Camera taking dark pictures (darkens while focusing)

[Hockey]

Droid Razr Maxx, have had it since the day it came out with no real significant problems.

Tonight I picked up a set of new speakers and wanted to send a picture to someone. When I tried to take a picture in a well lit room, the picture on the screen went from bright, to dark, darker, and near pitch black.

I tried refocusing on another area and the same thing.

So I bumped the exposure all the way up and I got this

I have restarted the phone soft, and hard ways. Nothing. I have no other camera apps. I disabled the Wi-Fi as well in any attempt with nothing.

All the settings are normal, and the phone is stock. My fingers aren't covering sensors or anything like that.


Please help!

 

[giant25]

On my Bionic, I had to turn steady shot off in the settings to get it bright again. I just use Auto now.

 

[Hockey]

I tried doing that with no luck. I took one while driving and this is what I got as well.

 

[Hockey]

Just did a reset on the phone, and same thing. So I'm thinking its something with the hardware?

 

[SnoDrtRider]

The light meter in the camera is zeroing in on the brightest thing in the photo... the computer screen and the sunset/sunrise and adjusting the exposure to that. Try taking a photo with normal lighting and nothing bright in the background.

 

[FoxKat]

The light meter in the camera is zeroing in on the brightest thing in the photo... the computer screen and the sunset/sunrise and adjusting the exposure to that. Try taking a photo with normal lighting and nothing bright in the background.

Unfortunately with the stock camera app, you don't have control of what area in the photo's viewing area is metered. I thought (incorrectly) that this would follow with the focus square, but I was wrong. It seems to meter constantly and you can't even get it metered to a dark area and then point to a brighter one since it adjusts as soon as it sees more light. You can use the flash and it will "fill in" the darker areas to give you a more balanced shot.

Tap on the menu bar at the left of the screen, then on the lightning bolt. Then select flash on.

In case you didn't know it, you can move the point of focus to anywhere in the screen's view, so if you have something close and the background is at a distance, but the thing you want to focus on which is close isn't in the center of the screen (perhaps you want the person at the bottom right of a beautiful scenery background, for instance), you simply tap the face of the subject and the camera will focus to the subject. This will put the distance a bit out of focus, depending on how far away your subject is. You can try to find a happy medium by pointing the focus on something between your subject and the scenery, but closer to the subject.