Lumia 1520 vs. Lumia 920

[msalmank]

Hi,

Is there anyone here who moved from the Lumia 920 to the 1520? It's been almost two months since I made the move and I'm finding it hard to believe that my Lumia 920 gave superb photo outputs as compared to the 1520 which has been somewhat of a disappointment with indoor captures.

I was eagerly waiting for Lumia Cyan as that promised to improve on the quality, but even after moving to Cyan, the end results don't seem to be as good as the 920. Outdoor photography in the daylight is excellent on the 1520... But any indoor photos that I take aren't up to expectations. I use the Nokia Camera with default settings. (sometimes ProCam gives better results indoor!!)

What's the best way to ensure better photography with the Lumia 1520? My wife's iPhone puts the Lumia to shame when taking indoor photos - back when I was using the 920, it beat the iPhone 5 in all captures (in my opinion) especially when I made a trip to the northern regions of Pakistan and captured tons of photos. I love the 1520 despite the glitches (screen tap), but camera quality is one thing I might not compromise on much longer.

HELP!!!

Regards.

 

[Aviad Kohn]

I did the same move from 920 to 1520. My camera experience is different the 1520 is way better and the colors are beautiful. The only thing I've changed is the way I take the photo: With the 920 I was touching the screen to take the photo and with the 1520 I'm half pressing the camera button on the side for focus and then press it to take the shot. Sorry for my English

Sent from my RM-937_eu_euro1_231 using Tapatalk

 

[anon(7900571)]

Why not use this guide http://forums.windowscentral.com/gu...so-you-want-take-better-pictures-[guide].html :smile:

 

[manomic]

I made a comparison between my 928 and 1520. I did notice that the pics from 928 had more details in the darker areas than the 1520 but on the flip side, details in the brighter spots looked washed. With a flash, the 1520 does a great job, produces much better results. At least to me, among the following pics, I wont pick the 928 coz it exposed the bike so much that the neon lights look blown, giving a not so desirable result. I agree the other phones did not get the girl's face properly but believe the 1520/930 would fall in between the 928 and the iphone/galaxy s4 giving a better end result. Also, check the iphone's pic in your comp not in the phone itself, the pic may be brighter but would have more noise and less details.

 

[anon(7900571)]

I made a comparison between my 928 and 1520. I did notice that the pics from 928 had more details in the darker areas than the 1520 but on the flip side, details in the brighter spots looked washed. With a flash, the 1520 does a great job, produces much better results. At least to me, among the following pics, I wont pick the 928 coz it exposed the bike so much that the neon lights look blown, giving a not so desirable result. I agree the other phones did not get the girl's face properly but believe the 1520/930 would fall in between the 928 and the iphone/galaxy s4 giving a better end result. Also, check the iphone's pic in your comp not in the phone itself, the pic may be brighter but would have more noise and less details.

View attachment 74788

Here is that video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=did4clABUKA

 

[msalmank]

Why not use this guide http://forums.windowscentral.com/gu...so-you-want-take-better-pictures-[guide].html :smile:

Thanks Himanshu. I actually take all the necesaary measures. I just switched my camera settings on the 1520 to do DMG capture... The more powerful post processing options using softwares on my PC is definitely worth it!

With Cyan still fresh on the device, i'm hopeful that i'll see a difference soon...

 

[msalmank]

I made a comparison between my 928 and 1520. I did notice that the pics from 928 had more details in the darker areas than the 1520 but on the flip side, details in the brighter spots looked washed. With a flash, the 1520 does a great job, produces much better results. At least to me, among the following pics, I wont pick the 928 coz it exposed the bike so much that the neon lights look blown, giving a not so desirable result. I agree the other phones did not get the girl's face properly but believe the 1520/930 would fall in between the 928 and the iphone/galaxy s4 giving a better end result. Also, check the iphone's pic in your comp not in the phone itself, the pic may be brighter but would have more noise and less details.

View attachment 74788

I agree about the iPhone. It does produce great results in some cases but does have more noise compared to the Lumia... I was only referring to low-light photos where it had more detail in some cases.

 

[jomarr]

I moved from the 920 to the 1520 and I take far more better pictures in my 1520. And by far, I mean REALLY far. Def not a DSLR replacement but it's really great.

Maybe it's a faulty lens? Have you tried to get it checked with Nokia?

 

[Ed Boland]

I had a 920 first l, up until Amber, where I switched to a 1020. Had the 1020 for almost a year and took many great pics with it. Now I've moved on to a 1520... and I've got to say; with a fresh install of Cyan/8.1, I'm NOT disappointed at all with the pics it takes... even indoor or low light pics are incredible with the 1520! I'm very satisfied!

 

[msalmank]

I moved from the 920 to the 1520 and I take far more better pictures in my 1520. And by far, I mean REALLY far. Def not a DSLR replacement but it's really great.

Maybe it's a faulty lens? Have you tried to get it checked with Nokia?

I did consider that, but honestly knew that not to be the case as outdoor pictures were more than excellent with the 1520. It was mainly low-light photos that disappointed me a bit.

I guess I ought to learn to play with the Nokia Camera settings to optimize my photos a bit in different conditions. After cyan has been a massive improvement and I honestly haven't had much chance to go through some extensive testing indoors.

 

[msalmank]

I had a 920 first l, up until Amber, where I switched to a 1020. Had the 1020 for almost a year and took many great pics with it. Now I've moved on to a 1520... and I've got to say; with a fresh install of Cyan/8.1, I'm NOT disappointed at all with the pics it takes... even indoor or low light pics are incredible with the 1520! I'm very satisfied!

Thanks for that... It is far better than the iPhone now that I compared the photos on my laptop, just feels a bit lower than the 920 in lowlight conditions.

I'll play around with the camera settings... I'm sure once I get to some extensive shootout indoors (after having Cyan), I wont be disappointed...

 

[manomic]

I agree about the iPhone. It does produce great results in some cases but does have more noise compared to the Lumia... I was only referring to low-light photos where it had more detail in some cases.

Yeah correct.. My belief is that in order to preserve the detail in well lit portions, some detail in the darker sections is sacrificed by being exposed less.. Now in cases of complete darkness/uniformly lit low light shots, the 1520 is going to look duller than 920/928 coz of the above optimization.. The flash compensates for that issue very well..

 

[salmanahmad]

Hi,

Is there anyone here who moved from the Lumia 920 to the 1520? It's been almost two months since I made the move and I'm finding it hard to believe that my Lumia 920 gave superb photo outputs as compared to the 1520 which has been somewhat of a disappointment with indoor captures.

I was eagerly waiting for Lumia Cyan as that promised to improve on the quality, but even after moving to Cyan, the end results don't seem to be as good as the 920. Outdoor photography in the daylight is excellent on the 1520... But any indoor photos that I take aren't up to expectations. I use the Nokia Camera with default settings. (sometimes ProCam gives better results indoor!!)

What's the best way to ensure better photography with the Lumia 1520? My wife's iPhone puts the Lumia to shame when taking indoor photos - back when I was using the 920, it beat the iPhone 5 in all captures (in my opinion) especially when I made a trip to the northern regions of Pakistan and captured tons of photos. I love the 1520 despite the glitches (screen tap), but camera quality is one thing I might not compromise on much longer.

HELP!!!

Regards.

I can help you but you need to specify what the Lumia 920 does better.

Nokia Lumia devices come with Nokia Camera installed, undoubtedly the best camera app ever made. The huge amount of tweaking it offers to the users are unrivalled.

If you are talking about color reproduction I would recommend tweaking the white balance before taking images.

If you are talking about light then Lumia 1520 may never be able to produce the same crisp shots and this is because Lumia 920 uses an f2.0 aperture vs an f2.4 on the 1520, the bump in aperture boosts camera speeds in lowlight but such an aperture also lowers detail.

If you want to capture better indoor shots try to scale down the ISO as much as you can while maintaining enough light and a decent shutter speed and try framing your shots better.

I no longer own a Windows Phone but actively take an interest. HDR helps a lot in lowlight photos, seriously. My Nexus 5 has an f2.4 aperture but an 8 Megapixel camera if you have steady hands the HDR mode adds more light and detail by exposing the shots differently.

I hope Nokia/Microsoft adds HDR soon.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[msalmank]

I can help you but you need to specify what the Lumia 920 does better.

Nokia Lumia devices come with Nokia Camera installed, undoubtedly the best camera app ever made. The huge amount of tweaking it offers to the users are unrivalled.

If you are talking about color reproduction I would recommend tweaking the white balance before taking images.

If you are talking about light then Lumia 1520 may never be able to produce the same crisp shots and this is because Lumia 920 uses an f2.0 aperture vs an f2.4 on the 1520, the bump in aperture boosts camera speeds in lowlight but such an aperture also lowers detail.

If you want to capture better indoor shots try to scale down the ISO as much as you can while maintaining enough light and a decent shutter speed and try framing your shots better.

I no longer own a Windows Phone but actively take an interest. HDR helps a lot in lowlight photos, seriously. My Nexus 5 has an f2.4 aperture but an 8 Megapixel camera if you have steady hands the HDR mode adds more light and detail by exposing the shots differently.

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/08/03/zyse4ezy.jpg

I hope Nokia/Microsoft adds HDR soon.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Thanks for that explanation... It makes sense now why the Lumia 920 produced better results in some instances.

I just tried a popular HDR camera from the marketplace and it did produce shockingly good results in low lights! And you're right, I'll need to tweak the settings a bit on the camera app... I just got spoilt with never having to tweak much of anything on the 920!

 

[switch side method]

Plus after cyan the low light pics are a hell lot better. I found this out myself.

 

[salmanahmad]

Thanks for that explanation... It makes sense now why the Lumia 920 produced better results in some instances.

I just tried a popular HDR camera from the marketplace and it did produce shockingly good results in low lights! And you're right, I'll need to tweak the settings a bit on the camera app... I just got spoilt with never having to tweak much of anything on the 920!

However there are benefits. Since the Lumia 1520 has the latest Pureview camera sensor it can handle up to ISO 4000 and still maintain good detail and let in a lot of detail.

I recommend reading more about photography online but online tutorials are often more difficult and some of the things differ.

Read the inbuilt tutorials of the Nokia Camera, will be really helpful.

Plus after cyan the low light pics are a hell lot better. I found this out myself.

Nokia did promise better lowlight photos, glad to see that the improvement is noticeable.

Oh and I had a question for the both of you. Do you guys use 4:3 or 16:9 and how is continuous focus in Lumia Cyan?

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[switch side method]

I tried both as the 4:3 gives the most pixels but when I transfered the pics to laptop it said the pixels are the same as 16:9 so I thought sod it I will keep 16:9 as it takes up the whole screen. To be honest I thought it was already shooting in full 20 megapixels and wouldn't have known any better if I didn't see a thread about it.

 

[Dreamspell]

Shoot pictures with an ISO of 100 or 200 to get the best quality. 400 if you want a faster shutter speed, but with a reduction in quality.

 

[salmanahmad]

I tried both as the 4:3 gives the most pixels but when I transfered the pics to laptop it said the pixels are the same as 16:9 so I thought sod it I will keep 16:9 as it takes up the whole screen. To be honest I thought it was already shooting in full 20 megapixels and wouldn't have known any better if I didn't see a thread about it.

I've always been confused about which is better, 4:3 or 16:9. No one has written a compelling article about it or a good video.

However I did hear someone say that if you still print photos, 4:3 is the way to go as it is the closest to real paper.

Shoot pictures with an ISO of 100 or 200 to get the best quality. 400 if you want a faster shutter speed, but with a reduction in quality.

The amazing fact about Nokia Camera is that when you change ISO the app also changes the shutter speed and exposure as well, so keep the ISO as low as possible while also looking at the shutter speed.

If the shutter speed exceeds 1s there is no way you can keep camera steady that long, unless you have a tripod.

If you have encounter a 1s shutter speed, ramp up the ISO till you find a suitable shutter speed like 1/4 or something better.

The Auto settings try to keep the ISO high in indoor situations so that the average Joe doesn't blur everything.

Basically if you have steady hands you should opt for a lower ISO and never forget changing white balance!

If you have any other questions regarding mobile photography feel free to reply to this post.

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[switch side method]

Thanks. Didn't realise that would do the pixel a higher quality. Will try that