Has Nokia raised the bar on mobile phone-based photography?

<p>Nokia officially announced the 41 MP Lumia 1020 today, available on ATT in the US. I watched the <a href="

and all the while I was thinking about the old saying that "The best camera to own is the one you have with you when needed." Or something to that effect. I'm a little weird in that I have my camera with me 95% of the time. Its a honkin' big D300 w/battery grip with (usually) either a 17 - 55 f/2.8 or a 70 - 200 f/2.8. Most people are not that weird. Most people do have their cell phone with them.</p>

<p>Up until now I've never considered a smart phone as a serious camera for a photographer, amateur or pro. I've taken fewer than 30 pictures in the 8 or 9 months I've owned my Lumia 822....all quick snaps. Because I always have my phone with me and almost always have my DSLR with me I've not considered purchasing a P&S or a mirrorless camera. But, with this new phone I'm thinking if I owned the phone, I may consider leaving the Nikon at home for the trips to the grocery store or the commute to work. If I'm going to photograph a street fair or a folk music concert, I'll definitely take the big rig.</p>

<p>Any thoughts or comments? I have Lex Jenkins in mind right now knowing about his issue with heavier cameras.</p>

<p>Thanks in advance for any comments. If you do choose to watch the video, definitely click on the button to advance to the +-15 minute mark.</p>

<p>Mark</p>

<p>Just saw the nightly news on the phone/camera. If I had a smart phone, I'd definitely think this changes the equation. Since I still have an older "dumb" phone, and am not planning to upgrade, it doesn't affect me.</p>

<p>It's interesting times, for sure. All manufactures seem to realize how important the camera quality is as a selling feature. Samsung and Nikon both have p&s's running Android. Nikon just announced last week that they are going into a new territory as their p&s sales have been cut by 75% in the last couple years due to smartphones. As for this Nokia 1020? You have to download the 41mb jpg in order to use it other wise you work with the 5mb variant "in camera". So, if I owned this, I'd still be snapping and editing in Snapseed on the 5meg file, then sharing right away on FB ect and not bothering with the 41 meg file; it'd just go to waste.</p>

<p>The phone manufacture that gives me the raw file of my image is the one that will be raising the bar.</p>

<p>What good is all those [pixels if you're not printing really large? And if you do, do the pixels really look good or all smeary and junky especially at the higher ISO's?(DO these camera change ISO's?). Wouldn't you be better off with larger pixel elements even thought there are less of them?</p>

<p>I wish Nokia well. But this seems to be just hype to push themselves in front of the competition without any meaningful improvement to photographs. Has anyone done a comparison with other makes?</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>"What good is all those pixels if you're not printing really large?"</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Alan, have you seen the details in some of the toenail painting designs? <br>

[<a href="https://www.google.ca/search?q=painted+toenails+designs&revid=2139198886&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&biw=1440&bih=770&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=FGrfUYqBFaLC4AOCmoGgCA">Link</a>]</p>

<p>I'm missing your point. Do you need 41mb to shoot toenails?</p>

<p>Some will argue yes. :-) </p>

<p>Good thing my nails are unpainted so my low res. cameras will do just fine. </p>

<p>More and more we need technical or scientific definition of pixel quality.</p>

<p>Would you trade 36 MP from Nikon D800 for 41 MP from the new Nokia ?</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Well, my D700 doesn't send me a bill for $60 a month, so that's something.</p>

<p>The idea of the 41MP is actually not to produce 41MP images, but either downsample to 5MP with far less noise and more detail than a 5MP sensor would capture, or use the high resolution to allow zoom - digital zoom, done right. Also taking into account that this is a relatively large sensor (compared to other phones), that should be able to deliver fairly good performance.<br>

The older Nokia 808 PureView which had a very similar sensor according to tests did really fine and was counted as one of the very best camera-smartphones. Bringing all this to a less bulky phone with a more modern OS (plus according to first reviews a rather excellent camera-app), does raise the bar quite a bit - for the niche market that finds the camera the decisive factor in choosing a phone. Which excludes me :-)</p>

 

<p>According to Nokia, the idea is to produce pictures with 7712 x 5360 pixels resolution.</p>

<p><a href="http://press.nokia.com/2013/07/11/zoom-reinvented-nokia-lumia-1020-arrives/">http://press.nokia.com/2013/07/11/zoom-reinvented-nokia-lumia-1020-arrives/</a></p>

<p> </p>

<p>Sample pictures from the Lumia 1020 introduced yesterday. I'm impressed. The shot looking down over the buildings was taken from a helicopter...not the most stable photo platform.</p>

<p><a href="http://conversations.nokia.com/2013/07/11/nokia-lumia-1020-picture-gallery-zoom-in/">http://conversations.nokia.com/2013/07/11/nokia-lumia-1020-picture-gallery-zoom-in/</a></p>

 

>>> Any thoughts or comments?

 

Personally, I would not buy a phone based solely on camera megapixels (or a computer based solely on

clock speed). Rather, I start with the underlying phone OS and determine if that seamlessly supports the

ecosystem of apps, services, and products (and considering behavior), I use with respect to computers and tablets I regularly use.

And then make a decision if the camera *meets* my needs and works in a seamless manner with respect to

shooting style.

 

Same with laptop computers. For me, it starts with OS and then it's details having to do with size, weight, features,

screen, battery life, etc...

<p>For the sake of downsampling, I think that's a great feature. But the image in low light looks awful. There is not a clean edge anywhere. And in one of the daylight shots I see nothing but smudging at 100%. There is noise, too, and poor shadow detail.</p>

<p>So I opened up an image editor and downsampled the outdoor shot (university lawn?) and halved resolution to approximately 9 Mpx. The downsampled image looked a bit nicer and had pretty much the same level of detail as the full sized shot. Only in certain areas could you see that detail had been lost.</p>

<p>Yes, you can apply NR. But NR won't bring back clean edges and smooth tonal transition. Overall I think this is a good thing. I just wouldn't change my current phone (iPhone 4S) for the Nokia. And some mobile phones have such good cameras that I am happy to use them where the fixed wide-angle is either a help or not a hindrance.</p>

<p>For what it's worth, the actual size of the sensor in this camera is about 6.6mm x 8.8mm.</p>

<blockquote>

<p><a href="http://dougkerr.net/RDP/RDP_S08_Sensor_Size_V01.pdf">http://dougkerr.net/RDP/RDP_S08_Sensor_Size_V01.pdf</a></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Point-and-shoot manufacturers (as well as camera phone manufacturers) really do not want you to know just how small the sensors typically are. Thus do they use a very outdated labeling system (from television technology).</p>

<p>That said, these small sensors can produce incredible images.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>The idea behind the Lumia 1020 is that it could quite literally allow you to find a needle in a photo of a haystack (as demonstrated during the event). This detail drives in the "zoom reinvented" tagline Nokia's pushing. By oversampling when images are captured, the Lumia 1020 is able to offer you the ability to zoom into images without loss of detail, Nokia says. You'll get blur-free, crisp, bright images — no matter how good or bad the light situation is. A feature called "dual capture" means that the Lumia 1020<br />simultaneously takes 38-megapixel and 5-megapixel photos.<br>

Atif Naser<br /><a href="http://batbooti.com/">Phone Fixing and Repairing Center</a></p>

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