Hey everyone,
I just ordered a new Fairphone 3 with pre-installed /e/. So far, everything works nicely, except the camera. Whenever I try to take a picture, it takes several seconds. Also, the pictures are shaky when there is only a moderate movement.
As I am using my smartphone to take pictures of my children, this is a huge no-go for me. The camera has to works fast and reliably. I even consider sending back the phone because oft this.
Is there anything I can do?
Thanks!
I agree the camera is not working very well. You can try some other cameraās. āFootej camera 2ā from Apps for example. Or a modded version of google camera, download here. I use this gcam mod, the picture quality is amazing compared to open camera.
Would you mind trying open camera from f-droid? The codebase of /e/'s camera is similar but not identical to open camera.
Is the capture process and saving slow? Where are you saving the pictures? Internal memory or SD card. If SD card please test if saving to internal memory improves your situation.
I tried using OpenCamera and its the same problem. When I hit the button to take a picture it takes forever until the picture is actually taken. I habe the impression it is trying to focus, but changing to manual focus did not improve.
The gcam mod @andrelam mentioned however is much faster!
What you are describing sounds like you have HDR mode enabled, which takes several pictures and combines them into one for a better quality. This would explain the longer time taking pictures and the blurriness as all pictures should align perfectly.
Open the camera app, tap on the three dots at the top to reveal more options and choose āSTDā for standard mode. Try this and see if it makes a difference, Iām leaving a couple of screenshots for reference:
Hey, welcome in the forum 
So looks like you have several solutions.
Use another Camera app (to Simple Camera for instance, available in the /e/ Apps installer).
Keep it but :
Thanks a lot!
Unfortunately turning off HDR didnāt do the trick for me and I am not using an external SD card. I really cannot understand why it is still slow.
However, I will have a look at Simple Camera.
Was the camera set to take pictures in HDR mode already? Itād be weird enough that turning this off doesnāt make a difference.
Perhaps your settings are out of place for some strange reason. Try to open the camera settings and at the bottom choose āSettings Manager > Reset settingsā. This will set all camera settings back to the defaults. As you will see there, you can also save your current settings to a file and restore from it later, in case youāre concerned with losing your current setup.
I also have the FP3 with /e/ pre-installed so we should have the same version of everything. If you upload that file Iām happy to try it out on my phone and see if maybe I can spot the issue. For reference you can find the backup file using the Files app under Android/data/foundation.e.camera/files/backups.
If you are not comfortable sharing that information, review some of the settings that may consume processing power but that you may not actually need, as @Anonyme said.
Camera > Settings > More camera controls: Pause after taking photo
Camera > Settings > Photo settings: Image quality
Camera > Settings > Photo settings: Image format
Camera > Settings > Photo settings: RAW
Camera > Settings > Photo settings: Noise reduction original images
You shouldnāt need to lower the camera resolution, but image format can be an important factor. For most use cases JPEG is enough (the default quality at 90% is also fine), but disable RAW if you donāt intend to edit pictures with Photoshop. For noise reduction mode, donāt save original images either.
Thank you! Resetting to defaults and making your suggested changes made matters a little better - however it is still a bit slower than Simple Camera. I actually like Simple Camera so I think I can stick with that.
