A Better Camera
 

Hi! Anyone used this app? Just saw it on Ovi Store. Please let me know if it really does as advertised. Would be a nice improvement for the current camera performance. Anyone compared with BlessN900?

Re: A Better Camera
 

If I'm not mistaken that's the same company that develops blessn900.

Re: A Better Camera
 

It would appear that this is BlessN900, only renamed. From the developer's website

http://www.almalence.com/

Re: A Better Camera
 

So they finally packaged BlessN900 and put it on Ovi Store? It's a chargeable app at about USD 3.

Re: A Better Camera
 

I'm in no way associated with this company but having seen them supporting N900 from day one I'm rushing to buy this app without hesitation. brb.

Re: A Better Camera
 

is this a new version?

Re: A Better Camera
 

Hi all,

"A Better Camera" is a commercial version of BlessN900 with a couple of advantages (for now):
- Faster processing due to utilization of DSP and GPU;
- Option to launch A Better Camera instead of standard camera application when the cover is opened.

In the same time, BlessN900 will be still available for free, and we will continue its support.

(A Better Camera is available in ovi store: http://store.ovi.com/content/104191)

Re: A Better Camera
 

Like the other poster I have no problems paying £6 for this.

Installs and runs fine on the power kernal, auto launch on camera cover slide is nice and fast.

I still get a blank viewfinder screen (goes away if you tap the mode selector), and an auto close when camera cover is closed would be nice (assuming there is code to finish processing in the background).

DNG output is very welcome, and overall feels a lot snappier than bless - well worth the pocket change!

Re: A Better Camera
 

I'm using lens-cover launcher to be able to select what application I want to launch, would it have any undesired effect with A Better Camera?

Re: A Better Camera
 

I like bless900 but I find it very slow to take a picture - if I half press to focus, then full press to take the shot, I get a delay of about 8-10 seconds while the screen still shows a moving image of the scene I'm snapping before it changes to the clockwise display of thumbnails of the various images being captured.
From the point at which I press the camera button until the captured imaged is displayed fullscreen, the background of the "X" in the top right of the bless900 window gets highlighted light grey.

If I move the camera during the delay to a different scene, the photo eventually taken is of that new scene (so the delay is not due to any active image processing).

2 questions:

a) is the delay I describe normal for bless900
b) would it be substantially reduced if I upgraded to ABC

Re: A Better Camera
 

Sounds great! I like the fact that you can launch "A better camera" instead of the standard one when the cover is opened. I'll give it a try!

Edit: Typo

Re: A Better Camera
 

With a better camera, comes the need for a cellphone photo class...

Interesting new findings about cellphone photography concerns...

http://techcentral.my/news/story.asp...5&sec=it_news#

Re: A Better Camera
 

€ 6,00 (TTC)
here!!!

Re: A Better Camera
 

Installed A Better Camera. Fcam came with the installation package - so, you'll need to restart the phone after installation.

The app allows users to define which camera to launch when shutter is opened (but need to restart each time you want to change settings). But it's not a problem if A Better Camera was truly A Great Camera.

Sad to say, application takes 3 seconds to launch after you open the shutter. Also file saving takes a few seconds as well. If these could be sped up, it would make it more usable and practical.

I haven't really tried playing with picture quality. Will update more when I have.

Edit: There's also no video option. Looks like the standard camera needs to stay.

Re: A Better Camera
 

Can we use the camera flash now? Even though it is not great, it is better than nothing in most cases.

This is one reason I don't use Bless n900.

And if it is still slow, I will rather use standard camera, as it takes gorgeous photos already.

Re: A Better Camera
 

Sure, you can set flash on/auto/off.
Also, you can use 'standard' mode if you wish to take an image as with the standard camera, but with no exiting A Better Camera and launching the standard application.

Re: A Better Camera
 

There should be no problems with Camera Launcher, just do not set option 'launch when the lens cover is opened' in A Better Camera.

Re: A Better Camera
 

I bought the app to support the developers. For me it's good; however I would like having a button to call the stock application, to shoot a video if needed; or, better, a native video option for the app. Thanks

Re: A Better Camera
 

I am having a bug with "a better camera".
When shooting an HD photo at zoom > 1, instead of the usual 4 photos I get a full circle of several (20? 30?) photos, and the program immediately crashes.
In similar conditions, BlessN900 shows fewer photos and doesn't crash.

I'm running kernel-power-46, btw.

When I try to remove abettercamera there are problems:

Re: A Better Camera
 

Likewise the issue when taking pictures zoomed. I dont run kernel 46 but the stable 42 version and have the exact same circle of pictures which then switches to a single image of what I have taken and then crashes.

Re: A Better Camera
 

You can do that and much more for free with Camera Lens Launcher :)

Re: A Better Camera
 

night/dark pictures with the led fash are yellow and green, dont buy it.

Re: A Better Camera
 

I've disabled that and using the standard camera as default when the shutter cover is open for 2 reasons - standard camera app launch is faster, and I want to have video capture option.

Also, from my experiene with A Better Camera so far, it seems with 1.5 zoom and above, the pic quality is consistently better. At zoom 1, I keep getting speckled red dots (slightly low lighting). Hope the developers can look into this for improvement. Thanks.

Edit: Typo

Re: A Better Camera
 

I experienced both the "night/dark pictures with the led flash are yellow and green" issue, and a speckled red/blue dots issue probably similar to what Joseph.skb mentioned.

Both these issues occurred in HQ mode with everything else in default settings.

I'm a little disappointed because BlessN900 is pretty solid and I thought ABC would at least be on par.

Re: A Better Camera
 

How much faster?

Re: A Better Camera
 

I, like a few others on this thread, bought it to support the developer. He's done a lot of work on this/BlessN900, and has been very responsive to this community. There aren't a whole lot of commercial developers out there supporting our platform, so with my purchase (even if it is symbolic) I want to show there are N900 users (even if it is only a drop in the bucket) willing to purchase commercialized applications, in hopes that the developer is encouraged to continue to refine his product.

We all have different motivations, and bring differing calculi to bear, when making purchasing decisions. I think that your motivation and reasoning (i.e., "it might be too buggy to be commercially ready for sale") for warning people against purchasing is perfectly valid. I just wanted to provide an alternative perspective.

Re: A Better Camera
 

Also, I expect improved versions of this program to be made available. It isn't the only program to have ever been released with bugs, some of which were priced at more than $6.

Re: A Better Camera
 

a) No, it's not normal. Probably, BlessN900 conflicts with some other application on your phone. Have you tried to launch BlessN900 just after a reboot, with no other applications running?
b) I doubt, as the shooting process itself is identical in ABC and BlessN900.

Re: A Better Camera
 

I confirm that ABC has problems in Zoom mode under power kernel. We are now trying to find out how to fix it.

To uninstall ABC, please try the following:
dpkg -r --force-all abettercamera

Re: A Better Camera
 

HQ mode with no zoom, HDR: a little speed-up, about 2-3 sec.
HQ mode with zoom: about 4 times faster (10 sec instead of 40 sec for processing)
Burst/bracketing mode: images saving is 3-4 times faster.

Re: A Better Camera
 

Another feedback:

Sometimes, the camera takes the picture only after I release the camera button. Even with full press the camera button, nothing happens.

It's not a major problem, but just confusing when I need to wait for the camera to take the picture or just release the button.

By the way, is there a program to do the background blurring like those professional cameras do?

Re: A Better Camera
 

I had this problem. It was gone when I unninstalled livefocus.

Re: A Better Camera
 

Hmm, sorry to intercept your question that is supposed to be answered by Eugene, but such blurring effect is created by controlling the depth-of-field of the lens.

Beside optically, It is also possible to create a background blurring effect digitally with some photo-retouching software like Photoshop. I wondered if any professional camera can perform such complicated task automatically. I'd be grateful to know if you do. ^^

Re: A Better Camera
 

In fact, ABC has such mode, but it's in experimental state (so it works sometimes). It's "Shallow focus" mode. To get good results take photos in good lighting and make sure that the background objects are 3 or more times farther from the camera than the foreground object.

Re: A Better Camera
 

that is not something that the cameras do, it is purely done by the optics in the front of the camera.

Re: A Better Camera
 

Hello Eugene: I tried it and there was some blurring effect - but it looked like someone just brush stroked the background a bit. Anyway, it's nice to have that feature! Also, for my second attempt onwards, I kept getting error message; "sorry, There is too little light to compute focus-depth. A standard image will be saved instead".

By the way, I enjoy the application, and am just trying to give feedback. I appreciate your efforts in continuing to support tha app. Keep up the goodwork!

Re: A Better Camera
 

Could this be a bug?

I noticed on several occassions, the first shot is normally without the red/blue speckles. Subsequent shots have high tendencies including the error; "sorry, There is too little light to compute focus-depth. A standard image will be saved instead" especially when you use different features.

Re: A Better Camera
 

Probably you are just taking the images in the lighting that is near the minimum for shallow focus.

Re: A Better Camera
 

My experience was based on successive photoshots of the same object, at the same area. Well, it could have been a different perspective, but once we have that error, all subsequent shots will have that error as well.

At first, I thought it could be due to some processing limitation because I could see the picture preview (right side icon) processing. But I also tried letting it finish processing and took more shots which encountered the same error.

Please let me know what information/snapshots will be helpful for your checking and I will try to get them. Thanks again.

Re: A Better Camera
 

@Eugene.Panich, are you going to announce in this thread when you have a new version, fully working with kernel power? After the problems in hq zooming, I uninstalled ABC and reinstalled BlessN900, so I won't be notified by HAM or Fapman if a new version is available. Thanks a lot.