Camera problem: red/blue/purple noise in low light photos

Riyal · Jun 11, 2013

@Floris2310
Yes I am fully aware and have tested more than those scenarios. It seems like we have a oversaturated device in our hands. I noticed in the other HTC One the pictures were yellowish(warm) and colors are not as bright as ours.

Floris2310 said:
damn, bad news then. Probably a stupid question but did you check the ISO settings on the device?

There are two possible scenarios here:
1) We have a sensor which is acting weird/broken
2) There is something wrong with the ISO selection and it typically takes an ISO to high which causes the red image

I think (read: hope) the second option is more likely and the good news is that this would probably be a software rather than hardware issue.

I think our issue is related to exposure and saturation.

Anyway, thanks @Riyal for checking this!

VictorCozmei said:
@Riyal

This is horrible :crying: @#$%!

If this is truly confirmed and there are a number of One's out there with broken sensors, than I think this thread should be renamed so that all users know about this problem. Maybe some of them, looking to buy the One, can do the camera test before purchasing a faulty unit!

I just got my One and I'm falling in love with it and now I have to take it back and be without it... More over, the great HTC-partner service we have here doesn't not know the meaning of the word "replacement" and they will most surely try to open and fix it (oh the horror!!) ...

I'm also in that situation. I purchased the device from Europe and I live in asia imagine the hassle I would need to get it fixed/replaced.

Karish1989 · Jun 11, 2013

hmm when i put mine phone on table with camera on everything is black.. but if have the phone on mine hand . then it's red... and if I put the camera on mine for hand then everything is black

Sorry for mine bad english

Ps. I don't think camera is broken or something .. it's just because your hand (back) is a lot more red then your (for) hand

Riyal · Jun 11, 2013

@Floris2310
I already tried it on the leaked 4.2.2 still the same.

Floris2310 said:
I would wait a little longer before returning the device. The 4.2.2 update is just around the corner and I have read somewhere that there are some camera improvements. Perhaps the issue is fixed with the update. If it's a software problem that is.

@Karish1989
Mine is alway red wherever I put it. Even if I cover it with an opaque object.

Karish1989 said:
hmm when i put mine phone on table with camera on everything is black.. but if have the phone on mine hand . then it's red... and if I put the camera on mine for hand then everything is black

Sorry for mine bad english

Ps. I don't think camera is broken or something .. it's just because your hand (back) is a lot more red then your (for) hand

Xerro-Five · Jun 11, 2013

Floris2310 said:
damn, bad news then. Probably a stupid question but did you check the ISO settings on the device?

There are two possible scenarios here:
1) We have a sensor which is acting weird/broken
2) There is something wrong with the ISO selection and it typically takes an ISO to high which causes the red image

I think (read: hope) the second option is more likely and the good news is that this would probably be a software rather than hardware issue.

Anyway, thanks @Riyal for checking this!

After reading the posts here and trying more things on my phone, I'm 90% sure it's just an ISO utilization issue. Look at all the posts confirming that the red is in pictures taken higher than ISO1600. To confirm I manually set the ISO to each of the settings 100,200,400,800,1600 and repeated my tests. The red didn't show up until 1600 even when completely dark as before.

This could be easily fixed by an update.

Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app

VictorC · Jun 11, 2013

Xerro-Five said:
After reading the posts here and trying more things on my phone, I'm 90% sure it's just an ISO utilization issue. Look at all the posts confirming that the red is in pictures taken higher than ISO1600. To confirm I manually set the ISO to each of the settings 100,200,400,800,1600 and repeated my tests. The red didn't show up until 1600 even when completely dark as before.

This could be easily fixed by an update.

Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app

@Xerro-Five @Riyal

I tend to agree with this, somehow... but It doesn't explain why some shots appear red and others don't, using the same ISO.

For example - the pictures below... They're both shot in the same lightning condition and both on full auto ->
- fist image, ISO 2000 and red all over because I steadied for the shot,
- the second shot - full auto and ISO 2000, but taken in the first 3-4 seconds, right after the focus was set... If i had waited longer, the redness would have set in...

Xerro-Five · Jun 11, 2013

VictorCozmei said:
@Xerro-Five @Riyal

I tend to agree with this, somehow... but It doesn't explain why some shots appear red and others don't, using the same ISO.

For example - the pictures below... They're both shot in the same lightning condition and both on full auto ->
- fist image, ISO 2000 and red all over because I steadied for the shot,
- the second shot - full auto and ISO 2000, but taken in the first 3-4 seconds, right after the focus was set... If i had waited longer, the redness would have set in...

I can't say if this is the sole reason or not, but I've noticed that situation too which I attributed to the sensor trying desperately to collect more light. Meaning that initially the effect is minimal because it hasn't had a chance to build up noise yet, but then the high ISO combined with the longer exposure times would later lead to noise. Trouble is I'm not sure how to test that to prove or disprove it... All I could do was observe that increasing the exposure time worsened the effect and lowering it helped. But I can only lower it to -2 which was not enough to stop the red.

This could also be a unique issue of "ultrapixels" I don't remember off hand how the dimensions of these pixels compare to a dslr sensor etc... But you know, new tech and all

Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app

---------- Post added at 02:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:24 PM ----------

The one thing we know for sure is that the color is noise. Which is why I still believe it's just an optimization issue that can be resolved by update.

Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app

VictorC · Jun 11, 2013

I took some time tonight and shot some comparisons pictures with the One and my old One X and the results made me relax a little about the quality of the camera in low and very (I mean very !) low light.

It may be just an ISO setting error that could be fixed with an update and not necessarily mean that the camera sensor is faulty like @Xerro-Five said.

But... Still, i just cannot manage to capture a photo with a perfect (or near perfect) black as the ones in some tech reviews (EX: Anandtech's review of the One) . There is some difference in colors between auto mode and night shot (See below)

Compared to my old One X - it obliterates it in very low light. It just captures more light and more detail, admittedly turning more dark stuff into blueish noise. But see for yourself...

->>> For this picture there was an orange light post a bit far away from my position and a faint green neon on one building closer... The sky was reddish from the city lights...

And now some One to One (X) shots

Ardmanz · Jun 11, 2013

I have the same issue but not all the time and it's difficult to recreate.

What I did notice is that I can see it on the phone before I take the shot (it doesn't look normal then I take the pic and it's weird). I will do some more testing on mine and report back.

Mine still has the 1.28 firmware btw.

VictorC · Jun 11, 2013

Ardmanz said:
I have the same issue but not all the time and it's difficult to recreate.

What I did notice is that I can see it on the phone before I take the shot (it doesn't look normal then I take the pic and it's weird). I will do some more testing on mine and report back.

Mine still has the 1.28 firmware btw.

@Ardmanz Please do some testing if you can

We are all here (I think) on the 1.29 ... If this turns out to be just a software problem that could be corrected without returning the phone or getting it into service, I think that would be a big win for some users here, me included

Riyal · Jun 12, 2013

@VictorCozmei
But if this is a software issue others should have the same results as we have the same hardware. Or probably HTC One is using different sensors? But I dig it already up to the kernel level and all I can see is the ST VD8689 sensor driver.

Riyal · Jun 12, 2013

@VictorCozmei, @Xerro-Five, @Karish1989 & @Ardmanz

Good news! Been messing with tweaking the sensor drivers since yesterday and look at the results! :good:

Took it from my device just now and covered the camera with my hand

Check the exif info :laugh:

Still not perfect yet though but we're close!

Any professional photographer there good in playing with BGR gain values?

I am not good with these apparently all my adjustments so far are a fail.

1st attempt = grey with a little pink and full of white powdery noise.
2nd attempt = full grey and full of white powdery noise.
3rd attempt = almost perfect bat very2x dark!

I need to balance the red and blue gains but still maintain the white balance.

Please note I am tweaking the sensor driver directly in the kernel. So for this fix to work you need to flash a custom kernel.

Riyal · Jun 12, 2013

Another update guys! I already resolved the dark issue problem now is when taking pictures in daylight it's somehow greenish now

I really need someone with knowledge about this as I'm just blindly inputting random values.

Anyway I'm off from now and back to my previous kernel... Gonna get back on this some other time.

Xerro-Five · Jun 12, 2013

Riyal said:
@VictorCozmei, @Xerro-Five, @Karish1989 & @Ardmanz

Good news! Been messing with tweaking the sensor drivers since yesterday and look at the results! :good:

Took it from my device just now and covered the camera with my hand

Check the exif info :laugh:

Still not perfect yet though but we're close!

Any professional photographer there good in playing with BGR gain values?

I am not good with these apparently all my adjustments so far are a fail.

1st attempt = grey with a little pink and full of white powdery noise.
2nd attempt = full grey and full of white powdery noise.
3rd attempt = almost perfect bat very2x dark!

I need to balance the red and blue gains but still maintain the white balance.

Please note I am tweaking the sensor driver directly in the kernel. So for this fix to work you need to flash a custom kernel.

I admire your determination, I really do :thumbup:

However I would save yourself the headache for now and at least wait it out for this week as there's been a lot of talk of a 4.2.18 update hitting our phones shortly. It's my understanding that some in EU already have it. There's a pretty solid chance they tweaked the calibration so it may fix the issue.
Also adjusting the gain is a losing battle for this IMO because gain, unlike hue or saturation changes the other colors as well (as you saw with the inadvertent shift to green by dropping the red - that's exactly what you would expect to happen). If you dropped blue it would turn yellow and so on. Also since it's noise, the gain won't solve the real underlying issue.

Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app

Ardmanz · Jun 12, 2013

Here is a couple of example of my issue:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/96175074@N02/8894567246/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/96175074@N02/8905981682/

One of them isn't even in low light so it may be a different issue.

Most shots are ok but the odd one comes out like that.

VictorC · Jun 12, 2013

Ardmanz said:
Here is a couple of example of my issue:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/96175074@N02/8894567246/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/96175074@N02/8905981682/

One of them isn't even in low light so it may be a different issue.

Most shots are ok but the odd one comes out like that.

@Ardmanz

Flikr: "This photo is private Oops! You don't have permission to view this photo."

Riyal · Jun 12, 2013

Ardmanz said:
Here is a couple of example of my issue:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/96175074@N02/8894567246/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/96175074@N02/8905981682/

One of them isn't even in low light so it may be a different issue.

Most shots are ok but the odd one comes out like that.

these are private photos can't see anything

---------- Post added at 08:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:50 PM ----------

Hopefully you're correct. But the issue is in our sensors and not thru software. If HTC calibrates the software other users without this issue would be affected.

But since this can be fixed by software hopefully they can workaround the issue. But recieving a negative response from them about this issue I am assuming they haven't recieve any reports yet and am really doubtful this will be fixed on the next update. And like I said I already tried the 4.2.2 update that was leaked and it was not fixed yet.

Xerro-Five said:
I admire your determination, I really do :thumbup:

However I would save yourself the headache for now and at least wait it out for this week as there's been a lot of talk of a 4.2.18 update hitting our phones shortly. It's my understanding that some in EU already have it. There's a pretty solid chance they tweaked the calibration so it may fix the issue.
Also adjusting the gain is a losing battle for this IMO because gain, unlike hue or saturation changes the other colors as well (as you saw with the inadvertent shift to green by dropping the red - that's exactly what you would expect to happen). If you dropped blue it would turn yellow and so on. Also since it's noise, the gain won't solve the real underlying issue.

Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app

Ardmanz · Jun 12, 2013

Silly me!

http://i.imgur.com/K2sVnfR.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/B7nh1eq.jpg

So it looks like a hardware issue? Bah, dealing with HTC doesn't sound like fun.

VictorC · Jun 12, 2013

Riyal said:
[,,,] But recieving a negative response from them about this issue I am assuming they haven't recieve any reports yet and am really doubtful this will be fixed on the next update. And like I said I already tried the 4.2.2 update that was leaked and it was not fixed yet.

Did HTC get back to you about the problem? What did they say?

VictorC · Jun 12, 2013

Ardmanz said:
Silly me!

http://i.imgur.com/K2sVnfR.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/B7nh1eq.jpg

So it looks like a hardware issue? Bah, dealing with HTC doesn't sound like fun.

It does looks similar to what I'm experiencing with my camera. I'm looking at the photo in daytime and I see some blue tint at the edges where it was supposed to be black. If you take picture during the night, let's say on a city street, do the blacks in the picture turn blue-ish or purple?

Ardmanz · Jun 12, 2013

VictorCozmei said:
It does looks similar to what I'm experiencing with my camera. I'm looking at the photo in daytime and I see some blue tint at the edges where it was supposed to be black. If you take picture during the night, let's say on a city street, do the blacks in the picture turn blue-ish or purple?

I'll take some tonight and post them up.

Camera problem: red/blue/purple noise in low light photos

Does your One have red/blue/purple noise in low light photos?

Yes

No

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