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Lcamera app originally developed by PkmX and hacked for longer exposures on the Nexus 5X and 6P

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LCamera was originally written by PkmX, you can find the original app at: https://github.com/PkmX/lcamera/

I simply modified some chunks of code to extend the maximum exposure for the Nexus 6P and 5X and you beyond the hardware limit.

For more info, visit my post on xda developers: https://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-5x/themes-apps/apk-lcamera-longer-exposure-shooting-t3516152

The following is the original readme file by PkmX, all credits go to the original developer.

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L Camera is an open-source experimental camera app for Android L devices using the new android.hardware.camera2 API. Currently, the only supported device is Nexus 5 and Nexus 6 running Android 5.0 Lollipop.

Please note that this app is intended to test and study new features of the camera API, it is not for general uses as it lacks many basic camera features (location tagging, white balance, photo review, flash control, etc).

See what you can achieve on the Nexus 5 with the new API.

See how the new API can greatly enhance low-light photography with the right settings and tools.

Check out some 60-fps video recording samples: 1 2.

Slow motion video recorded with a Nexus 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKAvN-x53jM

Features

  • True manual focus (adjustable focus distance)
  • Manual exposure time (0.8" to 1/75000)
  • Manual ISO (40 to 10000)
  • DNG output support
  • 30-fps full-resolution burst capture with focus stacking & exposure bracketing
  • 30-fps full-resolution (3264x2448) video recording on Nexus 5
  • 30-fps 4K UHD (3840x2160) video recording on Nexus 6
  • Experimental 60-fps video recording at 1080p on Nexus 5
  • Material design

Installation

You can either install the pre-built debug APK from the release page, or build and install the APK by yourself.

Usage

Just use it like any camera! Tap the floating button on the left-bottom corner to bring up settings:

  • Focus
  • Auto Focus: Whether the auto focus mechanism is enabled (tap on the preview to focus on a specific point).
  • Focus Distance: Manually control focus distance if auto focus is turned off.
  • Exposure
  • Auto Exposure: Whether auto exposure and auto white balance routines are enabled (tap on the preview to start a metering sequence).
  • Shutter Speed: Control the exposure time. (Setting a slow shutter speed will affect preview frame rate)
  • ISO: Control the sensitivity of the sensor.
  • Burst
  • Burst: Control whether burst capturing is enabled. If enabled, the camera will capture 7 images at maximum resolution at 30 fps.
  • Focus Stacking: If enabled, the camera will capture a series of images ranging from infinity focus and to the nearest focus distance possible.
  • Exposure Bracketing: If enabled, the camera will capture a series of 7 images ranging from -3 to +3 EV of the standard expousre. (Only the shutter speed is varied, the ISO stays the same)
  • DNG/JPEG: Specify the output format for burst capture.
  • Photo/Video: Switch between photo capturing and video recording mode. The video is encoded with H.264/AVC for video and 44.1khz 320kbps AAC-LC for audio in MP4 container. Focus distance and exposure are adjustable during recording.
  • Settings
  • Video Resolution: Configurate video resolution, fps and encoding bitrate. (See below for 60fps recording)
  • Save DNG: Specify whether the DNG output is saved in single capture mode.

If you are looking for a stopwatch to test the burst capture feature, check out this jsfiddle.

After capturing, output files will be saved to the /sdcard/DCIM/Camera/ directory. Note that each DNG image is 15.36 MiB in size, so make sure you have plenty of free space available!

Working with DNG files

Most RAW post-processing programs should be able to open them. While Adobe Lightroom is probably the most popular RAW editor, both darktable (Linux, Mac) and RawTherapee (Windows, Linux, Mac) are both free alternatives that also offer very powerful editing capabilities.

A short DNG editing tutorial using RawTherapee.

60 FPS Recording

First, see pkmx/lcamera#4 for limitations of this modification. This modification is only available for Nexus 5.

To enable 60fps recording, a system library /system/lib/libmmcamera_imx179.so needs to be replaced with a modified version. The following is a simplified walkthrough of the process. Note that this is a very hacky solution and I'm not responsible for any damages done to your system or device. Approach at your own risk and make sure you understand what you are doing.

  1. You must have root access and busybox installed on your Nexus 5. (The latter is not strictly required, but makes the process easier as it provides install and killall.)
  2. Download libmmcamera_imx179_lrx21o.so from the release page and transfer it to the device. (The following assumes that it is located in /sdcard/.)
  3. Launch a root shell.
  4. Make a backup of the original library first: cp /system/lib/libmmcamera_imx179.so /sdcard/libmmcamera_imx179_original.so
  5. Run mount -o remount,rw /system to re-mount the /system partition for read-write.
  6. Replace the library: install -m644 /sdcard/libmmcamera_imx179_lrx21o_60hz.so /system/lib/libmmcamera_imx179.so
  7. Run mount -o remount,ro /system to re-mount /system as read-only again.
  8. Restart both the camera daemon and media server: killall mm-qcamera-daemon mediaserver

The camera should now be able to record at 60fps and you can choose 60fps options in the settings menu on L Camera. All other camera apps will most likely be broken at this point. If you want to undo the modification, simply redo step 5~8 and copy the original library you backup-ed in step 4 instead.

FAQ

Does it run on Nexus 4/7/10 or other phones that have received Lollipop update?

It seems that none of those devices fully support the new API as of now (2014/11/17). If you want to verify, enable verbose output outlined in the "Debugging" section below, and check the output from logcat. You should see a dump of your device cameras' capabilities like this when L Camera is started. Your camera's android.request.availableCapabilities must include 1 (MANUAL_SENSOR), 2 (MANUAL_POST_PROCESSING) and 3 (RAW) for L Camera to work.

Why do I get the 'Cannot parse package' error while installing?

Make sure the downloaded apk is not corrupted, as it seems some browsers download GitHub's webpage instead of the actual apk. You must also have the Lollipop running on your device.

Does it need root?

No. However, it is needed if you want to record videos at 60fps on the Nexus 5 as a system library needs to be modified.

Will you implement feature X?

Open an issue (one per feature please) on the tracker and I will see what I can do. However, the priority of development is investigating new ways to use the camera hardware rather than reimplement features that have been possible, or things that can be done in post-processing.

Hacking/Technical

The app is written in the Scala programming language and uses the following libraries/tools:

How to build

You must have both scala 2.11.4 and sbt >= 0.13 installed.

To build the app (the resulting APK will be placed in the bin/ directory):

$ sbt package

I (enryea123) have removed the "package" command because I had problems with it, so just compile with the following command "sbt run" (don't worry if your device is not connected, you will still get the apk)

To build and run the app on device (assuming you have adb and developer mode enabled):

$ sbt run

Debugging

To see debug outputs, set allowed logging priority of lcamera tag to VERBOSE:

$ adb shell setprop log.tag.lcamera VERBOSE

Issues

Please report any bugs or feature requests on GitHub's issue tracker.

Credits

  • Martin Wawro: for his support in enabling 60fps video recording on Nexus 5

License

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

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Lcamera app originally developed by PkmX and hacked for longer exposures on the Nexus 5X and 6P

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