Lumia 1020: Camera zoom question

[dogfacedsoldier]

Re: Lumia 1020: Close, but no cigar

To me it seems that MS is trying to get away from using hardware buttons and put more emphasis on touch controls, ie. Zooming with finger swipe. IMO if you are the type that does a lot of video recording, using a smartphone isn't the best choice and you are using the wrong tool for the job. Don't forget it's a phone first, with a very good camera built in. Expecting it to work like a stand alone camcorder with all the bells & whistles will leave you disappointed.

 

[WavingReds]

Re: Lumia 1020: Close, but no cigar

On the contrary. I was trying really hard to find a reason to buy this phone!

Then this is not for you =/

 

[lippidp]

Re: Lumia 1020: Close, but no cigar

Then this is not for you =/

The truth is that there is no phone for me. I'm just trying to get as close as possible. I had decided all the WP8 shortcomings I could deal with and was ready to rock until I tried the video zoom.

 

[lippidp]

Re: Lumia 1020: Close, but no cigar

To me it seems that MS is trying to get away from using hardware buttons and put more emphasis on touch controls, ie. Zooming with finger swipe. IMO if you are the type that does a lot of video recording, using a smartphone isn't the best choice and you are using the wrong tool for the job. Don't forget it's a phone first, with a very good camera built in. Expecting it to work like a stand alone camcorder with all the bells & whistles will leave you disappointed.

I wasn't expecting anything other than features included with the phone to work well. I'm no big time videographer, but I do use the zoom quite a bit because I'm rarely next to my kids when they're doing the crazy **** they do. I zoom to get in there with them. That is the only bell or whistle I use on the camcorder!

 

[lippidp]

Re: Lumia 1020: Close, but no cigar

View attachment 38701

The next time you are out with your camcorder, you should call me from it. We'll do lunch.

...Oh, wait. Comparing a camcorder to a phone is just silly.

LOL. Ok, I disagree that comparing the mighty Lumia 1020 to a camcorder is silly. Anyway, have you been able to get video zoom to be smooth? Can you try it with a stylus from one of your old WM phones and see if that works better than using your finger?

 

[ParoleGA]

Re: Lumia 1020: Close, but no cigar

LOL. Ok, I disagree that comparing the mighty Lumia 1020 to a camcorder is silly. Anyway, have you been able to get video zoom to be smooth? Can you try it with a stylus from one of your old WM phones and see if that works better than using your finger?

If what you saw was anything like the video from http://forums.windowscentral.com/no...body-else-have-camera-shake-their-1020-a.html, that is a defective unit, and not normal.

https://skydrive.live.com/pagenotfounderror should be about what you get. I also used the camera grip when shooting this. The extra weight and grip help a lot with stability, which are both poor on a device this light, and while gripping with your fingertips and thumbs. It definitely prefers a still cameraman, and it will try to correct even movement you intend. I would prefer if they tuned down the OIS a bit, or made it so you could turn it off. A couple of times in the video, I shook the camera, to show how aggressive the OIS can be. You can see it slapping back pretty hard. It isn't perfect, but is pretty good for a phone. And color and clarity are great.

P.S.
Download the video, or allow Skydrive to buffer, or it is pretty bad.

 

[lippidp]

Re: Lumia 1020: Close, but no cigar

If what you saw was anything like the video from http://forums.windowscentral.com/no...body-else-have-camera-shake-their-1020-a.html, that is a defective unit, and not normal.

https://skydrive.live.com/pagenotfounderror should be about what you get. I also used the camera grip when shooting this. The extra weight and grip help a lot with stability, which are both poor on a device this light, and while gripping with your fingertips and thumbs. It definitely prefers a still cameraman, and it will try to correct even movement you intend. I would prefer if they tuned down the OIS a bit, or made it so you could turn it off. A couple of times in the video, I shook the camera, to show how aggressive the OIS can be. You can see it slapping back pretty hard. It isn't perfect, but is pretty good for a phone. And color and clarity are great.

P.S.
Download the video, or allow Skydrive to buffer, or it is pretty bad.

Wow! Thank you for doing that! In your video is what I experienced. The zooming in and out is choppy and not smooth. I don't know. Maybe I'd get used to it.

 

[gsquared]

Re: Lumia 1020: Close, but no cigar

I'll quote something I read earlier today.

"Troll harder man"

 

[lippidp]

Re: Lumia 1020: Close, but no cigar

I'll quote something I read earlier today.

"Troll harder man"

I will pass on to you in return an original thought of mine.

"Lick my balls."

 

[Rockyfancino]

my first post

 

[RiseUpGames]

My best guess why it's not smooth is because of binning.

On lenses with manual zoom, there is a near-infinite amount of steps the lens can move throughout its zoom range. When doing digital zoom on a high megapixel count sensor, it's pretty hard to achieve the same amount of precision in real-time, and here is possibly why: (it's late and I'm sleepy and this it as oversimplified as I can make it and I could still be totally off, fair warning

In an ideal world, the hardware would shove all 41 megapixels into some stream, and from that steam bin the data using some nice smoothed software algorithms to generate a smooth zoom. So, 41 megapixels * 4 bytes (each pixel should only be 3 bytes, but we'll use 4 since it's easier for byte-alignment on a hardware level) * 30 frames per second = 4.92GB/s. That's an insane amount of data to be analyzing every second on a phone. And that's not even counting the real-time video encoding that would happening at the same time.

When designing mobile hardware, efficiency is one's top priority. What Nokia has probably done is program a finite set of zoom intervals into the hardware, which guarantees to bin a 1080p signal at each step. Using the same math above, that's only about 250MB/s, much easier on the encoder, and much easier on the hardware.

Hardware is not like software -- the way it behaves can't be changed on the fly, and in order to make it all work and ship on time, their engineers could probably only enable a finite set of zoom levels at launch. It could be something that can be improved with a firmware update, but it's all just guesses at this point. Hope this helps!

 

[tissotti]

Does anybody have a video example? I find the video zoom very smooth on 808PV.

Are you people also sure there even is pinch and zoom gesture on camera? On 808 there's only slide down and up to zoom, works near perfect. Was actually just coming here to ask if this was available on 1020.

EDIT here's how it works on 808 (starts from 5:35)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtjBzHjzjjk

 

[lippidp]

My best guess why it's not smooth is because of binning.

On lenses with manual zoom, there is a near-infinite amount of steps the lens can move throughout its zoom range. When doing digital zoom on a high megapixel count sensor, it's pretty hard to achieve the same amount of precision in real-time, and here is possibly why: (it's late and I'm sleepy and this it as oversimplified as I can make it and I could still be totally off, fair warning

In an ideal world, the hardware would shove all 41 megapixels into some stream, and from that steam bin the data using some nice smoothed software algorithms to generate a smooth zoom. So, 41 megapixels * 4 bytes (each pixel should only be 3 bytes, but we'll use 4 since it's easier for byte-alignment on a hardware level) * 30 frames per second = 4.92GB/s. That's an insane amount of data to be analyzing every second on a phone. And that's not even counting the real-time video encoding that would happening at the same time.

When designing mobile hardware, efficiency is one's top priority. What Nokia has probably done is program a finite set of zoom intervals into the hardware, which guarantees to bin a 1080p signal at each step. Using the same math above, that's only about 250MB/s, much easier on the encoder, and much easier on the hardware.

Hardware is not like software -- the way it behaves can't be changed on the fly, and in order to make it all work and ship on time, their engineers could probably only enable a finite set of zoom levels at launch. It could be something that can be improved with a firmware update, but it's all just guesses at this point. Hope this helps!

This is good information and sounds right. I will try using 24 fps and 720p to see if that gives a smoother zoom.

 

[lippidp]

Does anybody have a video example? I find the video zoom very smooth on 808PV.

Are you people also sure there even is pinch and zoom gesture on camera? On 808 there's only slide down and up to zoom, works near perfect. Was actually just coming here to as if this was available on 1020.

There is a sample in this thread. Yes, it is a finger swipe up and down, not pinching. It does not have the box as in the example you provided - it just zooms in and out. In the 808 video the zooming did look choppy to me. I suppose if you've never used zoom on a camcorder maybe you don't know what you're missing?

 

[hcrick]

Well based on Parole's demonstration I do see the occasional stutter but it wouldn't bother me in the least. In fact I probably wouldn't have even noticed it if not for this thread. Only way it's an issue is if it jumps so much that it keeps overshooting where I want to stop. Personally, I wouldn't call the zooming choppy but maybe I'm more forgiving....

 

[tissotti]

There is a sample in this thread. Yes, it is a finger swipe up and down, not pinching. It does not have the box as in the example you provided - it just zooms in and out. In the 808 video the zooming did look choppy to me. I suppose if you've never used zoom on a camcorder maybe you don't know what you're missing?

I have used quite a bit of camcorder as i work for a company that brings professional video and audio equipment to the country. Among other things. Can't say I'm camcorder guy at all though, more of a audio and DSLR guy.

Maybe you had put your expectations a bit high? It's not a camcorder and never was meant to be. It's a smartphone that competes against cheaper standalone cameras and high end phones.

I personally was amazed by the 808PV smoothness on zoom. Can't quite but my expectations any higher than that from a phone imo. Huge fan of the up and down for zoom personally.

From 808 PureView
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvBmi_Bz0C0

 

[bawboh86]

I tested the zoom on mine, and yeah, it's a bit choppy, especially compared to a camcorder. For a phone with a ridiculously high resolution sensor, I'm pretty impressed, though.

Oh, and pinch to zoom does work as well as the sliding finger up and down. :wink:

 

[TechFreak1]

Re: Lumia 1020: Close, but no cigar

If what you saw was anything like the video from http://forums.windowscentral.com/no...body-else-have-camera-shake-their-1020-a.html, that is a defective unit, and not normal.

https://skydrive.live.com/pagenotfounderror should be about what you get. I also used the camera grip when shooting this. The extra weight and grip help a lot with stability, which are both poor on a device this light, and while gripping with your fingertips and thumbs. It definitely prefers a still cameraman, and it will try to correct even movement you intend. I would prefer if they tuned down the OIS a bit, or made it so you could turn it off. A couple of times in the video, I shook the camera, to show how aggressive the OIS can be. You can see it slapping back pretty hard. It isn't perfect, but is pretty good for a phone. And color and clarity are great.

P.S.
Download the video, or allow Skydrive to buffer, or it is pretty bad.

For a phone that is preetty darn good, cheers for uploading the sample.