My initial thoughts from taking pictures since updating and experience so far on CMFP2P running Stable NOS 4.0 - Reposting from the last 3.2 CMFP2P thread for awareness here.
I’ve been testing the CMF phone cameras on Nothing OS 4.0 in real indoor low-light conditions, using both the selfie camera and the rear camera. Quick snaps and ~100 normal, everyday shots (people moving, hair moving, mixed room lighting), not studio photos and motion captures.
Here’s what I’m seeing
Overall Experience (Big Picture)
- On NOS 4.0, the CMF cameras feel:
- More stable
- More consistent
- Less broken than before (but still with jarring camera zoom transitions)
- Ability to spam capture without the heavy slowdowns seen on 3.2, but still expect slowdowns with fast images captured.
Photos usually come out usable and pleasant, but not very sharp in low light.
The phone clearly tries to avoid ugly noise, even if that means losing details captured in images.
However, the abrasive quick toggles switching zoom levels still occurs, looking buggy with slowdowns. Using it as a slider left-and-right adjusting zoom levels feels much cleaner.
Rear Camera (Back Camera)
- What it does well:
- Keeps bright lights from blowing out
- Keeps dark areas visible
- Colors look natural and calm
- Photos look “safe” and balanced
- Where it struggles:
- Fine details disappear in low light
- Hair, fabric, and texture look soft
- Moving subjects blur easily
- Zoom past 1×–2× loses clarity fast (seems Zoom needs more fine-tuning)
The back camera seems more “careful” on NOS 4.0. It would rather make a smooth photo than a sharp one. So it adjusts accordingly to do so.
Selfie Camera (Front Camera)
This is where the limits show more clearly…
What it does well:
- Faces are visible even in dim rooms
- Skin tones look mostly natural
- No extreme beauty filters
- Exposure doesn’t jump around
Where It Struggles:
Hair turns into soft blobs when moving
Skin texture disappears under bright spots
Motion causes blur very easily
Mixed lighting (yellow lamps + screens) looks flat
The selfie camera is good at showing faces, but bad at showing detail in the dark. Overall though, the AI processing on the selfie cam is MUCH better than 3.2 where I felt my face was not true to reality with each capture.
Rear camera still suffers pretty greatly in low light, but shines back to quality in the day vs. 3.2. Hopeful for more fine-tuning in the future but NOS 4.0 fixed the awful last HDR 3.2 update for CMFP2P.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
- Stay at 1× whenever possible
- 2× max if you care about image quality
- Night/warm indoor lighting makes zoom degradation much much worse overall
If you need closer shots, running NOS 4.0, you are better in 1-3x shots and cropping manually, as anything above 3x is not too usable. Additional image softening at zoom makes images look pretty bad.
I hope this helps!
