Testing Droid4 Orientation Effect on Photos

A correspondent was showing a picture they had posted from their phone (running iOS7) that was in the wrong orientation (was showing landscape instead of portrait). Delving deeper, some findings…

Apparently, iOS7 uses the exif tag Orientation to tell when the phone is in something other than horizontal. This seems logical, but it does not work with some programs. In particular, it seems web browsers don’t have any clue about this field or it’s setting. This also seems to affect WordPress media uploads.

If you hold the iPhone upside down in either landscape or portrait, the photo renders upside down as well.

So I wondered what happens on the Droid4.

The android phone camera software seems to be doing it right. The Orientation tag is always set to Horizontal, and the image orientation is actually processed in the phone to the way the phone is held.

Here are examples:

Horizontal, Right Side Up (shutter on right).

Horizontal, Upside Down (shutter on left).

Vertical, Right Side Up (shutter on bottom).

Vertical, Upside Down (shutter on top).