Landscape photography: 1020 or 950/950xl

[Hadogenes]

I like landscape photography and usually carry my camera at the right moment, however, sometimes, without expecting I see a great shot but dont have my camera with me. That's when a great phone could come in handy. I love the grip for the 1020, its bigger sensor and if I read correctly polarizing lens. But after going through some reviews it seems like the biggest complain is speed between shots. Landscape photography doesn't need to be so fast between shots, but then i'll be stuck in an non up gradable phone, with slower processor and less ram. Also, some people complain the 1020 is bad for close up (macro) but I saw one review that using manual focus could help. Im looking for a phone with the best manual controls since I rarely shoot in auto. Should I just go ahead and get the 950/950xl?

 

[Guytronic]

I wouldn't recommend the 1020 frankly.
You may be disappointed with a few things about the 1020 especially how slow it can be.

I'd say with the state of the OS the 950 may be your better option.
Good luck there.

 

[RumoredNow]

950/XL... Maybe 1520.

Add alternate camera apps like ProShot for granular control and great manual focus.


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[Hadogenes]

Thanks. I wanted to give it a chance specially for the camera grip. I got my sister a 950 and I've seen how good the pictures are . I have 5s from work but I'm done with this tiny screen and memory.

 

[RumoredNow]

I have 5s from work but I'm done with this tiny screen and memory.

You know it's funny, I was in a carrier store and I picked up an iPhone 6S in 16GB to try the camera vs my 1520. I could not take a picture - the memory was too full.

I was astounded. I poked around and it didn't seem to be full of pics people took in the store (what else could shoppers fill it with?) Instead, it was filled with obvious sample pics as not even the latest was from the location the phone was in. Who knows what the sample pics were shot with? I wasn't impressed with the pics as they were one and all pictures of people's heads obscuring historical and culturally significant objects (selfies). They looked alright, but none of them wowed me or (IMHO) showed off the power of the camera in any real way. Nothing artistic. Just people's heads in the way of things I would have taken pictures of like the Eiffel Tower, The Tower of London, a beautiful tropical beach, the Taj Mahal, a pastoral mountain view... All with grinning mugs front and center.

So, not only was the demo ROM so full that you could not test the camera, it also seemed to say that the iPhone camera is best suited for close up shots of your head in perfect lighting conditions. It saddens me that this has become the standard of photographic excellence.


I too love landscape photography. I have had a 1520 since August of 2014. Love the 20MP sensor. Love shooting in DNG. I'll be honest though, 1520's ability fades with the light... It also has mount problems as the phone + case is so broad that few mounting brackets will accommodate it. And the position of the camera is so deep that clip on solutions to attach extra lenses like telephoto or fisheye simply do not fit in the vast majority of products out there. 950 XL falls into that last limit as well.

Definitely go with 950. From what I've seen it is much more low light capable than 1520. More aftermarket accessories will fit it as well. The samples here look pretty good to me: http://forums.windowscentral.com/mi...res-videos-taken-my-lumia-950-a-new-post.html

 

[Matthias Goetzke]

From the quality I would suggest a 950xl too.. The quality is really good even compared to my 1020. Sadly my 950xl is totally unreliable. Or rather very reliable in rebooting every other time I want to take a photo or video. I had hoped to overcome the slow picture to picture times of the 1020. Apart from the reboot it also takes ages to look at photos taken with some kind of processing being performed (depending on image mode)

 

[RumoredNow]

From the quality I would suggest a 950xl too.. The quality is really good even compared to my 1020. Sadly my 950xl is totally unreliable. Or rather very reliable in rebooting every other time I want to take a photo or video. I had hoped to overcome the slow picture to picture times of the 1020. Apart from the reboot it also takes ages to look at photos taken with some kind of processing being performed (depending on image mode)

Matthias, sounds like a Hard Reset with no restore of backup might help smooth your device out.

Are you saving Pics to SD? Saving them to Internal memory should alleviate the processing drag. It seems to get bottlenecked by the srite speed of the SD card bus.

 

[Matthias Goetzke]

Yeah I did that two months ago.. Also saved to internal storage.. No change. Tried to send it back, but the Microsoft support page crashed all the time.. Could invest lots of time again (like with previous ms phones) or simply go android or iPhone... Sad but I found the device very disappointing....