Lumia 930 camera...

[thatuxguy]

So after a day with the 930 I'm finding myself a little underwhelmed by the camera.

The images taken in comparison to my iphone 5s are not that great and are looking terribly grainy. Considering the camera is meant to be 20mp, I'm a little confused to why we don't have the option to utilise the full 20mp camera. But are stuck with 5mp and a 16mp image to crop?!

I am new to this new Lumia experience so maybe someone can shed some light on apps or ways to improve my images.

Other than this camera issue the phone feels great to use, and feels well crafted.

Thanks in advance.

 

[thatuxguy]

Ok so I have had a little while to read up on how these cameras work.

Nokia have decided that 5mp is the sweet spot, why not 8mp, any way the photos taken are downscaled/sampled to from 16mp to these 5mp images for ease of sharing.

Well that makes sense. However does not explain why my 5mp images look rubbish. So if I want to actually access the full 5376 x 3024 (16mp) image I need to access it via a computer.

This explains why I was advised to use lightroom!

Well its the weekend so time to play and get more associated with my new Lumia 930.

 

[Mizmo]

1. more mp doesn't mean better quality
2. if the image is grainy more mp will make it probably even more grany

I didn't read much into it but I think the 5mp picture is not only a resized version of the 16mp one but it uses the full 20mp for oversampling so in theory you get a better picture. 16MP is highres without oversampling and 16MP DNG is RAW for later editing in lightroom or whatever software you use

didn't take much pictures yet but if I compare a couple of my landscape pictures, the 5MP version ist a little bit sharper than the 16MP one (16MP or resized to 5MP doesn't matter)

 

[Blacklac]

As a 1520 owner, the 20MP camera in these newer devices is only mediocre, sadly. It takes really nice pictures in bright sunlight, but beyond that, its just decent and noisy.

I own a 1020 as well, there's a clear difference in quality.

I really hope Cyan firmware brings some noticeable camera improvements, beyond speed!

Oh, I think the whole thing with 20MP taking 16MP is because the sensor is round and it must take a square/rectangular image out of that circular 20MP image, hence a 16MP image is remaining. That's what I read anyway, that's a bit over my head as far as my own knowledge of camera parts.

 

[EssVeeEll]

I think this happens with all cameras, or at least all phone cameras.

I have a 1020m and as I recall, I can only get a 38mp photo or something like that. There's a data loss as it's put into a file; since there's no way to shoot in RAW(RAW is a lossless picture file format), the photos default to .jpg, which is a compression format. Hope this helps.

-SVL

 

[thatuxguy]

Thanks for the replies. Just strange coming from iPhone which takes 8mp images (i heard 8mp was pretty much the best the human eye can notice.) the images well some are just nit as nice.

Practice is needed I think to get used to it as it seems to be a totally different beast to iPhone photography.

 

[thatuxguy]

Thank you WPCentral yo my rescue lol

http://www.windowscentral.com/latest-proshot-update-has-additional-lumia-resolution-options-and-more

Just tested this app... My god my photos have improve 100x!!!!

 

[Matthias Verboven]

I posted this too in another thread: If you open your photo's on the OneDrive website (NOT APP) you get your full 16MP image.

 

[Miska Hietala]

Oh if I recall, the 5s can be beaten only by 1020 except in speed. 1520 is in different league, and I believe 930 has same camera. Those compete with Android cameras and the iPhone 5c.
Sent from my NeverAndroidAgain**1020** via Tapatalk

 

[Blacklac]

You can't just lump all Android phone together. There are a few Android devices that can hang with the 1020. The 1020 may still be better but you have to look at blown up shots of individual pixels. The S5 and one of the Oppo devices come to mind. I wouldn't be surprised if one of those were better than the 5S, too.

But, I agree, the Nokia 20MP devices aren't in that same league. Sadly. Hopefully Cyan can close that gap.

 

[Miska Hietala]

You can't just lump all Android phone together. There are a few Android devices that can hang with the 1020. The 1020 may still be better but you have to look at blown up shots of individual pixels. The S5 and one of the Oppo devices come to mind. I wouldn't be surprised if one of those were better than the 5S, too.

But, I agree, the Nokia 20MP devices aren't in that same league. Sadly. Hopefully Cyan can close that gap.

It's just that I have read pretty much every comparison there is between these phones. In some areas androids and iPhones are better(mostly only speed), but overall quality is best in 1020 and 808 pureview😊

 

[Miska Hietala]

Not to say there isn't good ones in Android - there is.
Sent from my NeverAndroidAgain**1020** via Tapatalk

 

[thatuxguy]

You can't just lump all Android phone together. There are a few Android devices that can hang with the 1020. The 1020 may still be better but you have to look at blown up shots of individual pixels. The S5 and one of the Oppo devices come to mind. I wouldn't be surprised if one of those were better than the 5S, too.

But, I agree, the Nokia 20MP devices aren't in that same league. Sadly. Hopefully Cyan can close that gap.

I have the Lumia 930 which has cyan

 

[thatuxguy]

I only mentioned iphone as that's where my experience has been. I personally am not a fan of android but am impressed with the Sony Z2.

 

[Bahamen]

Thanks for the replies. Just strange coming from iPhone which takes 8mp images (i heard 8mp was pretty much the best the human eye can notice.) the images well some are just nit as nice.

Practice is needed I think to get used to it as it seems to be a totally different beast to iPhone photography.

I'm very curious about this - do you mind posting some sample photos from both cameras?

 

[Macrohard]

Hey, I have an Icon which from what I've gathered is basically the same as the 930. To get 19 MP (you can never really get the full 20 MP) you have to go to settings assuming you're using Nokia Camera) and change the aspect ratio to 4:3, you'll have black bars when taking a picture because of the aspect ratio difference, it's set at 16:9 by default. You can either save them at 4:3 as JPEG (5 MP) + JPEG (19 MP) or JPEG (5 MP) + DNG (19 MP). I hope this helps!

 

[th0mas96]

And I can just say it again, the camera on the 930 is really awesome, especially for a phone. To me, the only problem is the white balance. If anyone wants to test it out, just shoot DNG's and open them with something like Photoshop (or Lightroom, etc.. ) With Photoshop and Lightroom you can, directly after opening the DNG, set white balance from original to automatic - and suddenly the picture is really awesome

 

[thatuxguy]

And I can just say it again, the camera on the 930 is really awesome, especially for a phone. To me, the only problem is the white balance. If anyone wants to test it out, just shoot DNG's and open them with something like Photoshop (or Lightroom, etc.. ) With Photoshop and Lightroom you can, directly after opening the DNG, set white balance from original to automatic - and suddenly the picture is really awesome

I'm gonne try this later today

 

[arni99]

The 930's video-OIS really sucks. My electronic iphone 5s stabilization is way better.
Tested this today while driving my car.

 

[TechFreak1]

Can you guys please post some video and photo samples? I'm sure the rest of us who have are either waiting on their phones or have chosen to wait for McLaren are curious to see how good the camera is. Like they say "a picture is a worth a thousand words" :winktongue:.