My new phone's camera review turned into a weekend project

I bought a Pixel 8a last Friday and decided to test the camera by taking pics of my dog at the park. The photos looked great on the phone screen, but when I zoomed in on my laptop, everything was weirdly soft and blurry. Has anyone else had this happen with a phone that got good reviews?

3 comments

3 Comments

josephbutler17d ago

Yeah, that softness on a big screen is a known thing with a lot of phone cameras. They use a lot of software processing to make the small image look sharp, but it can fall apart when you zoom or view it large. It's trying to clean up noise and sometimes just smudges fine details.

charlie_ellis17d ago

Exactly, and it gets worse in low light. The phone's software basically paints over the grain, and you lose all the texture. I've found shooting in the phone's "pro" or raw mode helps a ton if you plan to edit later. It saves the messier original file so you can clean it up yourself without that smudgy look. You still have to deal with noise, but at least you can keep the real edges and details. It's a bit more work, but the photos hold up so much better on a computer screen.

parkera2211d ago

My old Pixel 3 was the worst for that smudgy watercolor look in dim rooms. I switched to shooting raw and editing in Lightroom mobile, and it's like having a different camera.