I am using the Android Camera2 API to take photos for an app and I can't get the flash to work properly on most Samsung Galaxy devices (galaxy s6 edge, galaxy s7, galaxy j7). I believe I have implemented the flash logic properly because Google's Camera app that used to be on the Play Store also exhibits the same behaviors. Also the galaxy s8 seems to work with the flash pretty well (although results definitely have inconsistent lighting)
The issue with the galaxy j7 is that when I take a picture with flash (either with flash locked on or with auto flash in a scene that requires flash) the flash will stay on for a long time, the preview will lock, and then after maybe 7 seconds the image will take, and the flash is not a part of the image.
I have the following method handling flash modes:
private void setAutoFlash(CaptureRequest.Builder requestBuilder)
{
switch (mFlashState)
{
case FLASH_STATE_AUTO:
requestBuilder.set(CaptureRequest.CONTROL_AE_MODE, CaptureRequest.CONTROL_AE_MODE_ON_AUTO_FLASH);
//requestBuilder.set(CaptureRequest.FLASH_MODE, CaptureRequest.FLASH_MODE_OFF);
break;
case FLASH_STATE_ON:
requestBuilder.set(CaptureRequest.CONTROL_AE_MODE, CaptureRequest.CONTROL_AE_MODE_ON_ALWAYS_FLASH);
//requestBuilder.set(CaptureRequest.FLASH_MODE, CaptureRequest.FLASH_MODE_SINGLE);
break;
case FLASH_STATE_OFF:
requestBuilder.set(CaptureRequest.CONTROL_AE_MODE, CaptureRequest.CONTROL_AE_MODE_ON);
//requestBuilder.set(CaptureRequest.FLASH_MODE, CaptureRequest.FLASH_MODE_OFF);
break;
}
}
This flash logic is called every time a CaptureRequest.Builder is needed
The 3 commented out lines are something else I read that was suggested to help flash work properly for me, but it doesn't seem to do anything
Samsung has their own camera API (http://developer.samsung.com/galaxy/camera) but I read that it is just a wrapper over Camera2 and I am worried that their API won't even fix my issue.
Additional Information:
- I have tried some camera apps from the play store, some work and others don't.
- ZCamera works fine with flash, which made me think they use Samsungs camera API to get it working, but then I noticed that ZCamera's touch metering doesn't work on Samsung devices which is another issue I came across while debugging my Camera2 implementation.
- Flash seems to work fine if I stick with the deprecated Camera API
Any help on how to accomplish a working flash would be greatly appreciated