The other two prominent open source camera apps are Fossify Camera and PhotonCamera. Fossify Camera does not support multiple lenses yet. PhotonCamera is nice because it does image processing and handles my camera lenses correctly but its UX is janky (on my device, with default settings, taking a photo takes 7-8 seconds and quitting the app before the process is complete loses the image), it's not on F-Droid and it doesn't automatically switch between lenses with zoom changes. There's also FreeDcam but I'm not a professional photographer and I'm certainly not going to buy a color calibration reference card that costs more than a hundred dollars.
It sucks that on my phone with /e/OS, instead of using a FOSS camera app, I resort to using Pixel's camera app with internet permission disabled to be able to take advantage of my hardware.
The postprocessing is notably better with GCam, so it's worth running on GrapheneOS imo.
It's really unbeatable from a photographer / artist perspective, especially because I care a lot about imperfect gritty noisy looks and full control.
Also I think this is overkill? "The following files are used in Open Camera"
Even a single dead pixel would seriously distract me but he didn't even notice the gif of some disgusting medical scam ad showing elbows or knees or whatever.
He could also fall asleep seconds after hitting the bed. I need at least 10 minutes - at least. Sometimes an hour. Maybe it's a related phenomenon.
Some people just seem to ignore external stimuli better than others. Whether ads whose purpose is brand recognition work on them subconsciously, idk.
I tend to catch almost everything on the screen when I'm taking it in, and if someone asks me about something on the screen I can generally find it in a small fraction of a second; I don't take in every last detail (e.g word of text) simultaneously, but I have every major UI element in mind. I have observed that many people are focused specifically on one thing and don't notice a thing I call attention to without searching the screen for multiple seconds.
When introducing non-computer people to a new application, I find it helps (or is sometimes necessary) to walk them through each part of the screen, explaining what it is for and how it relates to the others. If someone doesn't or can't retain that explanation, usually nothing will help them. But if they do/can retain it, I find even non-computer people are much quicker in noticing particular updates to the application's or OS's GUI.
I think this experience is now rare if you are computer-adept, though it was more common even just a few decades ago. But the first thing I do when I see a totally unfamiliar UI is stare at it for a bit until I think I understand the information hierarchy. And then try to verify that understanding by clicking things. Eventually I acquire that "perceiving the screen as a whole feeling", but I still suspect that it's something resembling the human vision process generally, under the hood of conscious perception.
https://files.catbox.moe/ukxte8.png
I do have to wonder if this is a net negative. At least for me, it significantly reduces trust and respect for the website and developer, while I can't imagine the traffic produces any meaningful revenue?
Edit: Just realized it's the same ad 4 times, haha. (I think the 5th one, offscreen, was the same too.)
https://www.celsoazevedo.com/files/android/p/gcam-asus-zenfo...
Randomly, I wish more UI/UX designers contribute to open source.
Like, literally just add a photo of the app to your landing page. It's not rocket science.
Heh, I still remember a time in the internet where apps had a dedicated "screenshots" page.
That was presumably a best practice when people were still on 56kbps dialup, and downloading images was expensive.
Many telcos in the world don't even support 3G anymore.
Dunno how popular/successful/active it is, tho.
Many do make horrible UI, but would react poorly to criticism, hard to know before ..
Just look at the monstruosity that is the GUI version of wget, it's the epitome of programmers with no UX background trying to make a GUI application.
Maybe that's the meaning of the parent comment?
Whatever came before MeGUI was likely much worse.
As a rule, if you, a non-UI designer, are bothered by it, then it doesn't take a UI designer to fix it.
Always saves metadata to videos.
Doesn't request or need media/storage permissions. Defaults to no location permissions.
So good - but room for improvement?
I had a one-time purchase to Halide, but it somehow stopped working in early 2025 because Halide support claimed that the app's feature unlock (used to be one-time upfront purchase, now IAP) only works if I'm logged into the App Store account I purchased it from.
*Please note: Halide is not free. We do offer a 7-day free trial for annual memberships. Don't like subscriptions? You can also buy the app outright with a single in-app purchase.*
Is that what you did?
They grandfathered all existing v1 purchasers, but the grandfathering somehow stopped working for me because I didn't buy it on my primary App Store account (I switch between regions, but pay for my non-free apps using my US account because they're usually cheaper).
Source: I have a Samsung phone. Any software trying to take slow-motion video glitches out. The camera also tends to make the phone overheat.
Like there's a fair bit of ergonomics here which I'm brute forcing by just having two camera apps.
I've found OpenCam to be useful because of the various optional features ( onionskin, levelmeter, locking settings ). You can also set the bitrate/size/duration of videos, etc. Lots of useful stuff.
Did you switch to Camera2 API in settings>Camera Api ?
And the Long Exposure was the primary thing I wanted it to work for.
Quality looked amazing, but the pre-installed phone camera gets close enough and it's instant.
It's far superior to anything I've seen natively installed on any device. It has a lot of options, which I suspect can be confusing to some, but they're worth familiarizing with.
My favorite feature is the macro, which when coupled with the right UI settings produces photos that when I have printed, result in the person saying "wow! You took that with a phone!?". And I say "yeah. Open Camera. It's great, try it sometime".
Highly recommend.
I havent tried Open Camera in a while, but my conclusion is that the phone's camera app is best.
I see criticism of Open Cam already, but I recommend trying it, with patience, and seeing what it can do. All my art images, all my videos, are all taken with open camera.
Edit: for the macro setting, it allows fine tuning, but the manual focus and manual zoom functions are superb for my purposes.
Edit2: Maybe irrelevant, but I always disable the stock camera and anything camera related. Not sure if that helps, but I know I don't want any fucking thing to do with shitware, so go as nuclear as possible.
Full manual controls does not mean "better". I've been a photographer for more than 20 years using everything from fully-manual (no battery) film setups through modern mirrorless bodies. I know the tradeoffs between shutter speed, ISO, and aperture, I know how to manual focus.
....and most of the time I don't want any of those, especially on a phone, where I want a clear photo of a stationary object and the phone's automatic settings get it right the first time.
If something allows full manual controls but takes two seconds longer to be ready to shoot it is significantly worse as a camera for most of my use cases.
The current state of software is to some, myself, deeply offensive and many have passionate opposition to it. If you are into stockware, you won't ever find me in your way. But you'll not bully me into not expressing my opinion either. Shitware defines it perfectly to the very type of person bothering to use Fdroid and freedom respecting devices.
I am not sure, as I haven't used that app. What I can say, which may or may not be relevant to you is as follows:
1) Open any Google based device and do the equivalent of /Settings/System/DeveloperOptions/RunningServices/GooglePlayServices
You can peruse around just Running Services if you please, and see plenty there, but be sure to view Show Cached Processes too.
Under Play Services, you will see approximately 24 services, some reasonable, some not. Crisis Alert, Emergency Services, Vestiges of Contact Tracing rebranded, etc.
Try using Google Maps without BT and WiFi scanning, and just pure GPS. Maps won't work.
Try disabling Google Play services, or Play Store and watch Fdroid apps break, and the phone malfunction.
2) Go to /Settings/Apps/See All/Show System and behold a plethora of verified shitware, much of which cannot be removed even through ABD.
Then ask yourself Why? Most of these services are unnecessary. You, presumably, purchased, rather than leased or rented your device. So why can you cannot decide what runs on it? Many do not care. I do. I get zero reimbursement for this data mining shitware.
...or me, I say, if they need that shitware running so badly, buy their own phone and stick it where ever they want, but not on my person. We have entered a paradigm where everyone thinks Because They Can, they can just do whatever they choose on the devices of others. And what happens? We get stronger and stronger devices while the landfills engorge with waste, so that we can support a metadata whorehouse on our personal devices. If you support that, I do not oppose you, I oppose it on my system, as do others, which are the type of people I tend to direct such comments to.
No offense was intended. A comment above drops in merely to say Open Cam 'kinda sucks'. I do not downvote it, nor do I agree. I just carry on.
Its the same way that the Pinephone is "usable" but really, it sucks.
Edit: one feature I'm fond of, when posting images on the Internet, is disabling exif data. I don't always want to put my coordinates on the Internet.
My experience was that while it was great with all the features, the photo quality simply was worse than the stock manufacturer app in newer phones. Only in my old Samsung Galaxy S5 was the quality on par.
Yes, by all means, everyone should try and compare.
