IodéOS for FP5 comes with Aperture as camera app preinstalled.
The pictures taken with Aperture on FP5 aren’t satisfactory to me.
It’s likely not the camera sensor’s fault since that one is the same as in many other decent phones.
Good algorithms are needed to produce a good picture.
Camera algorithms are mainly proprietary code and the camera apps closed source.
Open source camera apps that take decent pictures are rare.
With a privacy focus in mind, nevertheless, pretty much any camera app can be used on iodéOS when blocking the app’s internet access (either with the iodé app or in App info > Mobile data usage > Allow network access).
Many camera apps, howewer, come only preinstalled with the OS and aren’t available for download as standalone apps.
Let’s collect camera apps here that produce (subjectively) decent pictures on Fairphone 5.
Contributions welcome!
This is a modified Google Camera app, also known as Pixel Camera. Google Camera is the stock camera app shipped on Nexus and Pixel phones from Google. Google’s HDR+ technology improves picture quality specially on low and mid end phones.
Features include HDR+, portrait mode, motion photos, panorama, lens blur, 60fps video, slow motion, and more.
I have tested the version MGC_9.3.160_V30_MGC.apk by BSG from here.
Pros:
• Decent pictures IMO.
• Pictures are rich in detail and very little blurry
• Fairly natural colors in HDR mode.
• Good manual camera controls.
Cons:
• Skin tones somewhat unnatural because too rich in contrast when taking selfies.
• Couldn’t find a way to activate torch light.
• Power-hungry during use.
• Consumes battery even in the background at times (sometimes even when Allow background usage is disabled). Might be fixed by freezing the app with Shelter.
• Does not support full 50MP resolution, only 12.5MP pixel binning (like any other camera app except for the original Fairphone camera app AFAIK).
Limitations of the MGC_9.3.160_V30_MGC version:
• Normal video mode doesn’t work when Focus-Tracking is enabled.
Hints for even better pictures:
• Use Night Sight mode in low-light conditions
Internet access:
• Connects to www.gstatic.com to download example pictures when pressing any ? for explanations of different camera settings (only once per explanation).
• No other connection attempts observed.
This is not developed by us anymore, it only remains in the store for older devices that don’t have OpenCamera as part of the system image since they are too old (I think I have this right?).
I believe the iodé version of Aperture from ioDroid is similar, it is there as a fallback for devices that do not have Android 15 / 16 (iodéOS 6 / 7) to be able to have Aperture. But for newer devices there is no advantage of it, you should just stay with the version from “Preinstalled Apps” (for these older devices it isn’t available as a “Preinstalled App”).
If you want a newer OpenCamera you can install from the main F-Droid repo instead.
BTW I have also seen that the gcam ports give additional detail and quality. I hate that this is true, but it does seem so. It is a bit of a mess to find a good version, and I would always disable network for it from AppInfo.