Surface Pro 3 camera quality

Anonymous

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.

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Anonymous

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/

Please mark as answered if this answers your question

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Anonymous

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

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276 additional answers

Anonymous

2015-09-25T13:25:13+00:00

As a SP3 owner we shouldn't have to do this. I was going try to Skype with a customer yesterday on work we were doing outside. It was impossible to do with my Surface because the picture was non existence. See my post on page 22.

Microsoft is laughing as they are counting our money. They are rubbing their hands together patiently waiting for those who like SP3 to jump on the SP4.

My kids 29.99 toy action camera takes better pictures than what the Surface does. I guarantee that the iPad Pro will have a great camera.
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Anonymous

2015-10-20T06:24:04+00:00

wow.

i wish i read this before i purchased surface pro 3. i would never have bought it.

tried to take a photo with it today and same problem it blurs up everything. I found out that for surface 3, they updated kb 2919335 meaning auto focus is controllable for surface 3 now. they can tap to focus before taking photo. i didnt realize it's for surface 3 not surface pro 3 then, and searched so hard to download the software upgrade. what a waste of time.

finally, online chat with microsoft told me they made different level of **** for different users. and gave me that taped lens site.

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

i couldnt help but laugh. what kind of users expect no focus when they say it's 5mp camera. i feel cheated. taped lens ha so sad

however, the chat lady of microsoft did tell me the engineers are working on the upgrade to fix it.

why after surface 3? and pro 3 came out more than a year ago....shouldn't they be done with it already if they can do it? i don't know if their words are credible but they say so.
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Anonymous

2015-10-20T07:14:29+00:00

however, the chat lady of microsoft did tell me the engineers are working on the upgrade to fix it.

why after surface 3? and pro 3 came out more than a year ago....shouldn't they be done with it already if they can do it? i don't know if their words are credible but they say so.

I'm afraid that this merely points up the incompetence of Microsoft Chat Support.

There will be no "upgrade to fix" the camera in the Surface Pro 3 models. It's a fixed-focus camera, not an auto-focus camera, so no software upgrade is possible. The only upgrade possible would be for Microsoft to redesign the Surface Pro 3 line of devices and change the fixed-focus camera hardware for an auto-focus one. I think it's a safe bet to say that Microsoft has no intention whatsoever of doing this.

On the plus side, it is clear that Microsoft realises that it dropped the ball by putting a fixed-focus camera in the Surface Pro 3, and all their subsequent models (the Surface 3, the Surface Pro 4, and the Surface Book) have auto-focus cameras. But I'm afraid that is of little help to those who have purchased a Surface Pro 3 expecting to be able to use it to photograph documents.
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