Noisy photos

[sbps1]

So I opened my 1520 today and was excited to take some photos. When I was taking them they were extremely noisy, even in good lighting. Is there a fix to this. Any suggestions are appreciated.

 

[anony_mouse]

So I opened my 1520 today and was excited to take some photos. When I was taking them they were extremely noisy, even in good lighting. Is there a fix to this. Any suggestions are appreciated.

I think you were shooting video. The phone then also records 'noise' - i.e. sounds that were present at the time of recording. Try taking still pictures instead. They should be quieter.

 

[troylytle]

I think you were shooting video. The phone then also records 'noise' - i.e. sounds that were present at the time of recording. Try taking still pictures instead. They should be quieter.

Misread instructions. Phone now in anus... Lol. I hope you were joking.

 

[Tech friend]

sbps1,

does Muessig's Guide: So you want to take better pictures? help you to improve the photo quality?

I think noisy photos should be avoidable with the 1520, since even in low light conditions you can get very clean low-noise pictures - From what I have seen till now the 1520 has the best camera of all smartphones (leaving aside the Nokia 808 since it was taken out of the market and the Nokia 1020 for some reason).

Perhaps you can upload an example shot and also give some background information, i.e. whether you used auto mode etc?

 

[Mark Reed2]

Ok from messing with this and other high end phones in the past it goes like this. (will do a vs SGS4)
Bright sun=1520 wins, detail, white balance, colour.
Daylight photos=The 1520 wins, true colours, detail is better, the white balance is a good deal better.
Indoor and low light=SGS4 wins this time, its able to take in more light (that goes against it in bright sun, over expose) the photos pick up more detail and the noise is fine, the 1520 is getting dark and having issues with noise....if the flash is on then the win goes to 1520.

Now when it comes to video
Sun and Daylight=1520 is better at sound, more stable, focus, and image is about the same as each other.....though some would maybe go for SGS4 as the picture grabs you more.
Low light=SGS4 laughs at the 1520....and problem is most high end phones walk all over the 1520 in low light, its shocking how poor it is, the image is very dark and full of noise (fingers crossed they can help with this with a update...no word yet)

The last part is something I am not happy with, and I would urge you to speak to Nokia and complain, the more that do the faster we get some sort of update to the camera.

 

[greedypnguin]

So I opened my 1520 today and was excited to take some photos. When I was taking them they were extremely noisy, even in good lighting. Is there a fix to this. Any suggestions are appreciated.

Yeah you probably have a rabid cows loose in your house. Happens to me all the time they shout so much

 

[giantenemybird]

So I opened my 1520 today and was excited to take some photos. When I was taking them they were extremely noisy, even in good lighting. Is there a fix to this. Any suggestions are appreciated.

Stop taking drugs

 

[DBZo07]

Stop taking drugs

what!!





Sent from my L625

 

[sbps1]

Well I have adjusted the ISO the, white balance, and the other manual controls. The only time the photo is not as noisy is when the flash is on.

 

[undulose]

I think you're wrong. The 1520 is better in low-light as long as you configure it with the proper settings (like ISO and exposure value).

 

[undulose]

Mine is also somehow noisy. But that's the case also when I tried the Lumia 1020 in Nokia outlets. When you begin taking photos, the noise is gone or reduced.

On the other note, WP saves a low-resolution copy of your photos. But you can check the high-resolution copies on your PC. They're fantastic, I tell you.

 

[Mark Reed2]

I think you're wrong. The 1520 is better in low-light as long as you configure it with the proper settings (like ISO and exposure value).

But that could be said of a few high end phones, but with auto its closer fight.

Video in low light is just horrible, loads of vs videos show it....needs fixed

 

[michail71]

Sometimes you just need to know the limits of your equipment and how to work with available lighting conditions. The subject matter can have a big impact too. Noise doesn't show as much in textured detail. Often times the noise reduction will destroy areas of high detail. Noise can be a problem on darker and smoother areas of a photo.

With a steady hand longer exposures are possible given the OIS. So keeping the ISO down can help but good technique (bracing/breath) must be used.

For shots that must be pulled off in lower light using DNG and post processing may be the way to go. I like to control noise reduction post processing, typically in photoshop layers. That way textured detail can be protected and smooth or bokeh areas can get aggressive noise reduction.

 

[Tech friend]

Now when it comes to video
Sun and Daylight=1520 is better at sound, more stable, focus, and image is about the same as each other.....though some would maybe go for SGS4 as the picture grabs you more.
Low light=SGS4 laughs at the 1520....and problem is most high end phones walk all over the 1520 in low light, its shocking how poor it is, the image is very dark and full of noise (fingers crossed they can help with this with a update...no word yet)

The last part is something I am not happy with, and I would urge you to speak to Nokia and complain, the more that do the faster we get some sort of update to the camera.

On July 25[SUP]th[/SUP] Pocketnow complained about the 1020's low-light video performance:

There?s also word of middling performance when recording video in low-light conditions. While the 1020 shines at still images in low-light environments, that doesn?t seem to carry over to video, and the resultant output is riddled with noise. That?s a little surprising, and we wonder if such performance could similarly be improved via update, or if this could be a limitation of the phone?s hardware.

The 1520 has the same problem as you say, in spite of beeing the newer device and having the Black software installed.

As yet I haven't found any statement by Nokia related to this issue, so do you think it could indeed be a hardware issue?

 

[kevm14]

One thing they could be doing is building the video frame from a subset of pixels. Normally you'd want to down-sample each frame from the 16MP sensor output. With S800, I'd expect that to be possible. But if they're just dropping pixels and sampling every 3rd pixel or whatever, then you would NOT get any benefits from having a larger sensor, and you'd be constrained by the individual photosite sizes. I could certainly see the 1020 doing this as it has a ludicrous number of pixels and not much processing power. Perhaps the 16MP of the 1520 is also just too much for S800. By the way, the 1020 and 1520 share pixel pitch, I believe. So if they have equivalently bad low light video, my theory may be true.

Then, it would be possible that the 920 does better sampling from the sensor's native frame output (being a more manageable 8.7MP), leading the 920 to have better low light video performance, because it's building the video frame from, frankly, more light.

This method (the pixel-skipping method explained in the first paragraph) would theoretically lead to aliasing on the final video. Do people notice more "jaggies" than expected for 1080p video?

That would be pretty disappointing, though. I hope I'm wrong.

 

[Mark Reed2]

On July 25[SUP]th[/SUP] Pocketnow complained about the 1020's low-light video performance:



The 1520 has the same problem as you say, in spite of beeing the newer device and having the Black software installed.

As yet I haven't found any statement by Nokia related to this issue, so do you think it could indeed be a hardware issue?

I really hope they can at least get us on par with others out there (just hope its rushed software) but after reading posts by devs, half say its hardware/limitations, and the rest say optimise the software, though I would not hope for wow, maybe just a bit better.

Either way, I have no idea how it pasted any QC when it came to the testing phase, it looks like a phonecam from a few year back when shooting low light videos.

 

[Mark Reed2]

Skip to 14.50 in, just one of the many videos showing a vs in low light


Nokia Lumia 1520 vs iPhone 5S Camera Comparison Using Canon 6D as Reference - YouTube

 

[kevm14]

At 14:45 he mentions over sharpening. Well...that could be the jaggies I would expect from sampling a subset of pixels for each video frame. Gah...it's inferior even in daylight.

I would say the sensor and whole imaging system is just not made/optimized for video. If it WAS possible to get 16MP off the sensor at 30-60fps, AND process it, then you definitely would expect the video performance to be right at the head of the pack.

 

[Idzaudin Idz]

Use Windows phone default camera app.. Nokia camera in 1520 is unstable

 

[michail71]

How is it unstable?

There is a thread of some stunning low light photos that is active right now. Those would be harder to pull off with the Microsoft camera.