Understanding the camera

Phone manufacturers are always competing to equip your smartphone with the most advanced camera sensor, packing it with more features, such as higher resolution, better contrast, faster video capture, new autofocus mode, and so on. The consequence is that the capabilities (features) of the mobile phone cameras can differ significantly between smartphone models or brands. Thankfully, the Google Android API provides a generic wrapper for the underlying camera hardware unifying the access for the developer: the Android camera API. For your development, an efficient access to the camera needs a clear understanding of the camera capabilities (parameters and functions) available through the API. Underestimating this aspect will result in slow-running applications or pixelated images, affecting the user experience of your application.

Camera characteristics

Cameras on smartphones nowadays share many characteristics with digital point-and-shoot cameras. They generally support...