Open Camera is somewhat more advanced and much more configurable. You should + make sure to configure it to use the Camera2 API since it uses the legacy camera + APIs by default for broader compatibility with devices. It isn't currently able to + make use of special purpose cameras and doesn't have any advanced image capturing + or processing technology. It has a traditional software-based HDR mode which + captures 3 images and merges them in a way that isn't at all intelligent and + causes a lot of blur and distortion. You probably don't want to use this unless + you have a way to mount the phone in a stable position and aren't taking a picture + of anything that's not almost entirely still.
+Google Camera can be used with the sandboxed - Play services compatibility layer.
+ Play services compatibility layer and can take full advantage of the available + cameras and image processing hardware as it can on the stock OS. Other camera apps + could provide the same image quality and features but there aren't any comparable + alternatives in practice. HDR+ is enabled by default and is a much more advanced + replacement for HDR taking bursts of pictures and intelligently combining those + which is what makes the image quality so much higher, especially for low light. + The Night Sight feature is essentially the same thing, but with the light of the + picture unnaturally increased through combining the data. -The Pixel 3 (but not the Pixel 3a) and Pixel 4 (but not the Pixel 4a) have a - Pixel Visual Core / Pixel Neural Core providing a hardware-based implementation of - HDR+. HDR+ captures many images and intelligently merges data across them, taking - into account motion, etc. It substantially improves the quality of images, - especially in low light. This is used transparently for third party apps that are - compatible with it, and there isn't an explicit switch to turn it on or off for - most of them. An example of a compatible app is Open Camera's default - configuration, or Open Camera with the Camera 2 API and other settings (including - the the various knobs / toggles outside of the settings menu) left alone. In - general, HDR+ will work transparently in most apps as long as they keep things - simple and use a good minimalist approach to taking pictures. It should work - transparently in most messaging apps, etc. with internal support for taking - pictures.
- -In addition to supporting HDR+ via the Pixel Visual Core, or similar features on - other devices with the same constraints, Open Camera offers advanced configuration and - various advanced features. Make sure to enable the Camera 2 API in the settings, which - should be the default, but the app doesn't have a great user interface / user - experience. You probably don't want to use the traditional HDR feature in the app. - That's not HDR+, but rather captures 3 images and merges them in a way that isn't at - all intelligent and causes a lot of blur and distortion. The HDR+ implementation can - actually benefit from the camera not being completely steady as it's smart enough to - match up the picture and it provides it with more data vs. a traditional HDR - implementation where it essentially doesn't work without a tripod and is not really at - all useful on a phone unless you actually have that for it.
+Since there isn't a project making a serious, high quality open source camera + app able to even compete with Google Camera without HDR+ and the fancy features, + GrapheneOS is considering funding the creation of a new app as a replacement for + the AOSP Camera app.