I recently got a Pixel and was disappointed to see that the stock camera app has no way to control the focus manually. I guess Google is so impressed with their post-processing they think users won't need any control.
Turns out, their software isn't that great at focusing in many of the photos I take, so I need a different camera app. My only requirements are:
1. Manual focus
2. Wide angle lens support
I thought a replacement would be trivial to find but I've tried a bunch of apps at this point and haven't found a single one that checks both boxes.
Can anyone recommend a basic android camera? Preferably one that doesn't distort the world too much or replace faces with leaves.
I've been using Open Camera which is pretty great, but doesn't support wide angle lens shots as far as I can tell.
Switch multi-camera icon - This icon only shows on devices with more than one front and/or back cameras, and allows you to switch between those cameras. For example, a device might have two back cameras, one standard and one ultra-wide, this icon will switch between the standard and ultra-wide camera. If Settings/On screen GUI/"Multiple cameras icon" is disabled, then this icon will not show; instead the "Switch camera" icon can by used to cycle through all the cameras. Note that some devices do not allow third party applications to access their multiple cameras, in which case Open Camera isn't able to use them.
Not the person you were replying to but I also have a Pixel 5 (still on Android 11). I didn't realize it until the previous comment but I also cannot access the wide angle camera. The button simply doesn't exist. Other 3rd party apps like Lightroom also couldn't find the 2nd camera. But a gcam mod finds it unsurprisingly.
To answer op's grievance though the wide angle is fixed focus, so they could use gcam for the wide angle and open camera for the regular lens.
Unfortunately I don't have that option in the settings and cycling the cameras does not work. It sounds like the last sentence you quoted applies in my case; Google explicitly blocks Open Camera (and all other 3rd party apps) from accessing the wide angle lense.
Jesus this is annoying, and really scummy on Google's part. As long as I have this phone I'll have to swap between multiple camera apps just to access basic functionality.
> Can anyone recommend a basic android camera? Preferably one that doesn't distort the world too much or replace faces with leaves.
Everyone's been complaining about the Fairphone not doing enough image processing and giving you basically the raw sensor output, making the pictures look bland compared to bigger-brand phones with worse sensors. So there's that option if you want a true-to-sensor picture and they also have a great open source community so you can also know what effects the camera app is applying.
Or install an open source camera on any android and at least that aspect of the picture-taking chain is covered.
Turns out, their software isn't that great at focusing in many of the photos I take, so I need a different camera app. My only requirements are: 1. Manual focus 2. Wide angle lens support
I thought a replacement would be trivial to find but I've tried a bunch of apps at this point and haven't found a single one that checks both boxes.
Can anyone recommend a basic android camera? Preferably one that doesn't distort the world too much or replace faces with leaves.
I've been using Open Camera which is pretty great, but doesn't support wide angle lens shots as far as I can tell.