Newbie Question... 16mp images?

It's a smartphone, not a PC and should not require a manual or tutorials. How would my dad for instance understand that, especially from coming from an iphone where it's tap to take photos and share.

The issue people are having is the unnecessary difficulty in taking high quality photos and sharing them. You shouldn't have to learn this, it should just work for every customer.
It's actually just as easy on WP as it is on iOS.... Snap a picture, hit the share button. The 5MP version is more than enough for any social purpose, whether it's Instagram of Facebook or whatever. You don't NEED a manual or tutorials, they are offered however, to help you show what more it can do over other smartphones and to help you get the most out of the tech that is a selling point and probably one of the reasons people buy the phone...

Exactly, the people shouting to read the manual etc are the ones who are used to the strange way WP works with photos.
Just to clarify... this is not a WP issue. This is a Nokia issue, stemming from decisions they made in developing their Pureview tech. Take an Samsung Ativ S (example) and it will work like a 'normal' phone. It's shoots an 8MP picture, but of lesser quality and generally larger filesize.

Quick explanation of Pureview for anyone not familiar, this might help with 'newbie' questions:

- High MP sensor which is round, so taking a rectangular piece will be less MP than the actual sensor, therefore 19 or 16 MP
- From the high MP image they generate a 5MP image which filters out noise etc. as Nokia felt this is the sweet spot in terms of quality and file size for sharing.
- The high MP image is stored for later use if you want to reframe a shot or zoom in. It is not shown in the gallery since that would mean all your pics are shown twice. You can have this version uploaded to OneDrive automatically or manually, or transfer via USB.
- To have absolute control over your image you can shoot in a raw format and post-process. This is not for everyone and requires some basic photography knowlegde to get any decent results.

I think that about covers it. If you are expecting a standard snapshot experience, it's a bit different but even that is provided out of the box. I don't see how it is confusing if all you want to do is take pictures, since you can do so immediately without any help or instructions. The Pureview tech just offers more for those who are interested and those care enough to spend 30 seconds reading up on the options :).
 
To get the high res images you will need to plug in your phone into your PC via usb cable and there should be two images of your photo - one larger than the other and may have _high resolution in the file name. You can also try using a file manager (i am not sure if the high resolution images will appear in a file manager - don't have a 1520, 1020 or 930 to check) and sending it to you pc via bluetooth.

People need to realise not everyone is technically proficient, so telling them to read the manual is pointless. Some even get confused after reading it, as it resembles nothing but gibberish to them. Yes I know.. some of you are probably thinking how hard can it be to read yada yada, you need to understand there are people who suffer from dyslexia or are visual kinesthetic learners - which means they learn better by physically using their hands with visual or vocal guidance, in this case the device along with a visual aid (I teach kids and adults how to use computers).

There are certain nuances for windows phone that need to be taught, like attaching documents which can only done in the office hub and now where else in windows phone 8.0. So making every aspect of the o/s simple to use is more beneficial in the longer run, especially if windows phone is going to appeal to those who are buying / upgrading to their first smartphone.

Therefore they should have made it more simple to share the high res image by providing that option in the share screen in the photo hub & camera app, something simple along the lines "Share 16 Megapixel image".
 
Exactly, the people shouting to read the manual etc are the ones who are used to the strange way WP works with photos.

Android and iPhone are far easier to take snaps with, even though most pureview nokia's produce much better pictures.

Considering the simplicity of windows phone I'm surprised one of the most used features these days is not simpler.

Don't get me wrong I like WP and am glad to be back using it! And once I'm used to the camera ill be even happier!

Ok, again there is a auto running tutorial that starts the 1st time you start the camera app. How hard is it to watch a freakin tutorial? They clearly explain what to do for the average consumer. If you are savvy enough to even want to use the high MP images or the DNG files (or digital negatives as they are sometimes called) you are not the average consumer & should read up on what you can do & how to do it.

I'll say it again, one of the main features of Pureview cameras is taking the 41 MP or 20 MP image & oversampling (combining) the pixels in 7:1 or 4:1 to create a very high quality 5 MP image that is better than most if not all 8 or 13 MP photos from standard camera phones. This 5 MP image is the one 95% of users will interact with (share upload, etc) If you do want to access the higher MP images (which in most cases means you are not just an average Joe consumer) you can access them for additional post processing on a PC or tablet in either case all the images are auto up loaded to OneDrive which can be shared directly from Onedrive to anyone. If you want to reframe or zoom in or out on a shot you took you can & that's explained in the tutorials which is one of the main features of the Pureview cameras.

For reference:

Why the Nokia Lumia 1020 Oversampled Image is 5MP?

I will say my only gripe against the Nokia camera apps are the slow time to launch, slow focus & shot to shot time. The slow shot to shot is it doing the processing to make the high res 5 MP image. They need a dedicated image chip to make everything faster because the 5S & GS5 absolutely KILLS them with speed & very good to great images. The problem MS has is that the images from the 5S, GS5, Sony Experia Z2 are close enough or good enough to the Pureview images (especially when posting to social media) for 95% of consumers that it doesn't matter if the 1020, 1520 or 930/Icon images are a little better, most can't tell the difference anyway. Hopefully now that MS controls the hardware & software they can make the Pureview cameras just as fast, with significantly better images than the top competitors for it to really matter.
 
Because the Pureview cameras a very different than the Iphone cameras. I think it stupid thinking a Nokia phone should act like a iphone. It's really not hard, instead of skipping the tutorial that auto runs the 1st time you open the camera app, how about watch it to learn its features. You can also go back and watch them any time from the settings menu. I agree with the poster who says learn how to use your damn device before complaining...... I mean you buy a phone with a camera that is different than all others, has different features and you don't take the time to learn about it or the features, it should just be apparent? That's crazy. When i bought my 1st DLSR camera i spent a week learning how to use it & all the different features. And yes I watched all the tutorials for when I got the ICON & learned how to use it. all Lumias with Pureview cameras come with Nokia pro cam preloaded as the default camera on the start screen & when you press the camera button.

This person gets it! Thank you
 
I was wondering about this topic for myself for about a week. All I understood was that two photos are saved, one that is 5MP and one that is 16MP and was somehow not accessible.

Then again, I skipped the tutorials as I do most of the time. This is however not a smart move if you want to use all features of your new device. This thread has helped me a lot, so thanks for clarifying.

A phone should work without the need of a manual some argued. I would agree and that is true for the Nokia Lumia 930. But as with all devices that are more feature rich, taking full advantage of all features takes some time and/or explanations. Nokia does a good job of providing tutorials that are accessible from within the app itself.

Even though there are tutorials, some people like to discuss the topic with others more and get direct help in a thread like this one and I see no need of complaining about that. Read the ******* manual is no help at all.

Also those who blame the device for being unintuitive and say it should all work out of the box, I don't share that opinion with you. The Nokia Lumia definitely is very user friendly and WP8.1 is as intuitive as it gets, compared to iOS and Android it is the most accessible mobile OS. If you refuse to learn something more advances than just pressing a button, don't complain, it is your fault that you are only able to use the most basic functionality then.

OK, that was longer than intended. All I can say is that I enjoyed my Lumia from day one and now that I know how the camera really works I am still more excited.
 
Haven't scanned this whole thread, but one mistake I noticed early on is mixing up 5MP and 5MB. MP is Mega Pixels; MB is Mega Bytes. A 20MP photo is roughly 5MB in bytes.
 
there is no 16MP or 20MP when you capture any mode for this camera. info details always tell you that the images is 5MP. i dont understand how 16MP + 5MP absorbed to 5MP. why cant NOKIA just provide the actual 20MP??? i have tried so many apps in the market to show its 16MP or 20MP details info, but the resolution still as small as 3072X1728. its 5MP!!! NOKIA shouldnt bluff customers with DNG mode or whatsoever.... pls pls pls.. so disappointed when saw it was 5MP for thousand of images have been taken.:angry::angry::angry:
please unlock that 16MP or 20mp just like other camera - Samsung,Iphone, lenovo etc.. make it easier and easier. this is 2015/2016
 
the camera is built in MP... but the photos in MB.. you can compare the resolution of 20MP camera with 5MP camera RESOLUTION will give you different MB. 20MP is 5000X4000 but 5MP just about 3000X1700 pixels.. for me the issue is MP on the camera but not the MB of the photo. 24mp of DSLR can bring 30-40MB in RAW
 
I am using the latest windows 10 preview and in camera settings I have
Image size for main camera
Jpeg (19Mp)
Jpeg (5Mp)
Jpeg (5Mp)+Dng(19Mp)
 
I am using the latest windows 10 preview and in camera settings I have
Image size for main camera
Jpeg (19Mp)
Jpeg (5Mp)
Jpeg (5Mp)+Dng(19Mp)

Then you use as aspect ratio 4:3, if you change it to 16:9 then the "19" will be "16".