I have tried different camera apps on Android but none of them work well - they are all extremely blurry and sometimes even pixelated. Only the default camera app that is pre-installed works flawlessly, regardless of the phone manufacturer. But the default camera apps are never privacy-friendly. What do you do? Is blocking the camera app via RethinkDNS enough, or do you have a suggestion for a good working camera app?
I like these ones:
These are all on F-Droid
You might consider GrapheneOS’ Camera:
Can also be retrieved through Google Play, if you like.
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I would recommend the GOS app for day to day use. Open Camera (the blue one) can record DNG files. Fossify Camera (the green one) can toggle EXIF data on or off. GOS camera app doesn’t record any identifying metadata. I have all three installed.
I have tried Fossify camera and Open Camera and they are both very blurry…at least on all the phones I tried.
Is the Graphene camera avilabe on Fdroid/Droidify? I can’t find it there.
No, it is not. You can get it from here if you don’t use Aurora Releases · GrapheneOS/Camera · GitHub
You could try putting this link into Obtanium? GitHub - GrapheneOS/Camera: Modern camera app focused on privacy and security with QR & barcode scanning.
I already have it by default on GrapheneOS and can’t test this method.
Or this less up to date version if you don’t want to add another repository.
You can just download GrapheneOS’s App Store apk and download the camera app.
Not related to the main topic, but I do wonder how to get the Google Camera in a safe way to compare the quality.
I’m fine with the one from GOS but wouldn’t matter testing the difference[1].
Anybody knows how to fetch that one from some public repo/alike?
I never went deep enough on GOS’ forums to figure that one out properly. 
especially given what Side of Burritos said above both ↩︎
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Which part is blurry?
Are your photos out of focus or pixelated?
Have you tested a camera with fixed focus lens?
Are you viewing the source image or a preview?
Does your camera use an external proprietary module to focus like a laser?
If you take a raw photo such as DNG but don’t have an app capable of displaying it you will be looking at a low resolution thumbnail version.
The whole image is a bit blurry or pixelated. I have tried Fossify Camera and Open Camera, and viewed the images in the gallery app, so not preview but the source image. Not sure if the default camera apps use anything special, but or example the Gcam, Samsung, Motorola and the Sony camera app make a lot sharper and clearer images.
Is the live preview fuzzy?
Can you see evidence of autofocus working?
Can you post an example?
I use those apps and noticed my backup process included blurry previews. You need a gallery app capable of showing raw photo formats like DNG.
Raw photo formats aren’t sharp straight out of camera either. Make sure the camera app is saving JPEGs to rule out compatibility issues.
I use the default Pixel Camera.
The way I make sure it doesn’t leak anything is:
- Removing its network permission
- Don’t have any other proprietary app with network permission in the same space as the camera.
You can isolate either with main/private space or with different profiles, I recommend the main/private space approach. Put all proprietary apps with network permission in the private space then they can’t speak to apps in the main space. It also allows you to just shut down the private space, which imeditaly stops all these from running.