Magic Lantern Forum

General Discussion => General Chat => Topic started by: N/A on February 22, 2016, 03:15:42 PM

Title: Shooting dng pictures on mobile phones (Samsung Galaxy S6 and a few others)
Post by: N/A on February 22, 2016, 03:15:42 PM
Since I haven't had any time this year to do any photography or video work, and not to mention that my phone is with me everywhere I go, I've found a few apps that enable the capture of raw (dng format) pictures on a few of the Android devices with android 5.1 or higher (requires the camera2 api).

One of these is a free app called FreeDcam, found at https://github.com/troop/FreeDcam (https://github.com/troop/FreeDcam). There are a few more but most of them cost a few dollars. Unfortunately, the Galaxy S6 I have doesn't yet have complete support for dng capture, so while the app is able to take dng's and view them, the default gallery doesn't recognize them, thus requiring another app like Lightroom or Photoshop to edit them.

Quality is another issue. The lenses on mobiles don't hold a candle to our wonderful L series or vintage primes, but fortunately they improve with every generation of phones. In lowlight, the shutter slows down to 1/10, which can be pretty annoying if you don't have image stabilization on. The Galaxy S6/Edge received pretty great scores on dxomark, so not all hope is lost.

Editing is straightforward, I've only tried a few dng's in the Photoshop mobile app but I felt like the images had a good amount of image information. Adjusting highlights, shadows and exposure responded very well, and the sharpening/NR adjustments were decent as well. I'll try to upload a few dng's if anyone is interested.

Maybe in the coming years, especially with mobile processors and cameras improving every year, we'll have raw video capabilities in the palm of our hands. It may even be possible now, depending on each phone's ability to dump raw data to memory quickly enough to give a decent resolution.

Thoughts or experiences?

Title: Re: Shooting dng pictures on mobile phones (Samsung Galaxy S6 and a few others)
Post by: extremelypoorfilmaker on February 22, 2016, 06:04:44 PM
This sounds interesting, are you aware if any counterpart is available for Apple devices?
Title: Re: Shooting dng pictures on mobile phones (Samsung Galaxy S6 and a few others)
Post by: Kharak on February 22, 2016, 06:11:42 PM
Take a look at the Nokia 925 and the models above

I think the 925 is the one that has 40 MegaPixels and another model has 50+ MP, all RAW DNG.

all above 925 are atleast 20 Megapixels with supreme lowlight capture.

Oh and as a bonus, built in Carl Zeiss glass! There really are no other phone Cameras on the market comparable to the Nokia

Title: Re: Shooting dng pictures on mobile phones (Samsung Galaxy S6 and a few others)
Post by: Danne on February 22, 2016, 06:30:24 PM
Interesting. Would you share some samples?
Title: Re: Shooting dng pictures on mobile phones (Samsung Galaxy S6 and a few others)
Post by: DeafEyeJedi on February 22, 2016, 07:30:05 PM
I second that for some samples, please?
Title: Re: Shooting dng pictures on mobile phones (Samsung Galaxy S6 and a few others)
Post by: Kharak on February 22, 2016, 07:35:04 PM
I only have the 620 or something now which is crap. As a replacement for my beloved 920

I had the 920 with 8 MegaP camera, but drinking and taking a walk down at the harbour lead to some stupid stuff and now my phone is sleeping with the fishes.
The 920 doesn't have RAW though. But Carl Zeiss Lens and really sharp and nice colour rendition (FOR A PHONE)

I have to correct a little, its not the 925 that has 40 MP, its the 1020. A friend of mine has it, and I can ask for some DNG's if you would like to take a look. The 1020 is a couple of years old though, but it has quite a large sensor. I've seen some of the pictures he has taken with the phone and it looks like DSLR stuff.

Another friend of mine told me he had recently purchased the 950 and he said it was incredible how he could take pictures at night and "..see everything..." as he put it.

Nokia 950 / Nokia 950XL

    Main camera
        Main camera: 20.0 MP
        Main camera focus type: Auto focus with two-stage capture key
        Camera digital zoom: Yes
        Camera optics: 6-lens optics Carl Zeiss
        Stabilization: Optical image stabilization
        Oversampling: Yes
        Sensor size: 1/2.4 inch
        Main camera f-number/aperture: f/1.9
        Camera focal length: 26 mm
        Flash type: Natural flash
        Camera features: Backside-illuminated image sensor, PureView, True 16:9 sensor, Fast Focus, High resolution zoom
        Camera minimum focus range: 10 cm
   
     Front-facing camera
        Front camera: Full HD 5 MP wide angle
        Front camera f-number/aperture: f/2.4
        Front camera video resolution: 1080p (Full HD, 1920 x 1080)
   
     Video recording
        Main camera video resolution: 4K (Ultra HD, 3840 x 2160)
        Camera video frame rate: 30 fps
        Video recording features: Video zoom, Optical image stabilization, Continuous autofocus, Video light, Lumia Rich Recording with four microphones
        Video recording formats: MP4/H.264


Doesn't say in the spec sheet I found, but I read another place it that the 950 plays h265 files...

But I am not a Nokia Phone Fanboy, the higher models are Lightning fast with the processors and everything, the responsiveness is instant. But the App support is so slim, that I can't really recommend it as a smartphone to anyone. I personally never had any app installed on any of my smartphones, so for me its okey.. But I can see with the Iphones and their countless Camera Apps that they probably are better in the end.

I buy phones for their cameras and I am looking in to buying the 950 to have a good camera on me at all times.

RE: EDIT: Oh and I want to add that the way Nokia labels their models makes ((((NO)))) logical sense
Title: Re: Shooting dng pictures on mobile phones (Samsung Galaxy S6 and a few others)
Post by: N/A on February 23, 2016, 02:57:16 AM
I haven't heard of any apps for iPhone that support raw images; there was an app last year claiming to capture "raw" 4k video on the iphone 5 or 6, but it was only mjepg format due to the fact that the app functioned by taking 24 full res jpeg's per second.

Funny that I posted this thread today. They released an update for the Lightroom app and added a camera option, which also takes dng's. I plan on taking a few dng and jpeg samples for comparison, I'll upload those so we can see if dng format on a cell phone camera is really worth it. A full size jpeg on the Galaxy S6 is between 3-5 MB, whereas a full size dng is roughly 30 MB.
Title: Re: Shooting dng pictures on mobile phones (Samsung Galaxy S6 and a few others)
Post by: Kharak on February 23, 2016, 09:17:32 PM
I'll get some DNG from the 1020 in this week.
Title: Re: Shooting dng pictures on mobile phones (Samsung Galaxy S6 and a few others)
Post by: g3gg0 on February 24, 2016, 12:17:07 AM
lumia 1020 shots are here:
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=E7853AB3DF157F6C!109&authkey=!AMsDFEgLt4M2zY4&ithint=folder%2c
valid in ~1 hour and until the end of the week.
Title: Re: Shooting dng pictures on mobile phones (Samsung Galaxy S6 and a few others)
Post by: Kharak on February 24, 2016, 01:36:19 AM
Thanks g3gg0!

Very impressive! First time I get to play with WP DNG.

Title: Re: Shooting dng pictures on mobile phones (Samsung Galaxy S6 and a few others)
Post by: N/A on February 24, 2016, 07:51:55 PM
Here's a Galaxy S6 dng and jpeg of the same scene (my living room wall/window):
https://drive.google.com/folder/d/0B0Yw9C0TiMN_QWZ2NUZUcVBKS1E/edit (https://drive.google.com/folder/d/0B0Yw9C0TiMN_QWZ2NUZUcVBKS1E/edit)
Title: Re: Shooting dng pictures on mobile phones (Samsung Galaxy S6 and a few others)
Post by: Danne on February 24, 2016, 08:31:04 PM
That was actually not a bad file. Tried some fast settings in acr but it held up quite well.
Title: Re: Shooting dng pictures on mobile phones (Samsung Galaxy S6 and a few others)
Post by: N/A on February 24, 2016, 08:51:26 PM
I can take some better pictures when the weather clears.
Title: Re: Shooting dng pictures on mobile phones (Samsung Galaxy S6 and a few others)
Post by: Kharak on February 24, 2016, 11:35:45 PM
Just read today that the Samsung S7 has Canon's Dual Pixel Auto Focus...

here is a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR941z25jQE
Title: Re: Shooting dng pictures on mobile phones (Samsung Galaxy S6 and a few others)
Post by: Audionut on February 25, 2016, 12:35:41 AM
There's a good overview of supported android models here:  http://www.camerafv5.com/pages/manual-camera-controls-table.php
Title: Re: Shooting dng pictures on mobile phones (Samsung Galaxy S6 and a few others)
Post by: R on May 18, 2017, 08:34:23 PM
I found this post searching for information about S6 DNG for a post I wrote this week about shooting in RAW with the Samsung S6.

The post is in Spanish but for those who are still interested in DNG on mobile pones you can find a download list at the bottom.

http://www.ramonclemente.com/blog/post/fotografiar-dng-raw-samsung-galaxy-s6 (http://www.ramonclemente.com/blog/post/fotografiar-dng-raw-samsung-galaxy-s6)

I'll upload more DNG samples next week.