Camera doesn't focus

[JPawlik13]

The camera on my wife's Charge will not focus, no matter where I point on it.

Anyone have any suggestions?

[WCMack]

What are your focus settings for the camera? To check, open the Camera app and touch the gear icon on the left side of the screen (if you don't see that, touch the little arrow to pull out the menu on the left side), then check the Focus mode.

Let us know...

[JerryF]

Try this?  Looking at the screen while it is showing the picture you want to take, touch the screen to tell the camera where it should focus on the picture.  Then without moving the camera, and this is sometimes difficult, take the picture.  Was it in focus?

One note:  if you have a screen protector on the phone some of them make a photo look fuzzy or out of focus.  You may have to move the photo to your PC to get a good evaluation of the focus or remove the screen protector.

On my phone if I take a photo and display it on the screen it looks a little fuzzy caused by the screen protector.  You can prove this by looking at the photo and rolling the screen away from and back toward your body just a little bit and you'll see the distortion caused by the screen protector.  That is one of the reasons I wanted to remove my screen protector but I could not PROVE (beyond a shadow of a doubt) that the Samsung Charge uses Gorilla Glass.  I wish I knew for sure.

OTOH, compared to my "super duper" high-quality digital camera, that incidentally is not also a phone, the Samsung Charge does NOT produce well focused photos and I would not expect it to do so.  The lens cannot compare with one in good camera. 

Please tell me if this worked...thanks.

JerryF 

[JoeNe]

I have noticed that pictures taken in lower light, even with the flash and within 10 feet or less, tend to always be grainy and out of focus.  Pictures taken in good lighting conditions always seems to come out great.  I have tried setting ISO to 400, touching the screen to focus and several other settings.  I look at my pictures on a large monitor after I export them to my computer, so it is not the screen on the phone.

My thought is that the light sensor is weak with the camera in the Charge.  Are you having difficulty focusing in all lighting conditions or just low light requiring flash?

[JerryF]

JoeNe,

Your findings are correct.   The camera suffers from what photographers call NOISE (that  grainy spotty look) and it has a lot of it.  It is very bad in low light.  Like you I tried the flash and it is weak and therefore I see noise in some flash pictures. 

The thing that I have not yet been able to fix or improve is the marginal ability to get well focused pictures in any and all lighting.  I'm still trying.

I, too, have tried from 100 to 800 and at 800 the noise, as expected, is worse.

This does not really bother me because I have a good camera (Panasonic FZ50) and realize that a "phone camera" can never give the same results as a "real" camera.  OTOH, it's nice to have any camera with you at all times so I am glad the Samsung Charge has one.

Your observation re pictures taken with the flash within 10 feet is a good one.  I would expect noise if the flash is weak (low light) but it should be well focused.  The out of focus implies that the focus mechanism is not seeing the area it's supposed to focus on.   I would guess that the lens itself  and F stop exposure is not good enough to do the job.To do a really good job the phone would have to be larger in physical size and more expensive.  I keep reminding myself it's a phone or is it a computer, no, it's a camera and some are even hand held two way radios. 

For our motorhome trips and other pictures a real camera, that is not a phone, is my #1 choice.

BTW, I will keep trying so I know exactly how to use the phone's camera and I'm glad it has a camera.  I just need to get the pictures focused better!

JerryF

[addysdaddy]

Being a photographer by trade, I completely agree with the limited photographic qualities of the Charge or any other cell phone for that matter.  I'm not sure how they're computing mb, but when I txfr the images into Photoshop they're only around 3-4 mb which is decent but certainly not the "weight" of a true 8 megapixel camera.  

I have a noise program that I use and it makes a world of difference on the camera phone images. (any high iso image for that matter)   and if this device is your main source of pictures, then I would encourage you to buy the Noiseware program.  My recommendation would be to turn off the flash unit and leave it off.  The glare and harsh light is simply awful.  The only place where I would use the flash would be outside in the shade or when a person has strong backlight and you want to "fill" in the shadows on they're face.  Keep in my the camera is an after thought on these devices as it's not it's inherit purpose.

The other major issue I observe with camera phones images is camera shake.  It's virtually impossible to hold the phone/camera rock solid stationary and to compound the problem, it requires you to push on the phone to click the shutter.  Simply horrible.  As a test, rest the phone on a table and then lean it against some books or another object to make it steady and use the timer to take the picture.  Then pickup the phone and take the same picture the way you normally would.  I believe you'll see a difference in sharpness as opposed to holding the camera at arms length and pushing on the shutter button.

It's super nice to have a camera with you all the time but I would have high expectations regarding it's picture quality.  Any point & shoot camera would have vastly superior image quality.  If you desire, I would glady make some equipment recommendations if you send me an email and let me know your budget.  Good luck.

[JerryF]

addysdaddy,

Thanks for the nice informational reply.  I sure do agree with everything you said.  I will keep the flash off except for fill and shady areas.  Trying not to shake the camera was the first thing I noticed.  One further point on shake is that a phone is awkward to hold as you normally hold a camera and that adds to your comments on the shake.  For a good photo I would set it down.

I'm not a professional photographer...only a somewhat experienced amateur.  Over the years I have gone from simple point and shoot to optical thru-the-lens SLRs and now I have an "almost" SLR Digital camera  Real SLRs are to heavy for my multi-hour hikes and I decided NOT to carry several lenses after selling my real SLR with its four lenses..   

My Panasonic FZ50 is an "almost" SLR Digital camera..  It goes from 35 to 420mm optical telephoto with a fixed Leica lens and it has a manual telephoto ring on the lens barrel for telephoning. Owned a couple but I never liked electronic telephoning.  The FZ50 also has a manual focus ring on the lens barrel.  The reason I said "almost" SLR is because I see the electronic image thru-the lens and not the optical image, which is okay but I do miss the optical image.  35mm to 420mm is enough for me but I did get a wide angle adapter lens for inside the house photos.  I did go through about 5 cameras before finding the FZ50.

Thanks for your offer but the FZ50 fits perfectly for what I do.

Best regards,

JerryF

[addysdaddy]

Your quite welcome and glad I could help.  Like you I cannot really find a way to hold the phone still without moving it.  If you happen onto a viable solution, please post up.  hahaha.  Cheers.

[JoeNe]

I thought the same thing about pushing the button and how it affects the sharpness of the photo.  Thanks for mentioning it in your post.  It will help to remind me to try and do a better job of holding steady, although I don't know how either.

I do use a Canon DSLR for all my important photos, this is just a nice secondary device to have with me at all times.