Re: [Announce - beta5] ρcam for harmattan - raw/jpg camera application for N9 with manual controls
 

LOL!!! 3circles in one circle...

Re: [Announce - beta5] ρcam for harmattan - raw/jpg camera application for N9 with manual controls
 

eyes/ear-eye and mouth > :eek: < :D
nothing else...:D lol

Re: [Announce - beta5] ρcam for harmattan - raw/jpg camera application for N9 with manual controls
 

When using latest beta i experience an issue when closing the pcam app and then playing a video through gpodder or stock video player. The brightness level is somewhat automatically stuck at 30% (that's the feeling i get). The system brightness is good but only when playing a video the brightness is different.... Rebooting resolves the issue until opening pcam again. Anyone else facing this issue?

Re: [Announce - beta5] ρcam for harmattan - raw/jpg camera application for N9 with manual controls
 

I can confirm this, although after an unspecified amount of time (or unidentified action) it does revert. I used rawcam yesterday and today the problem was not there, until I opened rawcam again. I still can't find a way to make it go away though without reboot.

I will investigate (should be something about the video overlay), thanks for reporting.

Re: [Announce] [please share your best rawcam photos] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 with manual controls
 

Please share your best pictures taken with rawcam. I'm about to make some marketing material for the submission to the coding competition and I'd like to have your input. You will of course be credited.

Thanks.

Re: [Please Share Your Best RawCam Photos] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 with manual controls
 

I can't get the flash to flash - anyone else experiencing this?

Re: [Please Share Your Best RawCam Photos] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 with manual controls
 

The flash works for me. Does it work in default camera fine?

New beta out. I'd consider it stable but the bug that the videos still play half-bright after using rawcam hasn't gone away. I initially thought I had fixed that because when running it as developer it doesn't have this side effect. Any ideas what could cause this?

Other improvements include a settings page, and that when switching to manual mode the sliders autoadjust to the previous brightness (no more brightness jump)

Re: [beta 6 - Please Share Your Best RawCam Photos] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 with manual controls
 

great

everything works well

just not very smooth

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

New version out, now with white balance and N900 support (download N900 version from extras-devel)

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

Any news about the support for the N950?

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

Unfortunately no. I have very little info to work with. No working example and no harmattan fcam drivers source. I have filed a source code request with nokia. If I get the source maybe there will be a little hope.

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

hi qwazix!
what does rawcam have that FCam (for N900) doesn't?
does it correct for the vignetting? is its exposure more on the brighter side than FCam's? those two are my main issues with FCam.

note: sorry i can't be a beta tester, the N900's currently my main phone. thanks for not forgetting the N900. :)

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

For now, the only things that rawcam does better than fcamera is flash support (adjustable brightness and second curtain), and a simpler interface (quicker to use - more like an advanced point&shoot). On the other hand it lacks HDR and stabilization.

Keep in mind it's still the first experimental version for the N900. About the issues you mentioned, I haven't spotted them in fcamera either so I am not sure but I suppose rawcam should not be much better, as it shares some code and the drivers with fcamera.

I wasn't planning to release rawcam for the N900 as it was intended to be an equivalent to fcamera for the N9. But it got good enough, and finally has a feature that doesn't exist on fcamera, so why not give users the choice?

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

Porting UFRaw to the n9 would not be that hard, i think. Did a lot of porting for the n900 back in the days, and i do find it utterly relaxing, so i might try a port later, i'll let you know.
~/J

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

Hi, very promising app!
May i just report one suggestion and one half bug?

So the suggestion is that while manual focusing, it would be of great great help to have a magnifier that can be moved around the screen

the half bug is a sort of conflict with a package named rawcam in rzr repos.. does it happen only to me? I guess it's only for those who have unofficial repos enabled so its not really a bug, but still annoying :)

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

paoletto, rawcam in rzr's repository is the same application, just an older version. I think the one in the repository has a higher version number by mistake. Anyway the latest is attached here in the first post, and will be included in apps4meego when I find the time to debug why OBS refuses to build it.

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

hi qwazix!
a gave rawcam a try and i got some requests/suggestions ranked according to priority:
1. show a preview of the shot once the picture is taken/make the LED blink/make a shutter release "click" so that the user knows that the shot was taken. i hold my breath when i press the shutter button especially under low light, i almost died of asphyxiation! :p
2. onscreen shutter button and use the keyboard (spacebar or enter) as optional shutter button.
3. option to customize file name prefix.
thanks and good luck on the competition!

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

Thought against N900 version (0.0.8):

*Menu shortcut has name 'pcam', everywhere else it is 'rawcam'.

*Binary is not optified:
(almost ½MB)

*fcam-drivers needed, but package doesn't depend on it.
(actually rawcam can be started without fcam-drivers, and there are no warnings)

*Starting gives:
(Or do I have some silly hack installed?) I think this is the reason for settings be empty.

*If stock camera is not used, there are no directory /home/user/MyDocs/DCIM
->

----
*DNG file contains 640x480 tiff preview image. Maybe showing this on mobile is enough (and not use full ufraw).

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

Hey

I really liked your app, in fact I love it!
This is an image i took with my N9 using your app yesterday:
https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphot...93877322_o.jpg

For me it is working perfectly, no compaints although i have two suggestions to it:

- It doesn't shoot in 16x9 format and as you know, N9 has a special lens for it
- The vignette is way too dark, sometimes a little too much. ;)


Keep up the good work!:)

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

wow! really nice picture.
I personally don't have a n9, so unfortunately I can't use it. However, by reading the app features the users impressions and pictures I really think it's a great app. Good Work! :)

EDIT: I just noticed that it's available for the n900 too. I guess I was confused because it's in the n9/50 section.:o

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

Wut? sounds like some kind of marketing BS. rawcam images are - as name suggest - raw's from sensor, so pictures are exactly like most RAW thing we get from sensor. Even if lens would be optimized for 16:9 ratio - which would be *very* strange - it would affect dump from sensor.

So, if You want 16:9 picture, just cut top and bottom part of picture from rawcam - You will have biggest 16:9 picture You're able to take with this camera (not possible to increase FOV in left and right)

It's due to lens characteristic - same issue was bugging generacies of N900 fcam/camera-ui2 users. Fortunately, some time ago, perfect (practically) solution was found - FOSS program CornerFix. Google for it - it works great, and is available for windoze, mac, and something else. AFAIK, sadly, no linux port, yet :( Would be great to have it on N900, as with Easy Debian's ufRAW, it would make it totally independent of another machines, for processing RAW photography.

/Estel

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

Hey Estel,
N9's lens is different than most mobiles lenses.:)
It doesn't just cut top and bottom out of the 4:3. It uses maximum width length from the sensor (with bigger FOV on the sides).
Take a look at this image and you will understand :
http://www.phonesarchive.com/images/...ra%20specs.jpg

Otherwise I could just crop the image in photoshop, but that's not the case.

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

Well, thanks a lot for providing picture and explaining, but it's only confirming what I've said. (not completely - more about it to follow)

First of all, it's not about lens. This picture shows area of sensor, used in both cases. Lens, as You see from picture, produces circular view area, anyway - like all "regular" lenses.

Second, I get what You mean - but unfortunately, it's not good news, either ;) In fact, it means that N9 sensor never takes advantage of it's full potential (8.7 Mpx), as "rows" are outside of optical area. So, 4:3 images are 8 Mpx, but 16:9 images are 7.1 Mpx, due to... Top and bottom being cut out ;) (despite, that it's present in optical area)

Of course, as said, i understand Your point - in addition to cutting out top & bottom, it also widens 16:9 images a little - not enough to compensate for lost top & bottom (so 7,1 Mpx, not 8 Mpx), but still. No idea, if it's possible to force certain mode in program such as rawcam - qwazix, any comments?
---

BTW, to make things clear - this "special property" of N9's sensor isn't, in any case, advantage. It's a flaw - due to area produced by lens, sensor is never used to full potential. Using "special" mode for 16:9, is just "damage control", i.e. making this flaw less painful. No idea, why they have decided upon such design, but inability to use full sensor area in *any* mode, isn't advantage, no matter what.

anyway, it seems that everything, when advertised properly, can be perceived as thing of bonus value :)

/Estel

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

Cornerfix uses "Adobe DNG SDK 1.3", which is not FOSS and doesn't exist for (any kind of) Linux. Mentioned also in: http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...&postcount=752 But there are source code available under "Adobe License".

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

Very nice!

I took a quick test photo in very low light conditions with 1 s exposure and ISO100 (to avoid noise) and results are suprisingly good.
http://www.saunalahti.fi/ladoga/kuva...3.31.21.30.jpg

Wishes:
1, I would like to have longer exposures available if it's possible..

2. Magnify toggle (preferably fullscreen) would make manual focusing so much easier.

I also noticed something about the bug with stock video app showing gray overlay. After I play a video with mplayer (from commandline, not as kmplayer backend) the stock video player will show colors correctly again.

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

HUGE POST WARNING

A lot of replies, thanks guys for your input.


@paoletto: Latest rawcam is now in rzr's repo. The magnifying lens feature is a very nice idea but without further reaserch it seems hard to do. The frames that fcam streams are just 854*480. I would need to stream bigger frames, downscale them in real time and crop a portion to display full size, all that assuming that the N9 has enough power to process such highres frames in 30+fps


@vetsin: No 1 (led blinker) and 2 (soft shutter) are already there, just commented out. #1 because it doesn't work on the N9 and #2 because I thought nobody would use a on-screen shutter when he's got a real one. Snapping with the keyboard is not a feature I'm interested in implementing though, sorry. As for #3, I only can say that I'm not working on new features until the competition is over.


@Aapo: The official name of the application is ρcam. Greek letter rho and cam, pronounced rawcam. As I was afraid that I might run into problems naming binaries with a unicode character in them, I chose rawcam as a binary and package name (also imagine having to do apt-get install ρcam without a greek keyboard layout installed). I know it is not great marketing to having to explain the pronunciation of a name next to the name but what the hell, I like that name, I hope you take some awesome photos with it, pronounce it however you like :)

Binary not optified: already fixed in harmattan branch, got to merge the branches and push update, but I'll do that after the competition ends. I know it can be considered a bugfix, but if you absolutely want it you can lend it half meg of your rootfs for another week.

Fcam-drivers not depended upon: I'd swear I did that but if you say so it might have slipped. Will do fix.

Settings works for me, needs qt-components-10 which I also remember adding but this might be another slip. (or my whole control file is messed with the harmattan one or an older version)

Note to self: create DCIM if not exists.

@aStrike: A short rawcam history. When I got the N950 I was curious if I could take 12MP photos with it. I'd seen that fcam was available for harmattan so I tried to run the example apps on it. When I failed, I thought of giving a shot to porting fcamera. Fcamera builds fine, but it segfaulted due to some weird qtwidget bug. I tried a little bit to debug it, but then I thought that Fcamera's interface wasn't worth debugging, and that I could do a quicker, more familiar interface, based on the common point&shoot interface and SLR control naming practice. The N900 already had it's Fcamera so at first I didn't bother to port rawcam back. After implementing all the basic features I wanted, I started working on flash support. When flash support was completed, rawcam had finally a feature that Fcamera didn't, along with a better (in my opinion) interface, so the're was now a reason to backport. That is why it's in the N9/50 section :)

@Estel: I can request the exact image size I want from fcam, as long as it's less than the maximum sensor size. I just used sensor.maxImageSize() and got done with that. I can try giving the specific dimensions of the internal camera 16:9 pictures for the N9 and see what's going to happen.

@PhilG13: Awesome photo. Estel replied better than me for the vignette. See above for 16:9.

@Iadoga: 1s is the maximum shutter time for the N9 and 2.5s for the N900

Some more technical info for the curious.
One of the features missing from fcamera is exposure compensation. Total exposure in fcam is calculated as exp=gain*time where time is shutter open time in μs and gain is the logarithm with base 2 of the ISO number, plus one (gain = log(ISO/100)/log(2)+1). That means 1 => 100, 2=> 200, 3=>400, 4=>800 and so on. When pinning ISO in ISO priority mode, or time in shutter priority mode, rawcam (and fcamera for that matter) autoexposes the frame, receives the time and gain needed to expose correctly from the drivers, multiplies them getting a total exposure value, and then divides by the pinned value to determine the dynamic value.

I thought, that if I autoexpose and then just crank up or down one of the two values a step or two would work fine. I tried just multiplying time with 2 raised to the exposure compensation value (+1 stop e.v. means double the value) with unpredictable results.
-- BREAK --
In fact this is not strictly correct as the autoexposure algorithm has a priority on which value it changes which according to documentation, goes like this
-- END BREAK --
The exposure compensation worked as expected only up to about half a stop, and then it went nuts pushing the camera either to absolute darkness or blinding light. After trying various things such as moving the compensation up the process, or implementing a custom modified autoexposure algorithm I found out it is impossible to compensate with mathematically correct EV stops. It is possible to compensate by modifying the algorithm to request more burnt pixels or more black pixels, but that would need deep understanding of the autoexposure algorithm which I don't have, and when using the forked autoexpose function inside rawcam instead of the fcam one, something weird happend and the image froze after a few seconds, so I gave up.

I fully understood though why it isn't possible to do an exact compensation after autoexposure, and the easiest way to demonstrate this is with an example with completely out-of-scale fabricated numbers.
First though some background info about how autoexpose works:
As the N9 does not have an external light meter, the algorithm uses the color of the pixels of each incoming frame to compute the required exposure. If it finds too much burnt pixels it adjust down, if it finds many black ones adjusts up (oversimplified). While having a picture far off the correct value (imagine a completely white picture) the algorithm has little info on what the real exposure should be as everything is off the chart. It is impossible to know how much off the chart it is. It only knows that it needs to adjust down (by much). When the incoming frames start to get darker the algorithm starts to get some info about how far from the desired exposure we are, and turns down the rate of adjustment. After a few frames the desired exposure and real exposure converge.
Now to the actual example: Let's say that we frame a picture that the AE algorithm says that an exposure of 40 is needed, and user selected +2 EV compensation. (scale up exposure numbers by 1000 if you want a closer approximation of actual values) This would mean that our desired exposure value would be 160 (40*2^2). So just after the exposure we set the desired value to 160, set gain and time accordingly and request the next frame. Large exposure deltas do not happen over one frame for various reasons, but let's assume that it does happen for our example. So this frame comes, and is exposed at 160, which is pretty far off from 40. Autoexpose returns that the desired exposure is not 40 anymore, but 50, as it can't estimate closer to the truth with the info contained in the 160 frame. (the smoothing algorithm that is being used to prevent flashing from lightbulbs etc, only makes things worse - with that enabled it the next frame will return with something even higher). So recapping, we just got a frame exposed at 160, autoexpose says we need 50 and our exposure compensation multiplies this by 4 resulting in a desired compensation of 200. 200 is even more far away, autoexpose requests 65 now, we multiply by four etc. etc, until the screen is all white.

I also tried pinning the desired exposure value for some frames until values converge, but there wasn't any way to know if the differences were due to exposure compensation compensating or the user moving the camera around.

So I never managed to do exposure compensation right. I could still fake a slider with some arbitrary numbers, use real EV values about 1/3 of the real to compensate for the above behavior and cap it @+/-2EV to prevent it from getting out of hand, but this wouldn't be SLR grade mathematically correct exposure compensation, so I decided to leave it out.

I have to go now otherwise I'll fall asleep on the keyboard.

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

Great app!

Could you make a HW mods like volume buttons as the camera button. And maybe stealth mode to take pictures and the screen is black. Thanks for the contribution however! :)

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

Ough, that hurts - if fact that we're using adobe's dng raw format wouldn't be enough pain...

I wonder, if program compiled from source under "Adobe License" could land in non-free part of our repos? Surely yes, so it's the question about how possible (technically) compiling it for N900 is.

/Estel

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

This app not worked on my N9 - first I have installed v0.08,the program icon shows in the Menu,but by pressing do nothing,same issue and after reboot.
After that I have uninstalled v0.08 and I have installed v0.06 - same issue here...
Any ideas :confused:

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

ivo try running the app from terminal (/usr/bin/rawcam) to see the errors...I've used every version so far and all work...

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

My bad,last night I have flashed my N9 and I was forgot to switch on Developer mode from Settings,now all is OK :D

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

http://wiki.meego.com/MeeGo_Apps/Submit - please submit to apps4meego :P Thanks in advance. (icons and screenshots should be uploaded separetly and not inside package, and the names should be specific — http://wiki.meego.com/MeeGo_Apps/Packaging would help you with that, but again use osc instead web UI :P )

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

Done. I hope it goes through this time.

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

Nice app but the OVI price is a killer ;-). BTW. Do to the name used one cannot find the app neither by searching for pcam nor by searching for rawcam (and as you mentioned ρ/ro is not even available with standard keyboards).

So I'm not sure what is in the OVI version but after using the one from here I have the following suggestions:

• The gallery button works strange - it seems as if it shows the first photo taken after starting the app rather then the one I just took.
• Adding to above it would be better if it allow to move through photos (swipe) rather then making the user to go to real gallery.
• There is also no feedback (preferably haptic) of taking the photo (as already mentioned by others). This in connection with no 1 constantly makes me wonder each time if I already took the photo or not.
• There is also clearly a bug - once I take one photo with flash I cannot disable it. It seem to stay enabled until I restart the app.
• Haptic feedback for other buttons rather then activity frame (dotted border) for other buttons would be nice.

BTW. What does this lighting with dots button do? I thought some menu would open but it doesn't seem to work or the button does something I'm not aware of.

Having said all that I do like the manual modes - especially focus and ISO. I never thought it would be available for my N9. :-)

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

eccenux thanks for the feedback.

1. Ovi version has nothing more. It's there just for the people who would like to support development. I know 10€ is much in the smartphone app world but in the real world it's less than two beers in a pub.

2. The photos are very big and take some time to save. The gallery button shows the last saved photo which might be taken a little while back. (see how long it does to show up in the first place)

3. I would love that too, but I don't want to implement a gallery app by myself, and just opening the photo in the default gallery is the nearest I could do. If somebody would jump on the project to help create a viewing mode he's very welcome. I will focus on picture taking features if this project is to continue.

4. Feedback is something that should be there, I agree. Will see what can be done.

5. bug confirmed. I will check it out.

6. Haptic feedback means shake and I don't know if this is desired in a camera app. I will think about feedback though, you have a point.

7. The .../ flash icon fires the flash just before the frame finishes instead of when starting. When shooting bright moving objects in the dark, for example a guy running, carrying a torch, with normal flash the picture will show the guy and a line of light in front of him. Back curtain flash will show the line trailing the guy.

http://web.canon.jp/imaging/flashwor...ain/index.html

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

Hell no! Everything but vibra feedback in camera program, pretty please. Or at least, make it optional.

/Estel

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

We agree here, but feedback is not always vibration. so there can be other ways.

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

oh thank goodness for an app that can use the camera properly.

on the N8 we always had mods we could install to crank the quality of the photos up, etc.

the standard photos seem a bit poor, i have to say.

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

What about a timer? If a set a 1s time and tap the screen, the phone will certainly move and results in blurry image.
Having a 2s, 10s (at least) timer, would certainly help getting sharper images.

Also, chosing ISO: what about have 'stops' at 100, 200, 400 up to 3200? Kind of snapping to grid while having the option to go in between those values. I find it very hard to set ISO 200 precisely.
Same for time (usual times from regular camera phones).

Moreover, yes, I also vote for feedback. I never know if I took the picture or not. Could be flashing of the screen or a little vibration to say picture's ready to view.

Thanks for this and last question, is code closed?

Re: [#MCCXII] ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 **and N900** with manual controls
 

good app , you can see raw photos with a better camera app and with this pcam , I am now testing the two apps, raw photos.