Pixel phones are known for their cameras, but the stock camera app isn’t perfect. The image processing is quite heavy, and there’s little manual control if you want to experiment. I recently started using Open Camera, a free open-source alternative, and I’m now getting even more from my Pixel’s camera.

Open Camera gives me more natural-looking photos

Less processing and more control

The Pixel camera app is great for point-and-shoot photography and produces reliably impressive results. But it’s very limited if you want more control. It’s fallen well behind most other Android manufacturers, including Samsung and Nothing, as well as Chinese brands like Vivo, that have far more powerful camera apps. Whether you want manual controls or to tweak the colors and processing in real time, they will often offer it in a way that Google doesn’t.

If you’re happy with a simple setup and like the way the Pixel camera processes its images, then there’s no reason to change. In some cases, I am. But I sometimes find the processing way overdone, and as someone who owns an actual camera as well, I often find it too basic. So I keep Open Camera installed alongside it.

Open Camera is free and open-source. It’s rammed with settings and options, and produces images with noticeably less processing. In a simple comparison, the photos it takes are softer and less detailed because it relies far less on computational photography than the Pixel app.

Open Camera takes a more old-fashioned approach. There’s no denying that, in some cases, especially in low-light conditions, the results are worse than what the Pixel will do. In other cases, the results are better. In contrasty scenes, for example, the app keeps the shadows instead of having HDR flatten them all.

Brand

Google

SoC

Google Tensor G5

Looking to upgrade to a Pixel but not sure if you need all the bells and whistles of the more expensive models? You won’t be disappointed with the standard Pixel 10 model. Coming in striking colors, Gemini features, and seven years of updates, you can’t go wrong with this purchase.

The app performs perfectly on the Pixel hardware. It’s very responsive, and there’s close to zero shutter lag, so it doesn’t feel like a compromise when using it. But the manual controls make for a totally different experience from Google’s simpler approach.

The main controls let you adjust the exposure, focus, white balance, ISO, and more, and the app is almost endlessly customizable. You can change interface buttons, sounds, gestures, long-press actions, and the screen layout so that it perfectly matches your workflow.

This doesn’t mean the app is only for advanced users. All the expected point-and-shoot features are in place, and then some. So, you get a host of photo modes for things like HDR, panoramas, and night shooting. You also get face detection, hands-free use, and a very clever Auto-Level option that automatically crops the image so that the horizon is straight, even when your aim is a little off.

But for simple shooting, I often stick to the Pixel Camera. Open Camera really comes into its own when you delve into the more advanced settings.

It’s packed with features most camera apps ignore

Burst mode, time-lapse, and more

There are too many niche features in Open Camera to list them all, but there are some standouts.

I love the fast burst mode that shoots up to 20 frames in rapid succession. It’s ideal for capturing action or shooting storms. There’s also a highly configurable time-lapse mode, where you can choose how many shots to take and the interval between them, from half a second to two hours. Aside from the obvious creative uses—you can capture a sunset so easily—I also used it to try and see what wildlife was coming into my backyard.

In keeping with the “real camera” concept, you can do exposure and focus bracketing, where you take three shots with different settings in quick succession. You can view an onscreen histogram to help with exposure, and you can also add overlays to help. Adding zebra stripes on the preview shows overexposed areas, and focus peaking lines show what’s in focus if you’re doing it manually.

There are several autofocus modes, too, including a macro mode, continuous focusing, and infinity focus. The options are truly comprehensive.

So many more useful touches

The small touches are what make it so good

In addition to the big features, the attention to detail is also impressive, and it’s evident in some of the smaller things. Some of my favorites are the auto-straightening feature I already described, being able to use the camera while the phone is locked, an onion-skinning style feature called “Ghost Image” that makes it easy to recreate variations on the same shot, and the ability to create custom EXIF tags.

Best of all, I like that I can shoot in RAW-only mode, rather than RAW+JPEG like in the Pixel app. Processing those images in the new Snapseed app is truly a mobile take on my old mirrorless camera+Lightroom desktop setup.

Open Camera is the photographer’s camera app

Open Camera doesn’t replace everything that the Pixel camera app does best, especially the bits that rely on computational photography like Night Sight. It also has a bit of a learning curve. Although it’s easy to use, the app has so many options that it can be hard to find the ones you want.

But if you want more natural-looking images rather than the bright, ultra-crisp shots that the Pixel generates, or you want more control—either as an enthusiast or simply to bring in some of the features you might find on other phones—then Open Camera is hard to beat.