So huge thanks to my awesome wife, who totally surprised me with a Lumia 1020 last week! Perfect gift for a photographer!
Fortunately, I was leaving to shoot a wedding in the mountains the next day in Nordegg, Alberta. So of course I took the 1020 with me. I didn't have much time to get some serious shots, but I did take a few snapshots while I was scoping photo locations for the wedding. I cannot WAIT to go out on a serious photo safari with this phone! Even just farting around, I got some stuff I'm very happy with. Hey, if the camera is good enough to shoot an entire National Geographic assignment, then it should be plenty good enough for me.
This cameraphone is amazing. That's all I can say. And what makes it more awesome is the Battery GRIP!! At first I considered it more of a toy than anything of real utility, but my mind is completely changed. After using it, I would MOST DEFINITELY recommend any photography enthusiast to get it in addition to the phone itself. It feels about a thousand times nicer to hold, like a REAL camera. The shutter button is large, like a real camera. The two stage shutter release feels great, like a real camera. Tripod mount, like a real camera. And the extra battery power is awesome too, so you can be out shooting for much longer than without. So definitely get the grip if you get this phone.
I'm very happy using the 5MP files from the camera. I know it takes 41MP photos, but the whole purpose of 41mp is to get the nicest 5MP files possible. I will trust Nokia's R&D and take their 5MP files, which upon inspection, are beautifully detailed and crisp. I am confident I can get gorgeous 11x17 prints from them as they are richly detailed. They would definitely look MUCH MUCH better than an 11x17 print from my 8.7MP Lumia 920, which is no slouch itself either! So don't underestimate the power of the 5MP files coming out of this cam.
One thing I noticed is that the corners are very soft. This is no big deal to me (My Canon 10-22 and 50L suffer from the same thing) but to pixel peeper and measurebators, I'm sure it will be a point of much complaint. But really, I could care less for what I shoot.
The included Pro camera app is wonderful for changing settings on the fly. It's the nicest camera interface I've used on a phone. But there definitely is more of a delay from shot to shot, which isn't surprising considering how much resolution there is. But if you really want faster shooting, then fire up Nokia Smart Shoot which rapid fires a few pics and then lets you combine the results from all photos to make one awesome one. It's pretty slick.
Anyhow, onto the pictures!
1. This is the gorge that Crescent Falls drops into
2. Clouds of course. I shot this to test how it does at very high exposure levels. Many phones just cannot handle this due to shutter speed limitations. No problem with the Lumia 1020. The shutter speed on this shot was 1/15000! I have no idea what it's upper limit it.
3.
4. And the beautiful falls
5. I took this shot as I knew it was a very difficult scenario for ANY camera: a backlit landscape with highly reflective water. Overall, I'm quite impressed with the dynamic range it gave me. The highlights in the water show lots of definition and detail in the spashes and turbulence, but at the same time I can still see the trees behind the river.
6. Lots of detail in the tubulence. At first, as I looked at the water upstream, I thought it was quite soft, but then I realized... WTF it is soft because it is outside of the DOF! It was something I just never really thought about when looking at smartphone or compact camera images before! You actually have to be aware of the DOF!
7. Thought I'd try a slower shutter speed. 1/3 was all I could manage without overexposing the image. The one thing the 1020 lacks that the 808 (and N8) had was a built-in automatic ND filter. I really wish it had that.
8. The colour of this lake was too good to pass up, so I pulled over on the highway for a couple snaps.
9.
10. And one thing I forgot to try was the ZOOM feature! So I zoomed in on this plant and I was wowed with the clear DOF background separation. Hallelujah for large sensors! (The Lumia 1020 sensor is about four times larger than the iPhone 5 sensor)
11. Took this to check out it's flare performance. Looks like it produces a red flare, but the rest of the photo is well detailed at least.
12. Tried it out at night. Here the moon is rising over the mountain horizon. The camera app only allows a shutter speed of 4 seconds at the longest, so I had to crank up to ISO3200. I also put the battery grip on and put it on a tripod. Can't do that with your average smartphone! Detail is pretty low, but again, good luck even getting anything like this on any other smartphone! Would have never attempted it with any other phone.
13. And on the way home, ran into some gorgeous fall colours. It did a totally beautiful job of capturing the essence of the scene.
I'm loving this phone! I am going to try to do an actual portrait shoot with it one day.
Still learning more and more about it though. But very happy thusfar. One thing I haven't really given a good test run is the REAL XENON FLASH. None of this LED flash crap. This gives REAL action stopping flash capability. I'm really looking forward to playing with it and seeing what I can do. Nokia invented the world's first flat capacitor to fit a real flash into such a form factor (in addition to all the other crap that goes inside a smartphone).
The crazy thing is, this phone was purchased from a Microsoft Store in Seattle for US$609 WITH the battery grip (32GB model). That's cheaper than the "affordable" iPhone 5c 32GB, and this is *THE* flagship model.
It's a Photographer's wet dream.
These are my websites if you at all interested...
Night and Day Photography - Edmonton Wedding Photographers, Edmonton Family Photographers
THE BOUDOIR by Night and Day - Edmonton Boudoir Photography, Intimate Photography
Fortunately, I was leaving to shoot a wedding in the mountains the next day in Nordegg, Alberta. So of course I took the 1020 with me. I didn't have much time to get some serious shots, but I did take a few snapshots while I was scoping photo locations for the wedding. I cannot WAIT to go out on a serious photo safari with this phone! Even just farting around, I got some stuff I'm very happy with. Hey, if the camera is good enough to shoot an entire National Geographic assignment, then it should be plenty good enough for me.
This cameraphone is amazing. That's all I can say. And what makes it more awesome is the Battery GRIP!! At first I considered it more of a toy than anything of real utility, but my mind is completely changed. After using it, I would MOST DEFINITELY recommend any photography enthusiast to get it in addition to the phone itself. It feels about a thousand times nicer to hold, like a REAL camera. The shutter button is large, like a real camera. The two stage shutter release feels great, like a real camera. Tripod mount, like a real camera. And the extra battery power is awesome too, so you can be out shooting for much longer than without. So definitely get the grip if you get this phone.
I'm very happy using the 5MP files from the camera. I know it takes 41MP photos, but the whole purpose of 41mp is to get the nicest 5MP files possible. I will trust Nokia's R&D and take their 5MP files, which upon inspection, are beautifully detailed and crisp. I am confident I can get gorgeous 11x17 prints from them as they are richly detailed. They would definitely look MUCH MUCH better than an 11x17 print from my 8.7MP Lumia 920, which is no slouch itself either! So don't underestimate the power of the 5MP files coming out of this cam.
One thing I noticed is that the corners are very soft. This is no big deal to me (My Canon 10-22 and 50L suffer from the same thing) but to pixel peeper and measurebators, I'm sure it will be a point of much complaint. But really, I could care less for what I shoot.
The included Pro camera app is wonderful for changing settings on the fly. It's the nicest camera interface I've used on a phone. But there definitely is more of a delay from shot to shot, which isn't surprising considering how much resolution there is. But if you really want faster shooting, then fire up Nokia Smart Shoot which rapid fires a few pics and then lets you combine the results from all photos to make one awesome one. It's pretty slick.
Anyhow, onto the pictures!
1. This is the gorge that Crescent Falls drops into
2. Clouds of course. I shot this to test how it does at very high exposure levels. Many phones just cannot handle this due to shutter speed limitations. No problem with the Lumia 1020. The shutter speed on this shot was 1/15000! I have no idea what it's upper limit it.
3.
4. And the beautiful falls
5. I took this shot as I knew it was a very difficult scenario for ANY camera: a backlit landscape with highly reflective water. Overall, I'm quite impressed with the dynamic range it gave me. The highlights in the water show lots of definition and detail in the spashes and turbulence, but at the same time I can still see the trees behind the river.
6. Lots of detail in the tubulence. At first, as I looked at the water upstream, I thought it was quite soft, but then I realized... WTF it is soft because it is outside of the DOF! It was something I just never really thought about when looking at smartphone or compact camera images before! You actually have to be aware of the DOF!
7. Thought I'd try a slower shutter speed. 1/3 was all I could manage without overexposing the image. The one thing the 1020 lacks that the 808 (and N8) had was a built-in automatic ND filter. I really wish it had that.
8. The colour of this lake was too good to pass up, so I pulled over on the highway for a couple snaps.
9.
10. And one thing I forgot to try was the ZOOM feature! So I zoomed in on this plant and I was wowed with the clear DOF background separation. Hallelujah for large sensors! (The Lumia 1020 sensor is about four times larger than the iPhone 5 sensor)
11. Took this to check out it's flare performance. Looks like it produces a red flare, but the rest of the photo is well detailed at least.
12. Tried it out at night. Here the moon is rising over the mountain horizon. The camera app only allows a shutter speed of 4 seconds at the longest, so I had to crank up to ISO3200. I also put the battery grip on and put it on a tripod. Can't do that with your average smartphone! Detail is pretty low, but again, good luck even getting anything like this on any other smartphone! Would have never attempted it with any other phone.
13. And on the way home, ran into some gorgeous fall colours. It did a totally beautiful job of capturing the essence of the scene.
I'm loving this phone! I am going to try to do an actual portrait shoot with it one day.
Still learning more and more about it though. But very happy thusfar. One thing I haven't really given a good test run is the REAL XENON FLASH. None of this LED flash crap. This gives REAL action stopping flash capability. I'm really looking forward to playing with it and seeing what I can do. Nokia invented the world's first flat capacitor to fit a real flash into such a form factor (in addition to all the other crap that goes inside a smartphone).
The crazy thing is, this phone was purchased from a Microsoft Store in Seattle for US$609 WITH the battery grip (32GB model). That's cheaper than the "affordable" iPhone 5c 32GB, and this is *THE* flagship model.
It's a Photographer's wet dream.
These are my websites if you at all interested...
Night and Day Photography - Edmonton Wedding Photographers, Edmonton Family Photographers
THE BOUDOIR by Night and Day - Edmonton Boudoir Photography, Intimate Photography
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