A custom ROM that brings Android 14 (LineageOS 21) to the Samsung Galaxy Camera and Galaxy Camera 2, the Android cameras with a 21x optical zoom.
| Model | Support |
|---|---|
| Galaxy Camera EK-GC100 (3G) | Supported |
| Galaxy Camera 2 EK-GC200 (Wi-Fi) | Supported |
| Other variants (GC110, GC120) | Not supported |
Download: Releases page. Each model has its own files: never flash one model's files on the other. Website: simoneluconi.github.io/GalaxyCameraRevived.
Samsung's own firmware is stuck on Android 4.1 and 4.3: apps no longer install, nothing syncs, and many stock services are dead. This project puts a modern, lightweight Android on these cameras and keeps what makes them cameras: the zoom lever, the shutter button, manual exposure, optical stabilisation and the pop-up flash. It also adds something Samsung never offered: RAW photos (DNG).
It is built camera-first: no Google services and no phone apps, only what a camera needs.
An enthusiast build. It is used every day, but it is not a finished product: read what works before you flash.
| Area | Status |
|---|---|
| Boot, screen, touch, landscape UI | Works |
| Camera: viewfinder, autofocus, 16 MP JPEG | Works |
| 21x optical zoom with the zoom lever | Works |
| Half-press focus, full-press shutter | Works |
| P / A / S / M exposure modes | Works |
| Optical image stabilisation (OIS) | Works |
| Pop-up flash, self-timer lamp, AF assist lamp | Works |
| RAW (DNG) next to the JPEG | Works |
| Exposure bracketing (3 frames) | Works |
| Lens retracts when the camera closes or reboots | Works |
| microSD (FAT32, exFAT) | Works |
| Rotation sensor, level, compass | Works |
| Wi-Fi | 2.4 GHz only: the radio cannot connect on 5 GHz (on Samsung's own firmware either). Dual-band networks work on their 2.4 GHz side |
| GPS | Works |
| 3G mobile data (GC100) | Works |
| SMS (GC100) | Sending and receiving work; no voice calls (no dialer, by design) |
| Audio | Works |
| Bluetooth | Works (pairing, sending photos to a phone, photo remotes) |
| Photo transfer over Wi-Fi | Works, from the browser |
| NFC (GC200) | Not supported: a phone near the tag shows a notice |
| Video recording | Not supported: GC Camera takes photos only |
| Micro-HDMI output | The camera's live view, and in GC Gallery the photo being viewed, zoom included, from 480p to 1080p. Not a copy of the screen |
| Standby battery drain | About 1%/hour with Wi-Fi on (GC100) |
| Security | SELinux is permissive and the security patch level is from early 2025 |
| Updates | By re-flashing; there is no over-the-air update |
The full list of open items is in docs/TODO.md.
- The zoom lever zooms. Slow and fast stages, as on the stock firmware, driving the 21x optical zoom (23–483 mm equivalent, f/2.8–5.9).
- A real shutter button. Half press to focus, full press to shoot. A tap on the screen sets the focus point; centre, multi-area and face AF are in the Fn menu.
- P, A, S and M. Set aperture, shutter speed (16 s to 1/2000 s) and ISO (100–3200). The camera shows the exposure it plans to use, and M mode has an exposure meter.
- RAW (DNG). Every shot can save a DNG next to the JPEG. The DNG is the sensor's own data, before Samsung's heavy noise reduction and sharpening. It opens in Lightroom, Camera Raw and RawTherapee, among others.
- Lens profiles for both cameras. With them, Lightroom and RawTherapee correct the lens's barrel distortion and corner shading in the DNGs. See Downloads.
- OIS on or off, metering (matrix, centre, spot), white balance presets, self-timer with the front lamp, and 3-frame exposure bracketing.
- The pop-up flash works as a switch. Raise it to use the flash, close it to turn the flash off.
- Full EXIF. Shutter, aperture, ISO, focal length (and 35 mm equivalent), GPS when available, orientation, artist and copyright.
- Photos go to the microSD card, in
DCIM/. - Photos to the computer over Wi-Fi. Turn it on from Quick Settings, open the address it shows in the browser and copy the new photos into a folder. No app to install.
It ships with two apps of its own:
- GC Camera: the camera app, built for the physical controls. More.
- GC Gallery: a fast gallery for the camera's photos. It pairs each JPEG with its DNG and shows the exposure info, a histogram and star ratings. More.
Taken on an EK-GC100 running this build (1280x720 screen).
GC Camera
 |
 |
|---|---|
| Auto: the panel shows the exposure the camera picked | M: shutter, aperture and ISO by hand, with the exposure meter |
 |
 |
| The zoom lever drives the optical zoom; half press focuses | The Fn menu: metering, white balance, AF, drive, self-timer |
 |
|
| Settings: JPEG quality, AF lamp, RAW (DNG) |
GC Gallery
 |
 |
|---|---|
| Photos by day, RAW badges where a DNG is paired | A photo with its exposure |
 |
|
| Info: histogram with clipping, and the EXIF |
Read docs/INSTALL.md before you start. It starts with a one-page quick guide, then explains every step and how to go back to Samsung's firmware.
In short:
- You need: an EK-GC100 or EK-GC200, a Windows PC with Odin 3.10.7, Samsung's USB drivers and adb, a good USB cable, a microSD card, and the battery at 50% or more.
- Download Samsung's official firmware for your camera first, and keep it. With it, Odin can always bring the camera back to stock.
- Flash the mini recovery for your model (
EK-GC100-…orEK-GC200-…) with Odin, then back up the camera's own partitions with one adb command. The backup holds the camera's identity (Wi-Fi and Bluetooth addresses, IMEI on the GC100) and calibration; without it, a damaged EFS partition cannot be repaired. - Flash the system for your model with Odin, then do a factory reset from the mini recovery. The first boot takes a few minutes.
Warnings
- Flashing a custom system always has some risk. You do it at your own risk.
- Never flash a PIT file and never tick "Re-Partition" in Odin.
- Never flash a bootloader (
sboot.bin,tz.img) or anything to the PARAM partition. A bad bootloader is the one thing Odin cannot fix. - Don't use old custom recoveries or kernels from forums to wipe the camera. Some 2012-era kernels can permanently kill the internal memory (the Exynos "superbrick" bug).
- Never unplug the cable while Odin is writing.
Builds: on the Releases page. Every file name starts with its model; download only your model's:
| Galaxy Camera EK-GC100 | Galaxy Camera 2 EK-GC200 | |
|---|---|---|
| Mini recovery | EK-GC100-minirecovery.tar.md5 |
EK-GC200-minirecovery.tar.md5 |
| System | EK-GC100-system-<date>.tar.md5 |
EK-GC200-system-<date>.tar.md5 |
| Lens profile | EK-GC100-lens-profile.lcp |
EK-GC200-lens-profile.lcp |
Each release also has the SHA-256 checksums of all its files.
Lens profiles: EK-GC100-lens-profile.lcp and EK-GC200-lens-profile.lcp, Adobe lens profiles for the zoom lens, one per camera. They correct barrel distortion at the wide end and even out the corner shading. They are meant for RAW (DNG) files only: the camera's JPEGs are already corrected by the camera.
- Lightroom Classic / Camera Raw (Photoshop):
- Copy the
.lcpfile of your camera (or both) to:- Windows:
%APPDATA%\Adobe\CameraRaw\LensProfiles\1.0\ - macOS:
~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRaw/LensProfiles/1.0/
- Windows:
- Restart Lightroom or Photoshop.
- DNGs from GC Camera turn the profile on by themselves, and Lightroom picks the one for the camera that took the photo. For other DNGs: Develop → Lens Corrections → Profile → Enable Profile Corrections, Make "Samsung", Model "Samsung 4.1-86.1mm f/2.8-5.9".
- Copy the
- RawTherapee: in the Transform tab, open "Profiled Lens Correction", choose "LCP file" and pick the
.lcpof your camera. At the wide end, crop the dark corners by hand: RawTherapee does not read the crop that GC Camera stores in the DNG.
How it was measured, and its limits: docs/LENS-PROFILE.md.
- docs/TECHNICAL.md: architecture, the M9MO image processor, the RAW pipeline, the source trees and how to build.
- docs/CAMERA-APP.md: the camera HAL's parameters and the camera app's design.
- docs/RECOVERY.md: the mini recovery, backups and restore.
- docs/TODO.md: known issues and workarounds.
- docs/GC200.md: the plan for the Galaxy Camera 2: what it shares with the GC100 and what a GC200 build still needs.
This port stands on the work of many people:
- html6405: the LineageOS 21 trees for Exynos 4412 devices (smdk4412-common, the kernel, hardware/samsung, the i9300 device tree, the HAL1 camera framework branches). This project would not exist without them.
- LineageOS-UL ("LineageOS for Ultra Legacy devices"): the Android 14 base patched for old kernels and hardware.
- Paul Kocialkowski and the Replicant project: the free
exynos_cameraHAL and the sensors HAL that our camera and sensor support are built on. - treammc and tubbohere: the LineageOS kernel bring-up for the Galaxy Camera GC110 (gd1wifi), with the board files and panel fixes.
- FoxesInLove/RawGalaxyCamera: the earlier effort to get RAW out of the GC100.
- adamoutler: Samsung's original GC100 kernel source, published on GitHub.
- LineageOS, AOSP and CyanogenMod contributors, StarKissed (the 2013 GC100 recovery whose approach the mini recovery follows), and libjpeg-turbo.
| Part | Licence |
|---|---|
Kernel (fork of html6405's smdk4412 kernel, including Samsung's m9mo.c) |
GPL-2.0 |
Camera HAL (based on Replicant's exynos_camera) and sensors HAL |
GPL-3.0-or-later |
| Rest of the device tree (based on LineageOS / html6405) | Apache-2.0 |
libjpeg-turbo (camera-app/third_party/libjpeg-turbo) |
IJG / BSD-3-Clause / zlib, see its LICENSE.md |
GC Camera, GC Gallery and their shared modules (camera-app/app, gallery, gccore, common), and the planned PC tool built on gccore |
GPL-3.0-or-later (text), so that GPL-3 code from RawTherapee and darktable can be ported into them |
Tools (tools/), the mini recovery sources (minirecovery/) and the manifests |
Apache-2.0 (text) |
Documentation (docs/, this README) |
CC BY 4.0 (text) |
Lens profile (profiles/) |
CC0 1.0, public domain (text) |
Reference copies (reference/) |
Their own GPL headers |
The licence of each path is declared in REUSE.toml.
Samsung's proprietary files (firmware, drivers, libraries) are not in these repositories. They are extracted from the official firmware when the system is built.
This project is not affiliated with Samsung. "Samsung" and "Galaxy" are trademarks of Samsung Electronics.