Smartphone cameras always improving and many folks rely on them as their only way to capture photos and videos of important life, and so companies are always looking to make their phone's camera performance better.
In December, OnePlus held what it calls an Open Ears Forum with smartphone videographers at a range of skill levels. Those include novices and experts that use their phone's camera for work. Those participants all suggested ways that OnePlus could make its smartphone cameras better, and today the company revealed those challenges and which ones it'll be undertaking.
OnePlus has many aspects of camera performance that it is planning to improve. The company says that white balance consistency is a major priority as is skin tone improvement, with future software updates coming to improve the latter of the two.
Also coming are both hardware and software upgrades for autofocus, which are planned for 2020. OnePlus has committed to 4K super stabilization for "some of [its] future devices", too. Another main goal for OnePlus in 2020 is a faster camera, which the company says will be constantly improved with future updates.
Below you can find a full list of the suggestions that the videographers made to OnePlus in bold, followed by OnePlus's response.
Exposure / color / white balance shift and consistency across all cameras
Tuning all the cameras to have the identical exposure, white balance is our first priority and main goal.
Auto focus consistency
We weren’t be able to reproduce the issue reported by the OEF attendees in our lab, but an upgrade both on hardware and software for auto focus will come in 2020.
Skin tone consistency
Skin tone improvement is one of our top priorities. It will improve via future system updates.
Sharpness: Sharpness needs improvement across all scenarios
We are trying to find the new balance between sharpness and noise.
Super stabilization: Support for 4K recording; Reducing noise and improving low light quality.
There are hardware limitations, but 4K super stabilization will be supported in some of our future devices.
Dynamic range: Subject is lit but background is too dark
We have been working on video HDR, which will solve these dynamic range problems.
Light flickering
We’ve heard a lot of feedback about this, and we are working on de-flickering solutions to reduce this issue.
Panning shots are not smooth: Improve panning shots stabilization and smoothness
So far, we weren’t be able to reproduce this issue in our lab, but smoothness and video are part of our key improvement points for 2020.
Faster camera
Again, this is one of our main goals in 2020. Faster shutter requires updates from system, application, as well as the animation. It will constantly be improved via future updates.
Lens feature-parity: 1080P and 4K should be supported in all three lenses, allowing to switch between lenses while recording
This is due to a hardware limitation in current devices, but we’re exploring ways to make it possible for future devices.
Limited 4K record length
Having considered overall performance and temperature, we will not change current limit, but will keep working on optimizing this in the future.
Single handed use: Difficult to reach the top bar for features; Single hand zooming
This is very important feedback for us, and we’ve already been discussing solutions with the design team.
Video editing
We plan on completely updating our Gallery app’s video tools, so many of the features requested during the OEF will be supported. For color grading or LUT options, we will have news soon.
Pro video mode
Pro video mode will be put into backlog, since our high priority is improving default video quality and use experience across the board.
Depth of field for tele camera recording (optical)
We have already been researching and working on this feature, and the current quality has not reached our standard to release.
Zoom-in time-lapse
We have some similar ideas for time-lapse as well, they are already in future product plan.
Reverse recording video
Less frequent user scenario, so we’ve put into backlog. Our main focus in video is basic quality and user experience for all users.
Night mode for night video
This is something we believe to be very interesting, we have already been researching and working on it.
AR emoji and stickers recording
We still haven’t found a killer scenario for AR in video. There are some third-party apps that already offer interesting sticker features, so this isn’t a big priority for now.
Social media mode: Directly to twitter, crop ratio for Instagram, etc.
We believe the image quality in third-party apps is of high importance and has a higher priority. We have been working on this, these features are planned after image quality improvement.
Light painting mode
We decide not to follow on light painting effect due to a narrow user scenario.
2 cameras recording at the same time: Wide and ultra-wide; rear and front
This is already supported by current platform and cameras, but we are looking for user scene to fully take advantage of this feature.
