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Posted by tetris11 4 days ago

Open Camera is a FOSS camera app for Android(opencamera.org.uk)
210 points | 101 commentspage 2
VerifiedReports 5 hours ago|
That's how you write a title.
afarah1 11 hours ago||
I've used it for several years now, it's a great app. Not perfect, there is noticeable lag to capture high resolution images, and lacks shutter speed control. Still, beats other FOSS alternatives in my experience.
ImPostingOnHN 11 hours ago||
Folks, if you have a page about a product that has a UI, please include images of the UI.
nh23423fefe 12 hours ago||
I'm gonna give this a try. I have a samsung and the camera app has glitchy slow motion for years. I would never buy another one again, but if i can get functioning slow motion then i can still use it at least for side projects
afewquarks 11 hours ago||
It depends on the phone camera API. Some allow up to some fps and the highest option is available through some vendor API that's not public. At least on mine.
lightedman 12 hours ago||
The problem with the slow motion isn't the software, it's the phone.

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.

HelloUsername 11 hours ago||
Would this be the iOS 'alternative'? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47010018
ValentineC 9 hours ago|
The pre-iOS 26 native camera app is good enough for me, and I really like Live Photos, which most alternatives don't handle.

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.

HelloUsername 8 hours ago||
From description in Appstore:

*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?

ValentineC 8 hours ago||
I bought Halide v1, which was an upfront purchase.

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).

anjel 5 hours ago||
Open Camera can also be found on F-Droid
XorNot 12 hours ago||
Funnily enough I use this just to have a camera which saves to a different directory for keeping RealityScan images apart from my general photos.
seanw444 10 hours ago|
That really should be a standard setting for camera apps.
yonatan8070 10 hours ago||
If only the average person wasn't afraid of a directory tree...
XorNot 7 hours ago||
It wouldn't quite solve it: the issue is it's very helpful to hit a button on my phones home screen to get "different directory" immediately via a different shortcut.

Like there's a fair bit of ergonomics here which I'm brute forcing by just having two camera apps.

LoganDark 6 hours ago||
I used to use Open Camera, but I started having an issue where it would not take photos, and would just wait indefinitely for the camera to focus. It would completely lock up until I moved the phone somewhere else, pointed it at something, and waited and waited and waited for the camera to be happy about the focus, and only then would it take a photo. But this made it useless to get photos in most of the situations where I wanted photos. I couldn't find any documentation about this or settings about this; I must have gone through the entire settings tree at least five times trying to figure out why it was waiting for the camera to focus before taking a photo, but I could never figure out why, or whether it's possible to disable that.
tetris11 5 hours ago|
You might have enabled the "Focus Macro" mode, which gives better pictures but requires a steady hand and patience
waynesonfire 12 hours ago||
Which camera brands / models don't phone home or have "smart" ai features built in provided over a proprietary cloud app?
tiagod 11 hours ago|
Google Pixel with GrapheneOS
drnick1 10 hours ago|||
This is the correct answer. Anything proprietary phones home and inserts malicious metadata into pictures that allow others (social media) to know who, when and how the photo was taken.
armadyl 10 hours ago|||
You can even use the proprietary Pixel Camera on GrapheneOS and just deny network permissions, or if you’re worried about IPC (if you have another networked Google app installed) it can be in its own private space. And then just strip the exif data if you want before sending it anywhere.
lightedman 13 hours ago|
It's usable but that's all I can say for it. Changing settings for simply adjusting ISO makes the processing of images take forever. I tried to use it so I could capture poorly-illuminating LEDs in a strip at work and ended up just using a DSLR in manual mode, it was much faster.
shlip 12 hours ago||
Well of course a DSLR will be better than a phone camera for most things, since you can control more features. That's also the point of OpenCamera; get as much controls as you can back, compared to the stock app that might be lacking. It wont do miracles if your phone camera is not good to begin with.

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.

StingyJelly 12 hours ago|||
That's a weird bug. For me it always works almost instantly with the exception of long exposures where it sometimes takes 2x the exposure time.

Did you switch to Camera2 API in settings>Camera Api ?

lightedman 12 hours ago||
Yes, I tried every improvement and API switch suggested for almost a month with no change in performance unless I went back to default everything, which then brought processing performance in-line with the regular native phone app.

And the Long Exposure was the primary thing I wanted it to work for.

plqbfbv 13 hours ago||
Yeah, I agree. I've used it until 3 days ago, then after ~1y I got tired of taking the occasional pictures with HDR on and waiting 3-5 minutes for them to be processed and saved, while producing 3 other copies in the gallery.

Quality looked amazing, but the pre-installed phone camera gets close enough and it's instant.

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