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

2014-12-18T18:03:58+00:00

Hello John1F, I saw your recent reply to coolmik89.

Is there anything I can do to make the camera take better pics????? The surface is set up to work really well with Social Media but the pics are ****!!! I certainly do not want to share any pics taken with this device.

Can you please help with this issue or is it just a cheap camera and it's the best I am going to get? I got this yesterday 12/18/14 for an early Christmas present and I want to return it if this is the best picture quality is has.

Thank you for your response.
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Anonymous

2014-12-15T08:14:06+00:00

Hi All,

I appreciate your time and effort in sharing your concerns and suggestions for your various camera needs. I have shared your comments. I also have information on the camera. The front and back cameras are fixed focus. The front camera is optimized for conference calls and up close pictures (selfies, video conferences, etc...). The rear facing camera is optimized for taking scene based pictures and video captures.

Thank you,

Josh_F

Hi Josh,

Well, I understand what you say about the fixed focus cameras and I learned that by myself as I tried to work with my SP3. The thing you and the hole MS Corporation don't seem to understand is that it's a big big problem that my Galaxy S2 bought last year at 100$ can do better photos than my 1200$ tablet that Microsoft is so proud of. I mean©, you guys should be ashamed to use such crapy hardware with a high quality product and give us no way to upgrade/change that.
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Anonymous

2014-12-15T07:47:56+00:00

Hi All,

I appreciate your time and effort in sharing your concerns and suggestions for your various camera needs. I have shared your comments. I also have information on the camera. The front and back cameras are fixed focus. The front camera is optimized for conference calls and up close pictures (selfies, video conferences, etc...). The rear facing camera is optimized for taking scene based pictures and video captures.

Thank you,

Josh_F

Josh,

Please let the community know why Microsoft's flagship device and flagship software to go with it (OneNote) do not simply work together well enough to do as described.

See picture below. This 'feature' should take photos of whiteboards and documents and crop them to a nice square picture which makes it more readable. This feature simply does not work as the device simply cannot take a legible picture of any document or whiteboard. This feature is exactly what I needed this device for as sometimes at uni during lectures, they forget to update the slides they show. In my case I should then be able to continue scribing by simply taking a photo of the screen/whiteboard, import to onenote and slot in place of where the slide was missing. Instead, I use my much loved ANDROID phone to do the job, drop box it and then import to onenote, losing not only time, but the actual point of the slide.

What is being done about this. The community deserves to know.
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