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HTC Incredible S review: Camera
The HTC Incredible S has an 8MP camera, which we think is perfectly adequate for a device like this. It's matched by the HTC Desire HD and the HTC 7 Mozart, with the former having the same dual LED configuration.
While the modes on offer for picture manipulation are simplistic, there is a little bit of range on the camera shots you can take. Using simple sliding dials, you can alter the contrast, sharpness and exposure, and these go a long way to altering the quality of the shot you get.
The shutter speed is pretty good though - while you can't manage quick fire shooting, if you turn off autofocus you can manage around three shots in six seconds... add in a couple of seconds each time for making sure the shot is in focus.
Another feature of the HTC Incredible S is tap to autofocus - simply touch a point on the screen and camera will make that the focal point of the photo.
This not only means focusing, but altering the colour and exposure balance too - very handy and it works pretty well, albeit a trifle slowly.
The standard camera mode offers sumptuous colours and clear lines
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With saturation and contrast turned up, the picture loses clarity in bright light
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And turned down it adds an almost sad, nostalgic feeling when bright colours are present
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Close ups are no problem for the Incredible S
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This is the auto macro mode; as you can see, it's highly effective
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The touch to focus feature: with the background selected
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And with the foreground selected - the difference is marked
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Strong shapes dominate this photo, also the foreground is slightly blurred
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Digital zoom is average - it's not terrible, but doesn't blow us away
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Night shooting is pointless - even with the exposure turned up, this scene (highly visible to the naked eye) was almost completely blacked out
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The flash is reasonably good at capturing objects close up, even without time to focus
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The night mode is poor, but with the exposure turned up white objects can be seen quite well
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HTC Incredible S review: Video
The video player on the HTC Incredible S is on a par with most other high end phones, namely the quality is OK in full HD mode, but nothing really super-special in terms of quality.
The interface is the same as the camera option, with fewer modes to tweak. It's good that you can still alter exposure, contrast, sharpness and saturation in the video mode, but tap to focus is an odd experience.
It works, but if you're trying to get the camera to focus on a darker point on the screen it will change the exposure settings then instantly revert to the original ones – which makes a very poor video and one that can be very dark/light.
The HD quality in these videos is OK at capturing fast motion, and quickly adapts to changing light conditions.
However, as you can see, tapping to change the focus area results in a quick exposure shift, before jumping back to the original levels instantly.
