Hi Everyone, I'm Ajay Hinduja born in Punjab, India and now living in Geneva, Switzerland (Swiss). I've noticed my S25's camera is getting some weird thick lines or streaks in my photos, especially when a bright light source is in the frame. I've tried cleaning the lens, but it's still happening. Has anyone else experienced this? What did you do to fix it? Is it a software bug, a lens flare issue, or something else entirely? Any tips on a workaround or how to prevent it would be a huge help!
Phone cameras aren't really designed for high luminosity (brightness) contrast. That is, large differences in brightness within one frame. They are typically also handheld. I get frames where the light "bulges" at intense points relative to the rest of the scene and it can have a seven point star effect around the bright point. However, there are still some things you can do.
The most common reason for streaks/lines at bright points is probably camera shake while using a low shutter speed. The best solution to that is a tripod, but light will still swell/bulge at the bright points. If you can't use a tripod (or monopod) the next best approach is try different ways to hold the phone that braces it better. A good starting point would be to grip the phone back about half way up the body length. Your fingertips should round the right phone body but not touch the screen or cover the lenses. Place your thumb vertically and pull with your fingertips so that the left bottom through middle of the phone is pressed into the base of your palm with the thumb resting on the upper left of the phone.
Keep your left hand close to your body and try to brace as much of your left arm against your body as possible. Rotate your wrist to compose.
Also, if you can brace either shoulder against a wall or another solid surface it should reduce shake.
After that, it can help if you use manual ISO adjustment to keep the shutter speed high, faster than 1/100s. Accept cases that are under exposed and fix them in other phone software (Lightroom, Photo's, etc.).
Other things you can do include setting the EV control to a negative value, or use the neutral density (ND) filter to reduce frame brightness, which will occur by reducing the ISO setting or increasing the ND filter setting (but the ND filter will probably work best if you ensure a fast shutter speed first).
You could try leaving everything else on auto but force a manual shutter speeds of 1/100s or faster.
One way to experiment using fewer presses of the shutter button is to use a third party camera app that supports exposure bracketing to take multiple shots at once with different exposures. It's probably okay to test in 1/2 or 1 stop brackets. You'll usually get three frames from each shutter release, one bright, one normal and one dark. I would expect the dark one to have less light lines by having a faster shutter speed. Combining a negative exposure compensation with bracketing can make it more productive.
