A minor bug with the selfie camera on the Pixel 9a means that if you attempt to take photos using the front-facing system in low light scenarios, you might see the image preview flicker before hitting the shutter button.
[Update 04/17]: The Pixel Camera 9.8 update is now rolling out widely. This issue is now marked as resolved with no issues persisting with camera flicker as confirmed by the /u/PixelCommunity account over on Reddit.
As noted by several members of the /r/GooglePixel subreddit (h/t Android Authority), this is only a software-based bug and doesn’t affect the camera hardware onboard. According to some of the initial reports when taking a photo of something dark or black, you might see gray or lightened flickering within the image preview window.
Luckily, this is merely a problem with the Pixel 9a’s selfie camera preview window, because if you hit the shutter button, the actual output is perfectly fine. Having tested this, it almost appears that the auto Night Sight mode is trying to take over and the image lightens to account for the changes in luminance. You can see an example of this from /u/TheRealFrantik below:
The reason we know that this is a software bug is that as soon as you uninstall the latest Pixel Camera update, your Pixel 9a selfie camera will revert to its normal behavior. To do so you’ll need to go to the Play Store, find the Pixel Camera app and hit uninstall. We’d also recommend sending feedback to Google to make them aware of the selfie camera bug affecting the Pixel 9a. You can do this by heading to Settings > About phone > Send feedback about this device.
Some in the original thread discussing the issue are claiming that they have seen this problem on other Pixel devices. Be sure to let us know if you have seen it on your phone down in the comments section below.
More on Google Pixel:
- Google on other designs it explored for the Pixel 9a camera
- Pixel 9a vs. Pixel 9: Better separated, but still siblings [Video]
- Pixel 8a discounted everywhere but US following 7a Google Store removal
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