I found a way to save RAW .dng images on the Cosmo! And they are beautiful! Highly detailed, low noise, sharp as a tack across the frame, full of color, and with a great deal of shadow boosting potential. They're a far cry from the muddy, washed out trash that the MediaTek codecs produce through the stock app and 3rd party apps like OpenCamera. But I tried a couple dozen ports of GCam and inadvertantly found one that successfully saved RAW images. Specifically, I installed F1MinimalMod2.1.apk, here:
https://f.celsoazevedo.com/file/cfiles/gcm1/F1MinimalMod2.1.apkSee for yourself. Here is a random sample image I took yesterday evening, first with the stock image app, then with GCam saving in RAW. I used RawTherapee to view the .dng and slightly decreased the black level, increased the contrast and saturation a tad, and boosted the shadows a little. In other words, I barely touched the RAW image.
Stock camera app:
RAW:
100% crop from stock:
Same 100% crop from RAW. Note the HUGE jump in detail and color:
Another 100% crop from stock. Gloomy sky and muddy black trees:
Same 100% crop from RAW. Blue, partly cloudy sky, and detailed green trees:
Yet another 100% crop from stock, barely recognizable flowers and blotchy grass:
And the same 100% crop from RAW; ah, yes, colorful flowers and detailed grass texture:
Those of you who are paying close attention will notice that the out-of-camera crops from the stock app are larger in physical size (click or download them). I chose the default "24MP" resolution option for them. But as we have already established earlier in this thread, this is only a 6MP sensor. Now that I have RAW images, I have proof that is is
ONLY A 6MP SENSOR. In fact, this GCam port saved the actual image in literally 1/4 of the full image, the rest being black. So why is it advertised as 24MP? It's
INTERPOLATED, upscaled to 24MP for marketing purposes. In other words, it's a lie... sort of. It has only 6MP of pixel detail, but being a so-called tetracell sensor from Samsung, it has four times as much light detail. That means it works very well in low light with very little noise; that is, if you can save RAW images. And since it is only a 6MP sensor, we can't record 4K video.
But despite being only 6MP in resolution, the RAW images are incredibly detailed with excellent color. They matched or exceeded the detail level from the 12MP RAW images I took with a Galaxy S9 (standard sensor, not tetracell), but with much less noise. In other words, folks, this is a fantastic little 6MP sensor from Samsung that MediaTek has utterly destroyed!
Now some of you are wondering about other camera apps like OpenCamera. Garbage. Forget it. OpenCamera is great on other phones, but it produces the same toilet-quality images on the Cosmo as the stock camera app thanks to the underlying closed-source MediaTek libraries. And for whatever reason, it can't save RAW images (produces a zero-length file). At this point I don't know why the F1MinimalMod2.1 GCam port is able to save RAW while other apps can't, but I will surely find out in time if someone doesn't beat me to it. I may even port GCam to the Cosmo. After all, Planet Computers promised a "fantastic camera" (their own words on the Indiegogo story page). They have
not delivered! But the Cosmo's camera sensor is indeed capable of delivering fantastic images! Planet Computers, are you reading this? Seriously, MediaTek, what were you thinking? How can you knowingly butcher such fantastic image quality and assume no one will notice?
So what about the JPEG images from GCam? They have the same high detail level as RAW (far greater than stock JPEG), but they're overexposed and mostly useless. You have to process the RAW .dng image instead, at least until I or someone else finds out why this GCam port in particular can save RAW but other apps can't. And video on the Cosmo is still awful: you'll get the same blotchy, poorly colored image quality as from stock JPEG output. I didn't find a GCam port that could record video.
As for lighting conditions, yes, it was late evening when I took those samples above. But even in strong sunlight, the difference in image quality between stock and RAW is equally striking. It's like comparing a 2006-era flip phone's camera with a modern DSLR. I strongly encourage all of you to try this out!
