camera zoom WAY slow...

[whinecellar]

I'm surprised nobody else has mentioned this (that I've seen anyway), but the camera takes FOR-E-VER to zoom in and out. The autofocus lens is mechanical (and fast enough) so I wonder if a software optimization might speed up the zoom?

As of now it takes about 15 seconds to go from 1x to 2x. Other than that, I've been pretty shocked at how good this camera is considering it's in a cell phone!

I never thought I would have cared about having a camera in my phone as they've always been pretty useless, but this one has given me some surprising results. Now if only the zoom were actually useable...

Thoughts?

[Merovingian]

That's probably because digital zoom is mostly useless on regular cameras and even more useless on camera phones, i always avoid using them. The few times i even tried it on my T.P was agony and time wasted. The camera is good, though the auto focus thing gets old quick (can it be turned off?). Really a shame though.

Off topic, anyone successfully taken a GPS photo with the GPS coordinates correctly embedded in the exif data? All the ones i've taken always have zeros (00000000) in the GPS metadata.

[sbddude]

The autofocus sound can be turned off--I assume that's what you mean.

[Merovingian]

No, just the auto focus itself.

[whinecellar]

Originally Posted by Merovingian

That's probably because digital zoom is mostly useless on regular cameras and even more useless on camera phones, i always avoid using them.

Agreed, but I thought I read that the zoom in this guy is optical, not digital. If it's digital, then never mind - it would indeed be useless.

My whole post was based on the premise of it being an optical zoom - anyone know for sure?

[CountryDevil]

The zoom is digital zoom.... optical zoom would require multiple telescoping lenses to get optical zoom

[dr g]

Originally Posted by Merovingian

No, just the auto focus itself.

I dunno if it's just because I'm a longtime camera guy, but how can focusing ever get old??