Debugging the Browser Camera API

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 09:49:47 -0600

I’ve been adding a feature to Garbs.net that lets you take photos directly from the browser using the ImageCapture API.

It was working great on my Pixel 9a, but when my sister tested on her Galaxy S21, all our closeup test shots were coming out blurry. The issue? Her phone has an extra ultrawide lens with a fixed focus, and my code wasn’t picking the correct camera.

After some digging, I discovered that Camera 0 (the “Main” camera) was being returned as index 3 or 4 on her device. The camera enumeration order isn’t consistent across phones.

Web-Api on Carlos Urreta's Weblog

Debugging the Browser Camera API