucault)]

And sorry it took so long!

[Ronnie Tucker (ronnietucker)]

Umm. I have OTA-9 installed on my MX4 and photos from the back camera show as being 4480 x 2688 which makes them 12MP.

[Pat McGowan (pat-mcgowan)]

@ronnie if you set the aspect to 4:3 you get 20MP, at 5:3 the max is 12MP

[Ronnie Tucker (ronnietucker)]

Spot on @pat. Getting 20MP photos now.

Might be better to have the ratio set to 4:3 by default? Just a suggestion.

Thanks for the tip!

[Michal Predotka (mpredotka)]

Just got OTA-9 on bq 4.5. According to Camera app, photos now can have 13.4MP (4:3) or 10.7MP(16:9). In the bug report it says that they should have ~8MP. So photos are still scaled up, right? And that's why the quality is still poor.

[Florian Boucault (fboucault)]

Right Michal, the bug report was incomplete actually, BQ E4.5 has a special interpolation resolution of 13.4MP for the front sensor (as stated here http://www.bq.com/es/aquaris-e4-5 "8Mpx - 13Mpx interpolados (Dual flash y autofocus)").

[Michal Predotka (mpredotka)]

Thanks Florian, I guess I have to just get used to the photo quality then ;)
Would be nice if someone who also have Android on bq 4.5 could make a comparison photos. Then we would know if that's device or system problem.

[fabio cognigni (c-fabio)]

Thanks Florian,

My MX4 have 20MP, finally

[Jonas (jonny-boy)]

I have a question regarding the output resolution of the mx4. The full resolution of the mx4 is 5248x3936 in 4:3 format (20,7 Mpx). Why is the resolution in 5:3 format only 4480x2688 (12 Mpx)?
By changing the format to 5:3 I would expect, that the camera uses still the full resolution of the chip and just cuts the picture to the right format so the width resolution should be nearly unchanged. But the width resolution changes too, which results in a lower picture resolution than necessary. Is a resolution like 5245x3147 in 5:3 format (16,5 Mpx) not possible?

[Florian Boucault (fboucault)]

It is a fair question Jonas. Unfortunately I do not have a complete answer to it. Essentially we are using the highest resolution available at 5:3 returned by the Android camera backend which turns out to be 4480x2688 for the MX4's back camera. It also is the default resolution if you install Android on the same phone.
The sensor's product brief does not give more insights unfortunately:

http://www.sony.net/Products/SC-HP/IS/sensor1/products/imx220.html

[Jonas (jonny-boy)]

Ok thanks for the answer. It's also strange, that the old 16:9 Resolution (5120x2880) is higher than the new 5:3 one (4480x2688), as 5:3 is closer to the 4:3 format of the chip than 16:9. Is it possible to bring the old 16:9 format back as an option for the camera-app or does the android-backend not support it? I filled a bug report some weeks ago: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/camera-app/+bug/1575510
As this bug is closed I don't want to produce unnecessary Email-Notifications, so someone who knows something about this topic (16:9 format) can answer it in the new bug.