Samsung cameras are great but locking features to third party developers severely locking their app capabilities is inexcusable -- especially if you're serious about trying to be the top manufacturer of the best camera tech on mobile devices.
For those uninformed, I'll be mostly talking about video recording. Samsung has limited their API to third parties that lock out certain features like recording in 120fps/240fps 1080p, 4k 60fps, or allowing HDR video recording. They locked it out to everyone app except the stock camera app found in their devices.
So why not just use the stock camera app? Well, it's frankly just not feature rich enough (for video at least). It's missing features such as shooting at a higher bitrate (higher quality video), recording at different colour profiles (eg flat, log, etc), choosing a specific framerate to shoot, exposure control (shutter speed, ISO), and much more.
I'm using Filmic Pro and being forced to go back to use the camera app just make it harder to shoot video and janky looking footage since the quality is inconsistent between footage. As a videography enthusiast, it's actually making me consider choosing a different platform to choose in the future.
This has been an issue with the S8, and now the S9. I even think it's more limited with the S9 since you can't even shoot 120fps 720p anymore like the S8. As far as I'm aware, the iPhone nor the Google Pixel phones have this issue and seeing how even LG is improving their video recording tech on their phones, it's crazy how Samsung falls behind on this subject.
And why not unlock it in the first place? Casual users will use the camera app while enthusiasts will use other apps that fit their need.
For more info about this issue, Filmic Pro has a detailed explanation on the problems developing for Samsung devices here: https://filmicpro.helpscoutdocs.com/article/41-samsung-s9-and-s9-filmic-pro-v6-compatibility-guide
Anyway, Samsung really needs to get on this and in sure everyone will appreciate it.
(Also, kinda copy and pasted this on the Samsung Members app so it may be weird wording)
I remember somebody else bought up this issue over here quite a long time ago. But unfortunately no progress. I also believe Samsung should unlock their camera api, and I also strongly believe Samsung should let us unlock bootloader on North American variants. But this are big business decisions, made from the top. I highly doubt any of them will ever come to fruition.
I'm pretty sure that Samsung is very (extremely) protective of it's software - I know that it's very frustrating for AOSP Custom Rom Developers especially - But Samsung has spent a lot of money on their proprietary software - I really don't think that they're going to be giving it away...
well to be fair, they are certainly protecting their software....and by opening up their API, the end result would be less users using their cameras app...and features being ported over to these 3rd party apps.
I came to Samsung note 9 from lg g5, where using second wide angle lens was very easy, even in manual mode of any app you wish. In Samsung, absence of API is even unbelievable for me, as it is must have. Even Lightroom can't utilise all the camera features.
