Rear/main camera focus to infinity not work on LineageOS

[fxtec-preorder-47xx 39]

Hey there,
one of the first things I noticed when I flashed LineageOS was, that the camera does not focus anymore to infinity. (While it did work before, with stock ROM.)
(So you actually can't take sharp pictures on anything that is not right in front of the cam.)

I flashed back to stock ROM and the focus worked again.
As I like to use LineageOS I wonder what tweaks there are in stock ROM to cope with the Pro1's main camera. Perhaps someone can commit those tweaks to LineageOS as a patch? If that is the problem at all?

Anyone experienced the same?

Edit: Dirty lens is NOT the problem. Camera App is NOT the problem. Selfie cam works fine. I tried the alpha-test-versions of LineageOS and also the official LineageOS that is available now.

Edited August 2, 2020 by fxtec-preorder-47xx

[raymo 177]

Hi, I use Camera FV-5 app on LineageOS (the last) and it seems to be the same. I found the original photo app was not very good, so I have installed Camera FV-5, and I confirm : no autofocus. Focus come when you push to take a picture. Not very practical yet.

As I don't take much picture yet, I never think it could be a Lineage bug. But why not ?

Also as we are here, I found stock picture app far better, is it possible implement stock picure-app in Lineage or is this idea stupid ?

[fxtec-preorder-47xx 39]

1 hour ago, raymo said:

no autofocus

Well, in my case, I HAVE autofocus. But it only works for near objects. Far objects I cannot focus automatically nor manually. I tried 'Open Camera' app and MANY OTHERS and far objects (infinity focus) do not get sharp. If I change from CameraApi to CameraAPI2 I can focus manually, and the counter goes up to 1000 meter, but actually at like 20 centimeter it is done.. everything else is in the fog. With stock ROM: no such problem.

[auvo.salmi 135]

1 hour ago, fxtec-preorder-47xx said:

Well, in my case, I HAVE autofocus. But it only works for near objects. Far objects I cannot focus automatically nor manually. I tried 'Open Camera' app and MANY OTHERS and far objects (infinity focus) do not get sharp. If I change from CameraApi to CameraAPI2 I can focus manually, and the counter goes up to 1000 meter, but actually at like 20 centimeter it is done.. everything else is in the fog. With stock ROM: no such problem.

I have exactly the same issue on LOS. and it doesn't depend on camera app used. Also I have wiped my system several times, which doesn't help. Seems like not everyone has this issue on LOS though, because it isn't listed to 'official' bugs in Github..

[EskeRahn 5,460]

6 minutes ago, auvo.salmi said:

I have exactly the same issue on LOS. and it doesn't depend on camera app used. Also I have wiped my system several times, which doesn't help. Seems like not everyone has this issue on LOS though, because it isn't listed to 'official' bugs in Github..

I tested earlier today, and seem to have it too - honestly I never tried to take outdoor photos with it on Lineage before at all (three indoors between March and June), so have no idea if it is a new bug or something that goes back to the beginning.

[auvo.salmi 135]

Can someone confirm this? Does someone have their rear camera focus working properly on LOS? Also, I wonder if @tdm has seen this thread or has any idea what's wrong with the camera. Can we help somehow by producing some data/logs/tests?

[tdm 2,322]

3 minutes ago, auvo.salmi said:

Can someone confirm this? Does someone have their rear camera focus working properly on LOS? Also, I wonder if @tdm has seen this thread or has any idea what's wrong with the camera. Can we help somehow by producing some data/logs/tests?

 

I see the thread.  I don't know what could be wrong, and neither does @npjohnson.  And the camera focus seems to work fine on my device, so I can't test it myself.

 

If someone wants to send me a pair of logs showing stock camera focus and lineage camera focus I can take a look.

 

 

[auvo.salmi 135]

7 minutes ago, tdm said:

 

I see the thread.  I don't know what could be wrong, and neither does @npjohnson.  And the camera focus seems to work fine on my device, so I can't test it myself.

 

If someone wants to send me a pair of logs showing stock camera focus and lineage camera focus I can take a look.

 

 

Just to clarify: So if you try to shoot a landscape photo outdoors, it will correctly focus to infinity and result as a focused image? My photos look like the attached image.

Could the devices have slightly different camera modules or something like that, if the issue exists only on handful of devices?

Could @EskeRahn or @fxtec-preorder-47xx provide the logs? I would rather not flash stock if I can avoid it 😄

Edited August 3, 2020 by auvo.salmi

[tdm 2,322]

7 minutes ago, auvo.salmi said:

Just to clarify: So if you try to shoot a landscape photo outdoors, it will correctly focus to infinity and result as a focused image?

See for yourself:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/bXsZoydGZnEyzUNK8

I did tap the screen to focus, as I was not patient enough to wait for auto-focus.

7 minutes ago, auvo.salmi said:

Could the devices have slightly different camera modules or something like that, if the issue exists only on handful of devices?

It is unlikely the sensor is a different brand or model, as I removed support for most of the unused sensors.  But perhaps there could be some differences, I guess.  Kernel logs from boot may help identify the exact sensor.

[auvo.salmi 135]

8 minutes ago, tdm said:

See for yourself:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/bXsZoydGZnEyzUNK8

I did tap the screen to focus, as I was not patient enough to wait for auto-focus.

The tapping doesn't work on my device in this situation. Although it tries to focus to tapped point, it doesn't really get there at all or/and focuses back to close again, and continues sawing the focus back and forth for few seconds. But looks like it really can't focus to infinity, and that's why it never gets it to focus outdoors.

[Hook 3,020]

For the record, I don't seem to have this problem on LOS either:

[dicer 36]

I usually can take pictures just fine but sometimes the autofocus doesn't work for me either. Then it only focuses on very nearby things. Not sure what causes this nor what fixes it. It is usually gone when I try to use the camera the next time. Maybe rebooting helps? I'll try that next time I notice.

[fxtec-preorder-47xx 39]

On 8/3/2020 at 5:45 PM, auvo.salmi said:

Could @EskeRahn or @fxtec-preorder-47xx provide the logs? I would rather not flash stock if I can avoid it 

I would do this! Where would I find the logs? When someone could explain to me, how to get useful log info about focussing... As soon as I have some instructions, I'll start.

Another thing that proved interesting for testing:

Get OpenCamera-App and switch to CameraApi2 (two!) in the settings.

You can then choose 'manual' focus mode and focus with a slider.

On BOTH (Stock and LOS) if you slide to 'infinity' the far objects get less sharp. Best result for both is stopping right before infinity, lets say at 1000m. (It's displayed that way.) Even when the object is just 5m away, this gets the best result for both. 'Best' meaning: sharp on stock and the least blurry on LOS. Anyway it may be a problem of the App/Api2 that:
a) Meter count is totally unrealistic.
b) The actual 'infinity' setting is worse than the farest meter setting.
But these two errors are annoying, yes, but that is NOT the actual problem. Actual problem is, that with LOS there is no sharp setting at all.

 

[EskeRahn 5,460]

52 minutes ago, fxtec-preorder-47xx said:

The actual 'infinity' setting is worse than the farest meter setting.

I got that on pocket cameras too. I have to choose shorter than "infinity" with manual focus taking photos of the moon...

So not unusual on "Manual", but obviously the AF should not go that far.

[Jordi 72]

When I noticed the problem of blurred pictures, I initially thought it was a bug in the camera app. Then I used another app and I did some more tests at home and I thought the problem was solved...

Since a few days, I am on vacation and the problem jumped in my face again!

My solution: always have someone in the foreground when I take a landscape photo! Well, not really a solution, but for now, it's okay.

 

[fxtec-preorder-47xx 39]

I just tried LineageOS nightly 17.1 ... still no proper focus. This is f##ked up. I cannot even scan my invoices with LOS like that. With stock, everything fine. I don't get it why no one gives a s##t.

How can anyone use the Pro1 with LineageOS like that?! Can someone explain this to me?

[enPfzr4v 239]

For what it's worth, my focus in LineageOS is too "far". I need to focus at around 35 meters for "infinity" and if I focus further than that, everything gets blurry.

[claude0001 1,341]

11 hours ago, fxtec-preorder-47xx said:

[...] ... still no proper focus. This is f##ked up. [...]

The camera of the Pro1 is not very good. To make things worse, the driver seems to be a mess.

However, I am slowly getting it under control (still using Lineage 16) after installing OpenCamera instead of the stock LineageOS camera app and switching it to Camera2-API.

OpenCamera exposes the "Scene Modes" supported by the camera driver. For me, the default setting "Auto" does not behave well in many situations: it sometimes defocuses the picture at the very moment I press the shutter button, although the picture is sharp in the viewer before. Seemingly, the camera driver tries to do something smart at the moment of taking the picture, but fails. I can fix this by forcing a specific scene mode ("Portrait", "Landscape", "Action", ...) manually.

In the worst case, you can even disable auto-focus in OpenCamera and adjust the focal length manually. I agree that one would expect this not to be necessary in 2020.  

Edited November 19, 2020 by claude0001

[fxtec-preorder-47xx 39]

38 minutes ago, claude0001 said:

In the worst case, you can even disable auto-focus in OpenCamera and adjust the focal length manually. I agree that one would expect this not to be necessary in 2020.  

I dont know how everyone can experience this different from me or not at all. Perhaps everyone has eyes issues.

I DO try this with OpenCamera, Camera API2 and so on, but it just does not work.

If I go to manual focus, or select infinity focus, either way, everything thats not like 50cm in front of me is blurry.

Just flashed back again to fxtec stock ROM: everything is SHARP.

So using the tools you mentioned to focus manually do not help AT ALL, at least in my case.

You mentioned "driver". What is this driver called? Who maintains it? What do you know bout it? 🙂

 

[claude0001 1,341]

On 8/6/2020 at 12:04 PM, fxtec-preorder-47xx said:

[...] On BOTH (Stock and LOS) if you slide to 'infinity' the far objects get less sharp. [...]

Yes, I see that too. As you mentioned above, "infinity" is not actually infinity. Objects at "infinite" distance are imaged sharply with the focus set to "somewhat-less-than-infinity", e.g "1000 m". I agree that this renders the "Focus-locked-to-infinity" mode of OpenCamera useless, I had never tried that mode before. 

However, this does not prevent me from putting distant objects into focus. That is perfectly possible for me, both manually (using the focus slider) or using auto-focus. I never used stock Android 9, so I do not know how my lens would behave then.

Did you try switching the scene mode to something else than "Auto" as suggested?

4 hours ago, fxtec-preorder-47xx said:

[...] You mentioned "driver". What is this driver called? Who maintains it? What do you know bout it?

I do not know much about that. There is obviously a driver on the level of the Linux kernel that actually talks to the hardware. That one is probably (not sure though) a closed-source component. Then there are several abstraction layers that make the hardware accessible from Android. Finally, Camera2-API exposes the functionality to applications. [ https://source.android.com/devices/camera ]

Based on how things work on traditional (desktop-) Linux systems, I believe auto-focus is implemented either in hardware or on the driver level, but I am no expert on this.

As I wrote in a different thread, the camera is my biggest disappointment with the Pro1, so I share your suffering ... 😞

Edited November 19, 2020 by claude0001

[fxtec-preorder-47xx 39]

59 minutes ago, claude0001 said:

Did you try switching the scene mode to something else than "Auto" as suggested?

Yes, I tried everything.

Weird enough, when reverting to Stock ROM, and then using the very same OpenCamera, API2, ... it works on auto. (Like in any other app, it just works.)
Still, on OpenCamera app's infinity or manual>infinity setting it is blurred, but thats not a problem, as you also noticed -  I just pull manual back to 100m or so, and it is fine.

Problem is that with my phone on LOS, there is no way to get focus right, even manually like "really close but not quite infinity." Always blurry.

As you (and others) do NOT have this exact problem, I wonder if there are different cameras in the early Pro1 models. I have preorder <5000. Perhaps there was something they managed to bugfix/workaround in their stock ROM but FAILED to commit to LOS codebase. (SHAME SHAME SHAME!)

I have no other explanation.

How can I get HW info on the camera built into my phone? Anyone?
I really think, I MUST have early-model hardware. I flashed SailfishOS on my Pro1 also, and there was NO CAMERA (black screeen in camera app) at all. (According to others, it should have been there and working normally.) So WTF is up with my hardware? Can someone recommend a tool that reads the camera specs from my system??? lsusb/lspci and alike seem not to be an option. I am about to smash this thing into the wall!

 

 

Edited November 19, 2020 by fxtec-preorder-47xx

[fxtec-preorder-47xx 39]

I mean, if there was an 'issue' at LOSes git, saying 'Camera bug on Pro1: unusable blurry' then I would probably settle, trusting the problem will be taken care of.
But all I get is 'there is no problem', 'its working fine for me, but i am just taking closeup pictures and am blind and never visit places where the walls are more than 5 ft away'...
Hello @chen , I want a refund!!!!!!

[claude0001 1,341]

1 hour ago, fxtec-preorder-47xx said:

[...] Problem is that with my phone on LOS, there is no way to get focus right, even manually like "really close but not quite infinity." Always blurry. [...]

That is awkward and I understand your frustration.

I find it quite surprising that the same App behaves differently in Stock Android 9 and Lineage as I thought that the bits touching metal (Linux kernel and hardware drivers) are identical in the two OS'es.

Does anyone understand how the secondary lens of the Pro1 operates? I know that it is meant to provide depth information to allow things like "fake bokeh", but I do not know at which level (hardware, driver, application) such effects are applied. If the depth field information is processed on the level of the OS, maybe something could go wrong there?    

Up to now. I assumed that this kind of image processing was hard-wired in the "Scene Modes" that one can choose from, but now I am not sure anymore: in a few quick tests, my phone seems to take the same pictures even if I cover the secondary lens. Is the information from the second lens used at all in in LineageOS (16) or OpenCamera?

[fxtec-preorder-47xx 39]

I just tried UbuntuTouch, that does not have that problem. Focus is fine, but slow, or sometimes off, seems stuck, due to the app perhaps, or whatever. (I find the touch gestures hard to use, need serveral tries to get stuff right, not feeling good... but thats off topic.)

I just say: Focus is generally working on UbuntuTouch but is kinda unsteady.

 

 

[claude0001 1,341]

4 hours ago, fxtec-preorder-47xx said:

[...] I really think, I MUST have early-model hardware. I flashed SailfishOS on my Pro1 also, and there was NO CAMERA (black screeen in camera app) at all. (According to others, it should have been there and working normally.) So WTF is up with my hardware? [...]

Reading this I remember that I had the same phenomenon (black picture) when I tried SailfishOS. That was also at a moment when the camera was already supposed to be supported in SFOS. I did not try to understand this as I had then already decided not to stay on Sailfish anyway.

However, as my camera always worked in Lineage (at least better than yours, apparently), there may be no relation to your focusing issues here.

Edited November 19, 2020 by claude0001