Lumia 1020 Hype

[blue1k]

I've had my 1020 for a couple weeks and I don't think I will keep it.

After processing over 400 photos I have noticed that most are terrible and only a few turn out. I can't believe how much blur and noise I have with photos in bright daylight. I compared a number of similar shots in similar environments and shooting settings between my 808 and the 1020. The 1020 produced very few noise free images compared to my 808 at full resolution even at 100 ISO. It not even close.
I'm not a new photographer and I know how to set up my shots but I find it so challenging to get a photo to turn out nicely.
The white balance indoors is brutal compared to my 808 and my iPhone and S4 but that's sow thing I can live with.

I also noticed my 808 compresses photos at 300 pixels/inch while the 1020 is only 72! That's hardly a pixel density for printing photos. I really wish I would have kept my 808. Nokia this is sad. I expected better than this given how long I waited for this phone.

I wish I could stay around but I can't swallow what was produced knowing that last years tech was much better. I really love this phone and WP but I am sadly disappointed.

 

[ImmortalWarrior]

72 pixels per inch, eh? You are viewing the 5mp image it produces for social media. You need to pull the full 38mp image off the phone with a PC.

 

[blue1k]

I am! I only edit in full resolution on photoshop. Do others notice problems or did I get a bunk phone. At 100% cropping the noise is terrible even in photos in bright light.

 

[jmerrey]

Ok bye!

 

[blue1k]

That's not helpful.
I'm wondering if anyone else is having issues or is it my phone?

I really would like to keep it but I can't if this is what the norm is. Do you have any of these issues?

 

[Bahamen]

You can refer to comments by Damian Dinning on the 1020 compared to the 808 for perspective on this. Can't give you the link right now but shouldn't be too hard to find. Basically the 808 and 1020 used different down sampling algorithms with the 1020 favoring sharpening over noise reduction. Some people have pointed out that you can get comparable results if you do some post noise reduction on the 1020 images. In any case, images at full resolution will always have noise at pixel level even at base iso for the 808. It is certainly not true that it is noise free for the 808 as I can attest from my own experience with it. It is only the down sampled images that are clean and noise free on the 808. The 1020 images are certainly sharper; if you prefer less noise over sharpness, hopefully Juha will update the camera module to allow choice between NR versus sharpening in future as well as color saturation. He has already indicated that he is looking at the feedback received.

 

[blue1k]

Thanks. I use imagenomic noise reduction for most of my HDR and low light already but even with post processing I can't get over how noisy the images are. And I found the 808 to produce far sharper photos? Great to hear about some changes forthcoming. Thanks!

 

[blue1k]

I tried another application that shoots in full resolution and it produces far clearer photos (CameraPro) than the standard Nokia app. So it definitely is a software issue and not my device.

 

[Tech friend]

I wish I could stay around but I can't swallow what was produced knowing that last years tech was much better. I really love this phone and WP but I am sadly disappointed.

I will return my 1020 today. For the same reason as why you consider to do it.

Hoping for a successor, that is at least on a par with the 808. All in all, the 1020 isn't.

I am very unhappy with that situation, too.

 

[ohgood]

I've had my 1020 for a couple weeks and I don't think I will keep it.

After processing over 400 photos I have noticed that most are terrible and only a few turn out. I can't believe how much blur and noise I have with photos in bright daylight. I compared a number of similar shots in similar environments and shooting settings between my 808 and the 1020. The 1020 produced very few noise free images compared to my 808 at full resolution even at 100 ISO. It not even close.
I'm not a new photographer and I know how to set up my shots but I find it so challenging to get a photo to turn out nicely.
The white balance indoors is brutal compared to my 808 and my iPhone and S4 but that's sow thing I can live with.

I also noticed my 808 compresses photos at 300 pixels/inch while the 1020 is only 72! That's hardly a pixel density for printing photos. I really wish I would have kept my 808. Nokia this is sad. I expected better than this given how long I waited for this phone.

I wish I could stay around but I can't swallow what was produced knowing that last years tech was much better. I really love this phone and WP but I am sadly disappointed.

I've noticed similar results with some current androids phone cameras. the older devices shot well in low light conditions. tie newer ones have more iso related noise. fiddling with the settings didn't resolve it, I'm also disappointed with the results.

I wonder if it's because o of some patenting issue effecting all the newer devices?

agreed, whatever the cause it really does suck!

 

[Bahamen]

I will return my 1020 today. For the same reason as why you consider to do it.

Hoping for a successor, that is at least on a par with the 808. All in all, the 1020 isn't.

I am very unhappy with that situation, too.

I don't agree with the assessment. Coming from the legendary 808, a very happy owner of a new 1020 and no regrets whatsoever

 

[Bahamen]

Thanks. I use imagenomic noise reduction for most of my HDR and low light already but even with post processing I can't get over how noisy the images are. And I found the 808 to produce far sharper photos? Great to hear about some changes forthcoming. Thanks!

Personally. I really don't have much complaints about the 1020. You could argue there could be slightly more grain compared to the 808 (which could actually be explained by post-processing, even for the full res images), but I do not consider the difference to be excessive or unacceptable (except for those who are purists or perfectionists in an obsessive or uncompromising way).

Just a reminder, pixel size for 808 and 1020 are quite small at full res... 1.1 (BSI) to 1.4 (FSI) microns. These are similar to many 1.1 (SGS4) to 1.4 (iPhone 5) micron phones, and should have comparable levels of noise. The main advantage with 808 and 1020, are that you can do digital zooming. You only get noise reduction benefits when you downsample the images, to have effective pixel sizes that are much larger than competing phones. There has been studies done (including by DPReview), that at pixel level, the full res images from the 1020 can compete quite well (in terms of noise) against the iPhones/SGS4 although pixel size at 1.1 micron is smaller than iPhone. And that is by itself a great achievement, because if each pixel from the 1020 can compete against each pixel from the iPhone, then the 1020 has 5x more pixels (therefore more detail). And when it downsamples to 5MP, the image has far less noise.

If you do find your 1020 images to be excessively or unreasonably noisy, (bearing in mind at full res it should be for a 1.1 micron sensor as explained above) perhaps it could be something wrong with your device or possibly it could be the focus point. The 1020 has a relatively shallow depth of field, if you're not focusing correctly it can result in less sharp images.

 

[vlad0]

I've had my 1020 for a couple weeks and I don't think I will keep it.

After processing over 400 photos I have noticed that most are terrible and only a few turn out. I can't believe how much blur and noise I have with photos in bright daylight. I compared a number of similar shots in similar environments and shooting settings between my 808 and the 1020. The 1020 produced very few noise free images compared to my 808 at full resolution even at 100 ISO. It not even close.
I'm not a new photographer and I know how to set up my shots but I find it so challenging to get a photo to turn out nicely.
The white balance indoors is brutal compared to my 808 and my iPhone and S4 but that's sow thing I can live with.

I also noticed my 808 compresses photos at 300 pixels/inch while the 1020 is only 72! That's hardly a pixel density for printing photos. I really wish I would have kept my 808. Nokia this is sad. I expected better than this given how long I waited for this phone.

I wish I could stay around but I can't swallow what was produced knowing that last years tech was much better. I really love this phone and WP but I am sadly disappointed.

Yes, in terms of raw image quality the 1020 is a downgrade from the 808.. it makes perfects sense since it does have a smaller sensor. Also the jpeg processing doesn't seem to be as mature as the one on the 808.

There is also an ongoing debate if the dedicated imaging chip on the 808 helps with clearing out the noise more so than the software deal on the 1020.

reference: http://forums.windowscentral.com/nokia-lumia-1020/244380-shifting-808-symbian-lumia-1020-a.html

Personally I blame the carriers who wanted a thinner phone compared to the 808 so Nokia had to go for a smaller sensor, but still cut it down into 41 million pixels just to keep the hype around the number from the previous device. That resulted in smaller pixels .. 1.1 microns vs. 1.4 on the 808

Also, the xenon flash is smaller/weaker compared to the 808 which takes away from the low light/bar/club type photography.

 

[sdc1]

The 1020 takes better photos than any other camera phone currently available, right? That's good enough for me. I have in my pocket a phone that is capable of taking outstanding images of my children which I will use every day and always have on me. That's all most of us can really ask for. If you're complaining about excessive noise then I think you need to take a step back, consider the fact that this is a phone, look at what it is capable of and then if you're still not happy stick to lugging around your DSLR.

 

[vlad0]

The 1020 takes better photos than any other camera phone currently available, right? .

Nope.

I

I also noticed my 808 compresses photos at 300 pixels/inch while the 1020 is only 72! That's hardly a pixel density for printing photos. I really wish I would have kept my 808. Nokia this is sad. I expected better than this given how long I waited for this phone..

What's interesting about that... I was talking to my printing guy (I do a lot of real estate marketing stuff) and I wanted him to print something for me last week .. it was a picture from an iPhone 5s. Well guess what.. its at 72 dpi and he wouldn't print it... minimum is .. yup... 300 DPI

He tells me its kind of a industry standard.. but I am not sure.

The 808 is geared toward the enthusiast photographer, the 1020 is... well.. more "mass" market I guess.

Thanks. I use imagenomic noise reduction for most of my HDR and low light already but even with post processing I can't get over how noisy the images are. And I found the 808 to produce far sharper photos? Great to hear about some changes forthcoming. Thanks!

You can't get over it because once you get used to how clean those 808 shots can be.. its very difficult to accept anything less than that.

In terms of sharpness, by default the 1020 is sharper, but if you max out the sharpness on the 808 its about the same. They might appear sharper because there is less junk around the pixels.

In a sense.. the 808 is the perfect representation of the idea "pureview" which came from "pure pixels"

Remember this :

and from here

GSMArena: Is your oversampling technology different from pixel binning technology?

D. Dinning: Yes, it is more complicated than binning. We looked at a number of different methods how we could do this, and some methods preserve more detail, but there are generally a couple of problems here. One is that there's just something not right about the images when you use binning. I won't use the term natural, the term that we use is they are not pure. When you look at the picture, you just see the pixels that relate to the exact detail. What you end up with is you never have strong contrast and there's always a certain softness between pixels—you see three or four pixels leading from black to white. You never see black then white pixels next to each other. Whereas with oversampling, typically you can see pixels literally switch from one color to another. It's really clean.

source: http://www.gsmarena.com/d_dinning_interview_nokia_808-review-728p3.php

 

[Bahamen]

Yes, in terms of raw image quality the 1020 is a downgrade from the 808.. it makes perfects sense since it does have a smaller sensor. Also the jpeg processing doesn't seem to be as mature as the one on the 808.

Difference in sensor size is not really that big. Percentage-wise it may appear to be large, but effectively it is only less than 1/3 of a stop after taking into account aperture size.

Personally I blame the carriers who wanted a thinner phone compared to the 808 so Nokia had to go for a smaller sensor, but still cut it down into 41 million pixels just to keep the hype around the number from the previous device. That resulted in smaller pixels .. 1.1 microns vs. 1.4 on the 808

Like I said, the difference is not that big (1/3 stops). The gains in terms of having OIS (1 to 2 stops in lowlight) and thinner size are bigger wins overall.

Also, the xenon flash is smaller/weaker compared to the 808 which takes away from the low light/bar/club type photography.

This view was originally promoted by Steve Litchfield but has since been disputed. In technical terms the 808's xenon is only very slightly stronger. The complaint seemed to be due to the camera's auto mode when flash is fired, it tends to use a slower shutter speed (1/30s) with the intention of creating a more balanced subject-background image, as opposed to the background being totally dark. Steve has subsequently published a follow up to state that similar results can be obtained by manually using a faster shutter speed (1/125s) with the 1020.

 

[Juanma Herrera]

Actually it's not neccesary to take care about DPI. It's a useless parameter. If the picture size is 5 mpx, you can view 5mpx at full resolution, and if your screen is 72 DPI (for example), OBVIOUSLY you will see a 72 DPI image even if the exif data says the pic is 300 DPI. DPI is just for printing, and the printer will adjust automatically the picture size in order to the DPI it's capable to print. For example, for printing a 10x15 cm pic, I think it's neccesary a 2-3 mpx picture (at photo paper and 300 dpi printer), so the print software will automatically reduce the pic to 2-3mpx before printing.

I hope you know what I mean. Me English is really bad, I know, but I want you to know that DPI is a totally useless parameter (when coding the jpeg)

 

[Bahamen]

You can't get over it because once you get used to how clean those 808 shots can be.. its very difficult to accept anything less than that.
In terms of sharpness, by default the 1020 is sharper, but if you max out the sharpness on the 808 its about the same. They might appear sharper because there is less junk around the pixels. In a sense.. the 808 is the perfect representation of the idea "pureview" which came from "pure pixels"

You are saying that you can get the 808 to look sharp if you max out the sharpness. Damian Dinning claimed (his article published on Pureviewclub) that you can get similar clean and pure look on 1020 if you do some post-processing in Photoshop So we're even

Quote from Mr Dinning:

I took the full resolution image captured at the same time as the 5mp oversampled version and then resized it to the same resolution as the 5mp output image using Photoshop’s various resizing tools. Whilst not the same as oversampling as well as being applied to an already compressed and processed image, it does suggest that 808 like detail and noise reproduction would be possible. In fact in some cases I would perhaps argue that the image from the 1020 provided more detail. If you’re currently using a 1020 and prefer the 808 style oversampled images you could use Photoshop as I did to relatively easily reproduce such images. Select one of the bi-cubic options (try all three and decide which gives the best balance of noise and sharpness for you) and then type in the image resolution you want to ‘oversample’ to. In the example crops shown here you can see the difference in sharpening artefacts, detail and noise when significantly less sharpening is applied in the 5mp oversampled images vs. Nokia’s current ‘oversampled’ original and the 808’s 5mp oversampled images.

Damian Dinning’s feedback on the Lumia 1020 | PureView Club

 

[Tech friend]

I don't agree with the assessment.

How can you think I wouldn't know that, Bahamen? Haven't we posted often enough even in the same threads our differing views on this matter?

I returned my device just now.

 

[Bahamen]

How can you think I wouldn't know that, Bahamen? Haven't we posted often enough even in the same threads our differing views on this matter?

I returned my device just now.

Having a phone that you like is a very personal thing. Do what you must, ultimately it's your money and your device