Pictures taken with your Droid Razr (Maxx) HD

[dan.dar]

I don't know what you expected from a phone camera. These shots look fine. The low light had no light, so unless you put it on a tripod and extend exposure time you're not gonna get anything usable.

 

[revelated]

The photos above are actually horrible. The quality isn't reduced because it's online, that's what the full resolution photo looks like. No detail at all, poor contrast in some of the shots, and lacking any "pop". Also, the low-light shot came out completely unusable.

SO I look at them and I'd of course need to see the full-deal photo, but....

photos 1 and 2 are "tolerable". They have enough quality that they are passable for sharing. Photo 1 lacks contrast, Photo 2 isn't white balanced very well.

I give a pass to photo 3 because all phone cameras do that in fog. I don't know why. They see fog as noise, I think, instead of being able to discern it as a foggy condition. The result though is a very fuzzy image that makes it seem less foggy than it really is.

Photo 4 is suffering from an improper exposure. It's taking the light too seriously.

Photo 5 is trying to put the water into focus at the expense of everything else. Guessing autofocus where it failed miserably. Manual focus on the house in the trees would probably have helped a little.

Photo 6 is a joke BUT every phone will do that without flash (I'm assuming flash was turned off in this picture). If flash was on it means they lessened the power of the flash from the previous generation because I know my MAXX's flash can easily light up dark conditions without breaking a sweat.

What those photos tell me is that the newer RAZR cameras require manual settings and adjustments and that the auto settings are a joke.

 

[dan.dar]

What those photos tell me is that the newer RAZR cameras require manual settings and adjustments and that the auto settings are a joke.

Kind of hard to tell when none of these photos were compared side-by-side to another phone ie GS3, OG Razr, Gnex, etc. Also I think that Moto may have cheaped out and did not put a BSI sensor in the camera which would explain poor lowlight performance compared to other high-end phones. I only have experience taking shots with bionic (awful), Fascinate (not bad), Droid Charge (good), HTC Rhyme (not bad). None really come close to Canon Powershot but they are phones so I never expected them to. And please don't compare them to a dslr. I have a 5 year old 6mp Pentax K100D dslr and no phone will come close to that, not even the 41mp Nokia. It's about the glass and physical size of the sensor and neither phones or pocket cameras stand a chance compared to a dslr.

 

[geoff5093]

I don't know what you expected from a phone camera. These shots look fine. The low light had no light, so unless you put it on a tripod and extend exposure time you're not gonna get anything usable.

SO I look at them and I'd of course need to see the full-deal photo, but....

photos 1 and 2 are "tolerable". They have enough quality that they are passable for sharing. Photo 1 lacks contrast, Photo 2 isn't white balanced very well.

I give a pass to photo 3 because all phone cameras do that in fog. I don't know why. They see fog as noise, I think, instead of being able to discern it as a foggy condition. The result though is a very fuzzy image that makes it seem less foggy than it really is.

Photo 4 is suffering from an improper exposure. It's taking the light too seriously.

Photo 5 is trying to put the water into focus at the expense of everything else. Guessing autofocus where it failed miserably. Manual focus on the house in the trees would probably have helped a little.

Photo 6 is a joke BUT every phone will do that without flash (I'm assuming flash was turned off in this picture). If flash was on it means they lessened the power of the flash from the previous generation because I know my MAXX's flash can easily light up dark conditions without breaking a sweat.

What those photos tell me is that the newer RAZR cameras require manual settings and adjustments and that the auto settings are a joke.

My issues are that in comparison to the GS3 and other phones, these look like low resolution photos that have been enlarged. On the fog picture, you should be able to see detail in the grass, on the low-light picture it came out almost completely black, however there was actually a good amount of light.

 

[TisMyDroid]

Sorry, not taken with an HD but with my M...but I thought might add a bit too comparing different camera apps. These pictures were taken at dusk, less than an hour before dark. Because, I was in a hurry to capture the shots before it was too late, I did not take the time to adjust the settings...so, unfortunately some are at 5mp, 6mp, and 8mp.

Taken with FX ZOOM, 8mp:


Taken with Camera ICS, 8mp:


Taken with stock camera, 6mp:


Taken with HDR Camera +, 5mp:

Sent from my XT907 using Tapatalk 2

 

[xmguy]

Pics taken with Maxx HD. Edited in stock editor.

The bottom one may not be as clear due to the focus from centering

Sent from my DROID RAZR MAXX HD

 

[geoff5093]

Sorry, not taken with an HD but with my M...but I thought might add a bit too comparing different camera apps. These pictures were taken at dusk, less than an hour before dark. Because, I was in a hurry to capture the shots before it was too late, I did not take the time to adjust the settings...so, unfortunately some are at 5mp, 6mp, and 8mp.

Taken with FX ZOOM, 8mp:
View attachment 57344View attachment 57345

Taken with Camera ICS, 8mp:
View attachment 57346

Taken with stock camera, 6mp:
View attachment 57347

Taken with HDR Camera +, 5mp:
View attachment 57348
Sent from my XT907 using Tapatalk 2

The stock camera looks the best, thanks for posting. I tried an app called vignette and it worked pretty well, some came out better in it while others better in the stock app. I think the focus just needs to be tweaked, as it's doing a horrible job at focusing correctly.

 

[hotice]

These are some nice photos. I have noticed on reviews and playing with the phone in the store that if you just take the photos and don't press on a particular area of the picture the exposure and the photo will come out quite nice. I've also seen some side by side comparisons with iphone and GS3 and the Maxx came out worse than the iphone, but better than GS3. So can't really complain. Apple has got that camera thing down pat.

Apple has a good camera for a phone but I think HTC probably has the best (F2.0, BSI, ImageChip) with possibly Nokia a close second on the Lumia 920. I'm guessing Apple is 3rd but they could be second.
Moto has always been behind because they don't use a BSI sensor. It seems like they may not have added a BSI sensor in the new HD's either but at least it does seem image quality has improved over what they had before. I'm surprised anyone would say the Razr/Maxx HD has a better camera than the GS3 which does have a BSI and seems to take great shots from what I've seen.

 

[geoff5093]

Apple has a good camera for a phone but I think HTC probably has the best (F2.0, BSI, ImageChip) with possibly Nokia a close second on the Lumia 920. I'm guessing Apple is 3rd but they could be second.
Moto has always been behind because they don't use a BSI sensor. It seems like they may not have added a BSI sensor in the new HD's either but at least it does seem image quality has improved over what they had before. I'm surprised anyone would say the Razr/Maxx HD has a better camera than the GS3 which does have a BSI and seems to take great shots from what I've seen.

Most people seem to agree that the 920 is first, iPhone is second, and the One X/GS3 being third.

 

[PowrDroid]

Honestly there are only a couple shots in this thread that are good shots. Revelated's outdoor shot and XMGuy's pics, but I'd guess they've been heavily processed. Geoff's shot of the puddle by the side of the road (#5) is OK, but seems washed out.

I've got a Droid 2 Global and am ready to upgrade. That phone could only take a nice picture if it was a brightly lit outdoor scene. The shots in this thread look a lot like the pictures my phone takes.

I'm on the fence--Razr Maxx HD or Galaxy S3? I want the battery life and functionality of the Razr HD, but I want the S3 camera. I like Moto's build quality, solid feel, and quality radio. If the Razr HD took decent pictures I'd take it in a heartbeat over the S3.

I'd like to see more pics posted. Razr HD owners--please post more pics! Different lighting conditions and settings please.

 

[revelated]

Honestly there are only a couple shots in this thread that are good shots. Revelated's outdoor shot and XMGuy's pics, but I'd guess they've been heavily processed.

Negative. Mine is a direct upload through the Android app. You can download and confirm that.

My point though - the RAZR MAXX takes fairly good pictures. The HD doesn't have nearly the same sensor quality, nor does it have image stabilization.

The other thing I noticed is that despite what some said, the only way I could get a "decent" photo from the RAZR HD is to manually focus it using whatever object has the proper lighting in the shot. If I leave it to the camera it fails every time.

I attached more samples to show what I mean (had to edit because DF isn't linking the images properly).

This first one is a standard shot near sunset, where I purposely focused on the tree to the left. Zooming in you can see that this sharpness is maintained, but the ground is blurry and the trees in the distance are rife with noise. I didn't change any settings except Portrait and there is no post processing.

http://www.use.com/06dee1ea2b70e59fd699#photo=1


Same scene but this time with HDR. I set focus on the tree in profile. Not only are the colors way blown out but again, sharpness in the distance is totally a pipe dream. Without tapping on the tree on the left side, it also gets blurry.

http://www.use.com/06dee1ea2b70e59fd699?p=2


Same scene, no tap, no HDR. This is a joke.

http://www.use.com/f908151553a3efe33dc2

 

[jntdroid]

My issues are that in comparison to the GS3 and other phones...

That's my whole frustration with Moto and cameras. To me, I simply want something I can grab out of my pocket for a quick shot of my kids doing something and trust that it'll come out decent. I can't do that with any Motorola cameras, on any of their phones except, maybe, the original Maxx/Razr. Color might've been a bit off, or the flash might have caused the picture to lose warmth, but the photos were typically crisp and focused easily most of the time.

The M and Maxx HD seem to have identically behaving cameras - and I can summarize my take on them in one word - inconsistent. If it's a bright sunny day outside, it can take a solid photo on a consistent basis. Anything but that, and it's a crapshoot and takes too much effort. If I wanted to go to the effort to set everything up right, I'd take an extra second and grab my wife's 4S, or grab our DSLR camera. The biggest benefit of the phone camera is the quick shot, and I've yet to have a Motorola camera that I could trust to take a good quick shot consistently.

Given a lot of the inconsistencies, I believe some software tweaks will help with camera performance, to where you can at least know what you're getting. But I worry that Moto, despite trying in some ways, has simply shorthanded the camera again. I have 1-2 year old Samsung and HTC (and obviously Apple) devices that take better, more clear, more balanced shots, consistently, than the Maxx HD and M. That's what bothers me about it. If it was normal to have mediocre cameras in phones nowadays, I wouldn't complain at all, b/c it's a phone first. But the fact of the matter is Motorola is way behind on their camera performance when compared to even older phones on the market.

A couple of tests y'all can run (HD/Maxx HD/M owners)...

First, simply try taking 10 shots in a row in a low-light scenario where you need the flash. Do it relatively quickly. If you get 10 shots that are perfectly focused, well lit (i.e. the flash is not too dim), and identical to each other, then kudos.

Second, get into a situation where there's a lot of foreground shadow - like maybe facing a large window on a sunny day with people in the foreground. What will likely happen is the phone will adjust and make things way too dark. Snap the photo, but don't move the phone. As soon as the photo snaps, it should re-adjust to appropriate lighting levels. I can reproduce this at will in a scenario similar to what I described. I can even reproduce it now in my room that's lit up enough to avoid the flash, but not super bright. That feels like a software problem, honestly.

Third, as was the case with the M, and now the Maxx HD - portrait photos upload landscape, mms landscape, etc. An annoyance that shouldn't have been overlooked!

But every single other thing about this phone I love. So I'm really hoping Moto hears us and smooths out the camera in an update. Make sure to voice any complaints with backup info over at the Moto support forums as well - they do send that info up.

 

[PowrDroid]

That's my whole frustration with Moto and cameras. To me, I simply want something I can grab out of my pocket for a quick shot of my kids doing something and trust that it'll come out decent. I can't do that with any Motorola cameras, on any of their phones except, maybe, the original Maxx/Razr. Color might've been a bit off, or the flash might have caused the picture to lose warmth, but the photos were typically crisp and focused easily most of the time.

The M and Maxx HD seem to have identically behaving cameras - and I can summarize my take on them in one word - inconsistent. If it's a bright sunny day outside, it can take a solid photo on a consistent basis. Anything but that, and it's a crapshoot and takes too much effort. If I wanted to go to the effort to set everything up right, I'd take an extra second and grab my wife's 4S, or grab our DSLR camera. The biggest benefit of the phone camera is the quick shot, and I've yet to have a Motorola camera that I could trust to take a good quick shot consistently.

Excellent description of the problem!

Given a lot of the inconsistencies, I believe some software tweaks will help with camera performance, to where you can at least know what you're getting. But I worry that Moto, despite trying in some ways, has simply shorthanded the camera again.

I experimented with various camera apps last winter and there wasn't much improvement to be had. I eventually went back to the stock Motorola software. I wonder if a software update would do it?

Second, get into a situation where there's a lot of foreground shadow - like maybe facing a large window on a sunny day with people in the foreground. What will likely happen is the phone will adjust and make things way too dark. Snap the photo, but don't move the phone. As soon as the photo snaps, it should re-adjust to appropriate lighting levels. I can reproduce this at will in a scenario similar to what I described. I can even reproduce it now in my room that's lit up enough to avoid the flash, but not super bright. That feels like a software problem, honestly.

LOL. Yes, I've discovered that I need to take 2 shots of everything if I want a good shot. The 2nd one is a charm. But we shouldn't need to do this. And you lose the spontaneity aspect of taking a quick shot.

Third, as was the case with the M, and now the Maxx HD - portrait photos upload landscape, mms landscape, etc. An annoyance that shouldn't have been overlooked!

I've also gotten flash that goes off before or after the shutter, along with other weird things. Yes, it sounds like a software fix. If so, why hadn't Motorola (or even 3rd party) come out with something?

Make sure to voice any complaints with backup info over at the Moto support forums as well - they do send that info up.

Good idea. [edited to add: Apparently since my D2G is out of warranty it will not let me post to the Maxx HD forum]

 

[PowrDroid]

Found these in another forum:

Pics taken with Razr HD/ Maxx HD - Android Forums

There's some decent shots listed which is giving me some much needed hope.

 

[94lt1]

I took these of our grave yard that we're doing in our front yard.. we'll also have foggers and strobe lights...