Nokia Lumia 930 warped/distorted camera pictures!

[Gianfranco Pitta]

Hi all,
I have the following problem with my new Nokia Lumia 930, it seems that at the above part of the camera, the phone distorts the pictures. I noticed when I tried to take a pictures to people, the heads was so long if they was near the display's corners. So I have printed a grid of squares and then I have taken a picture from the front.. here the results...



As you can see, the squares are correct from the middle to the bottom but they became rectangles from ca. 80% of the image to the top...

The pictures has been taken from the front, without any perspective and without any lens effects!

Here same photo but made with my old Nokia Lumia 920:



Unfortunately I know that I'm not the only one with this problem.. but I don't know the cause! :unhappy:

 

[BatteryLife]

I think it's some defect to the lens. I would personally bring it to a Nokia store to have it checked. Could you post more samples of this?

 

[crystal405]

I've got the exact same problem. When I got my Lumia 930, I took photos of some people and wondered why their heads look so weird on the pictures. The heads were also placed in the upper part of the picture.

 

[Gianfranco Pitta]

Here an other example, always made from front.. please check the last lamp on the right, it seems bigger than the other even if the three lamps have the same size!

 

[Gianfranco Pitta]

I have tried Hard reset but it doesn't resolve the problem.. today I will go to Nokia shop to ask them.

 

[dengwinters]

It may not be the answer to your concern but you should also know that in photography shooting with wide angle rectilinear lens will always stretch things at the edges of the frame and it's best to not put people there unless you want some artistic effect

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectilinear_lens

26mm is kind of normal wide lens.

 

[Gianfranco Pitta]

It may not be the answer to your concern but you should also know that in photography shooting with wide angle rectilinear lens will always stretch things at the edges of the frame and it's best to not put people there unless you want some artistic effect
26mm is kind of normal wide lens.

Hi, thank you for your reply. As you can see the distortion begins from the middle of the image, with this camera is near to be impossible to take pictures to people (and to everything..). I agree with you about corner's distortion but is not possible that my old 920 is better than the 930..

 

[Gianfranco Pitta]

Hi all, my 930 is back from Nokia customer center! It seems that has been fixed..but! Now it works, squares are squares and lines are pretty straight.. what is strange is that when I take the picture the live picture is still warped but when it saves the picture and then I open it, the picture is correct!

So it seems that the problem was from hardware (they said to me that they have fixed something) but I think that there was some software issue too.

Honestly I was expecting more from the camera of my 930...

 

[Gianfranco Pitta]

Problem still here after upgrade to the Developper version 8.10.14147.180 :unhappy: :unhappysweat:

 

[mrdoubleb]

Hey!

Purchased my 930 in mid August, took it on my holiday, business trips, birthdays - and i've been seeing the same thing. I too were wondering if this is normal for the lens, but i do not think so.

Have you made any progress since your posts? I am thinking about taking it to Nokia care too to get it fixed, but was wondering if this is a known hardware issue with a bad batch or if there is no point in trying to gte it fixed as this is a design flaw/compromise.

 

[Chris_Kez]

I'm seeing the same thing from my 930. Got it a few weeks ago from Expansys USA, not sure what to do.

 

[PsyOr]

Did you guys tried other camera applications?
At the edges it should be like that (fisheye effect) where did you sew a problem in the middle of the first picture? When it zoomed out it may look distorted but when you zoom in its fine.

 

[yetanotherguy]

I have noticed these effects on iPhone pictures (5s) too.... these are typical artifacts of wide angle lenses. Typically there is some compensation done in software, but that always results in loss of sharpness (this is why you have see problems in live capture, but not in the fully processed image where compensation to some extent may be applied.) To avoid these issues, it is better to move a little further away from your subject (people) and then crop to bring them to prominence (hey, you do have a 20MP shooter to allow you to do a bit of that). Such wide angle lenses are typically great for landscapes.

Or, if you are more technically inclined, you can calibrate your lens using checkerbox patterns and apply the lens distortion compensation in some advanced softwares. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a lens profile for the 930 (I could build one myself, but....)

Over in another 930 thread discussing this issue (http://forums.windowscentral.com/nokia-lumia-930/351413-lens-distortion-correction.html), someone mentioned that an app called Fhotoroom allows you to adjust the distortion manually. You could also pull your image into the free photo editing software GIMP and do the correction manually there.... not ideal, but hey...

 

[Chris_Kez]

To avoid these issues, it is better to move a little further away from your subject (people) and then crop to bring them to prominence (hey, you do have a 20MP shooter to allow you to do a bit of that)...

Or, if you are more technically inclined, you can calibrate your lens using checkerbox patterns and apply the lens distortion compensation in some advanced softwares. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a lens profile for the 930 (I could build one myself, but....)

Over in another 930 thread discussing this issue (http://forums.windowscentral.com/nokia-lumia-930/351413-lens-distortion-correction.html), someone mentioned that an app called Fhotoroom allows you to adjust the distortion manually. You could also pull your image into the free photo editing software GIMP and do the correction manually there.... not ideal, but hey...

Yeah, my "solution" has been to step back a few paces. I actually got Fhotoroom at some point and will have to check that out. GIMP and other compensation is probably more time than I'm willing to commit at this point

UPDATE: Just tried the correction tools in Fhotoroom and the results were good enough for me for casual usage. Also, it seems to have retained the 5MP image (unlike some photo editors that output at an even lower quality). And as a bonus, it was just updated today! Double-bonus: they have a Windows 8 app.

 

[PsyOr]

Can you post some example of how it looks on taking pictures of people or something else?