Surface Pro 3 camera quality

Anonymous
2014-06-23T00:43:23+00:00

i posted this as a question so that the Microsoft techs can have some visibility of this issue

Frankly, I am lividand disappointed at the quality in this product. at first I assumed it was a firmware issue and/or a hardware issue but after performing all of the steps the tech support people have instructedand having been instructed to go the store and exchange for new hardware, I get the same issue.

so this leads me to believe it may just be the quality of the cameras microsoftshipped out on all of the devices

now these were releasednot too long ago and maybe there is a firmware fix out there but until then I am going to share the photos I am able to capture with everyone here 

now I am a student and I bought the pro 3 to be able to take a picture of a document or whiteboard and be able to write on it in onenote. the picture above is of a small target, a barcode, but even taking pictures of a full sized paper with standard size text, it is still almost illegible!

to compare the photos with another device I brought out another moble device: my ipod. the quality of the camera on the device I use to listen to music should surely be about the same quality of camera in the $1600 ten times the size of an ipod device I just bought right? NOT EVEN CLOSE

the first super clear picture is not from the pro 3 but from my ipod WHICH ALSO has a 5 MP camera. as you can see you can easily define everything in t he picture not only to include the sticker underneath the barcode , but the number in that 2D barcode as well. very good job!

the next horrible picture is the BEST PICTURE I could get from the rear camera on the Surface Pro 3. as you can see this is horrible, you can see it’s a bar code, you cannot tell those are numbers underneath. you could guess but you wouldn’t be able to identify any single number

the last picture is the BEST PICTURE I could get from the front camera, which is strangely odd since it is markedly better than the rear camera, although still severely sub-par. you can at least identify some numbers and see that there is a sticker underneath the barcode.

So there you have it. this is the horrible picture quality we can expect from the surface pro 3's cameras and how it compares to equivalent-megapixel MP3 players

Microsoft, If you can address this with a firmware update to make the cameras auto-focus, I will be a happy customer;even half the quality of my ipod I can work with. but this? this is unacceptable.

Surface | Surface Pro | Sound and camera

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Anonymous
2014-12-08T09:51:06+00:00

On Sun, 7 Dec 2014 21:06:04 +0000, OAKNOVA wrote:

>>I am quite disappointed with the camera on the Surface Pro 3 and its inability to focus and take sharp pictures of documents. These days even the most rudimentary and basic phone or camera can take sharp images that can be save, printed. I have to now take a photo with my Samsung phone and then email it to my account and download it as a saved image. Microsoft learn from Apple and create flawless products the first time around. I think I have wasted my money on the Surface Pro 3. Any fixes out there or should I just sell this product?

there is no software fix for this. the camera is fixed focus. here's what I did

as a kludge

http://digitalmediaphile.com/index.php/2014/09/23/get-glasses-for-surface-pro-3-for-clear-documents-take-2/

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Barb

Windows Entertainment and Connected Home MVP

My Blog - http://digitalmediaphile.com/

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Anonymous
2014-11-02T17:11:37+00:00

There is no zoom. It is a fixed focus camera.

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-07-06T04:52:43+00:00

    I have found that works for me.  i dont like it but it will at least do. i'll explain below.

    to barb bowman:

    it is a good app, which could possibly replace scanners with the right camera, the issue is that no matter how good the app, you cant replace the focus you get with a fixed focus camera. Microsoft messed up.

    for the record i took a picture to verify the effectiveness of this app with my surface pro 3. but i have found a work around that works for me:

    i have an ipad with one note the i can use to insert pictures, i have to wait a few seconds, but it does pop up on my surface pro 3 before not too long, and it has an auto focus camera.

    the thing i like about onenote on the ipad is that i can use the document and whiteboard capture auto-crop and auto-contrast feature.

    IT WOULD BE LOVELY TO HAVE THIS ON THE SURFACE PRO 3 but apparently Microsoft insists on being sub-par.

    to show that the app still does not suffice, i've captured a photo with it and compared it to a picture taken with onenote on my ipad and you can see the difference

    obviously, the top picture is from my ipad, bottom my surface pro 3 with the HP scanner app

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-07-06T03:24:45+00:00

    Everyone, go get http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/app/hp-scan-and-capture/94fffdd0-bb3b-4adc-96ca-24c1d79e16c6

    You do NOT need an HP Scanner. Set it to Camera. It will scan and save to pdf. IN focus.

    How does that software help? The text is still so out of focus it's unreadable. I don't see any improvement over the stock software.  I hope Microsoft fixes this soon or July 20th I get a new computer. This is the most untested unusable computer I've ever seen. From the RDP that is super small and unreadable, to the scaling that is still too small for this resolution, to the hard keyboard the makes taskbar selection impossible, to the super slow wifi, to the unusable camera, to the on screen keyboard that covers input fields(and as i type this seems to think backspace means page back) I wish I bought an ipad. Are any MS executives using this? You'd think they would replace the whole Surface team. This was their third chance and they blew it.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-07-05T22:13:35+00:00

    Everyone, go get http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/app/hp-scan-and-capture/94fffdd0-bb3b-4adc-96ca-24c1d79e16c6

    You do NOT need an HP Scanner. Set it to Camera. It will scan and save to pdf. IN focus.

    Edit: IN focus is a relative term. Nowhere near the crispness and clarity of previous Surface devices and not acceptable for business use.

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