After much speculation, Google has this morning released their stock camera to Google Play as a standalone App. It’s available to all devices running Android 4.4+ and it brings with it a brand new interface.
The Google Camera App offers the PhotoSphere experience which Nexus owners have enjoyed for years, but on any branded phone running a version of Android 4.4 and upwards. There’s a host of new features as well including the Lens Blur mode :
- Photo Spheres for immersive 360º views.
- Lens Blur mode for SLR-like photos with shallow depth of field.
- Panorama mode with high resolution.
- 100% viewfinder for getting the maximum resolution from the sensor (no dropped pixels).
- Updated UI that gets out of your way and is centered on an extra large capture button.
- Works on phones and tablets running Android 4.4+ KitKat.
One of the coolest things though is the icon that appears when you attempt to take video in portrait mode :
That’s right, it has an animated picture overlaid over your video reminding you to turn your phone sideways. Brilliant.
There’s no customer facing signs of any plugins or third-party support that’s been rumoured, but as a camera it works great and the interface looks pretty darned good.
We’ve tested the App out on the HTC M8 and the Galaxy S5, so we imagine the Moto G will be working quite well too. If you’re running Android 4.4, it’s available now in Google Play.
Love the interface and design. But it is lacking in features, like HDR, slow motion, burst, fast motion, timer etc. Hopefully more features will be rolled out. I can’t access the settings, it will always crash on my GS3 running custom rom 4.4.2
HDR is still there.
Love, love, love the new camera app. Most impressive of all is the speed! Finally the Nexus 5 camera is alive. While there’s still work to be done in terms of features (and no doubt there’s plenty to come), overall performance is now fantastic. Focus and capture speed is excellent.
I already considered the Nexus 5 the best phone available today despite its flawed camera. Now it’s just the best phone available, period.
It is an improvement (auto mode) but it doesnt make the camera on my n5 still is slow to focus and has to refocus quite often.
Is there any colour balance in it? I can’t find it.
The lens blur effect is very neat. You can adjust the blur effect when editing the photo for a near or far effect. But make sure that you have the photo quality set to high by hitting the cog icon that appears in the left hand corner when you slide the setting options out.
Can’t see the point of having it on my M8.
Working great on my GS3 and Nexus 7
fantastic – 4.4. fat lot of good that does me with a GS4
4.4.x is out for SGS4, check sammobile.com
I don’e see what the big deal is? Seems to work fine for me. I’m on OmniRom.
Why is the button to take pictures so big??? It takes around 25% of the screen and is all black. That’s a big NO for me!
They are trying to put a 4:3 picture onto a 16:10 screen – so they end up blowing the screen real estate on a stupidly big button. Personally I think some other controls would have been sensible, but there is at least method in their madness.
I guess the big button is for selfie takers. Having a big button makes it easy to hit when you’re taking selfies using the main camera and can’t actually see the screen?
Because they’ve made the decision to give you a ‘what you see is what you get’ preview, instead of the old ‘cropped to fit on a 16:9 widescreen screen’ preview like the old AOSP/Nexus app. They’ve done this in the true spirit of photography. How it is now is technically ‘correct’, and now since they’ve made it the true size of a photo, there’s space on each side of the screen – so why not use it for a huge shutter button (which in my opinion is user friendly). Love the new app!
That is so great that they tell you to turn the camera when recording.
I’m so sick of people (pretty much all iPhone users) who record videos in portrait. So stupid.
Has anyone tried side loading this to a phone that is below kit kat? 😛