REALLY hope Nokia fixes the camera issue (soft photos)

[dave9851]

Despite what reviews say, this isn't only a problem with daytime shots. Nighttime shots suffer from this "soft" look too. The night shots are good at capturing lots of light, but still poor on the sharpening part.

It sucks because before taking a picture, when I push the camera button down to focus, the image in the screen looks BEAUTIFUL and very sharp/detailed. As soon as I take the picture, it completely changes the look and makes it very soft and takes away detail.

If nokia doesn't fix this within the 14 day return policy, I might take it back.

 

[Keith Wallace]

I really don't know what people are complaining about. Maybe it's because I have gone from a Droid Incredible, but my camera's a billion times better. I DID have the camera tint a video blue for a second, which wasn't that bad, but definitely an odd thing to have occur that I read about.

 

[dave9851]

People are complaining about the soft detail in the photos. If you don't notice it, then I don't know what to tell you.

It's easy to see. Focus on something close with your camera. Push the button down to focus and look how sharp/detailed the image on the screen looks, then look how it changes once you actually take the picture. Becomes soft and the sharpness is taken away.

It's obviously a software issue, I just hope nokia fixes it.

 

[Xsever]

People are complaining about the soft detail in the photos. If you don't notice it, then I don't know what to tell you.

It's easy to see. Focus on something close with your camera. Push the button down to focus and look how sharp/detailed the image on the screen looks, then look how it changes once you actually take the picture. Becomes soft and the sharpness is taken away.

It's obviously a software issue, I just hope nokia fixes it.

This is very true! You can easily notice it.

 

[Bkasm]

The Lumia 900 had camera issues when it first came out as well, and it didn't take too long for them to update the software. Which turned that camera from mediocre to great, just imagine what this camera will be like when they fix it. They will fix it. Be patient dude.

 

[dave9851]

Really? They fixed the lumia 900 camera?

Any before and after shots on that phone?

 

[Pete C]

People are complaining about the soft detail in the photos. If you don't notice it, then I don't know what to tell you.

It's easy to see. Focus on something close with your camera. Push the button down to focus and look how sharp/detailed the image on the screen looks, then look how it changes once you actually take the picture. Becomes soft and the sharpness is taken away.

It's obviously a software issue, I just hope nokia fixes it.

You might have a lemon. While I would not say that it is ultra-sharp, if I focus close-up on text the resulting image is very sharp where I am focusing in the center and only slightly soft on the edges. If it looks really dull and soft there is something wrong with your phone.

 

[dave9851]

No I don't.


That's one of the first things anyone says when they don't want to admit a fault in a phone. "You have a lemon!"

 

[independentvolume]

Really? They fixed the lumia 900 camera?

Any before and after shots on that phone?

They definitely did. Nokia is one of the few left that actually support their products.

 

[TomHensley]

How blurry is it? You don't have it set on "Close up" do you, under Photo Settings / Scenes (don't ask...)? Any other odd settings?

I've attached a real award winner as an example... Are you getting at least comparable sharpness?

I don't know what to say, does it compare to my full frame DSLR, ummm... no, but for what it is I think it is ok and I know that it is going to get better, most likely with a firmware update.

[edit] BTW, if you are going to pixel peep on the image I uploaded, this is the low rez version (just an example for sharpness). I have the same image full rez on my skydrive. If you want to see it, say the word and I'll upload it.

 

[Mpm277]

Despite what reviews say, this isn't only a problem with daytime shots. Nighttime shots suffer from this "soft" look too. The night shots are good at capturing lots of light, but still poor on the sharpening part.

It sucks because before taking a picture, when I push the camera button down to focus, the image in the screen looks BEAUTIFUL and very sharp/detailed. As soon as I take the picture, it completely changes the look and makes it very soft and takes away detail.

If nokia doesn't fix this within the 14 day return policy, I might take it back.

THIS. THIS. THIS. THIS. I was taking pictures outside yesterday and the picture would look absolutely stunning before I would snap the shot and then noticeably softer afterward. The pictures are still clear and nice, but no where near as sharp as they are on the screen before the picture was taken. I mean, every blade of grass was completely visible and detailed before I would snap the picture.

 

[dave9851]

THIS. THIS. THIS. THIS. I was taking pictures outside yesterday and the picture would look absolutely stunning before I would snap the shot and then noticeably softer afterward. The pictures are still clear and nice, but no where near as sharp as they are on the screen before the picture was taken. I mean, every blade of grass was completely visible and detailed before I would snap the picture.

Exactly. However, that is a good thing because at least we know it's not a hardware issue; it's all software and should only take a minor tweak.

 

[tumaykilinc]

THIS. THIS. THIS. THIS. I was taking pictures outside yesterday and the picture would look absolutely stunning before I would snap the shot and then noticeably softer afterward. The pictures are still clear and nice, but no where near as sharp as they are on the screen before the picture was taken. I mean, every blade of grass was completely visible and detailed before I would snap the picture.

I am certain it should be a software issue then, i haven't got this phone yet but i really hope it gets fixed too.

By the way, i have seen this pictures somewhere, it shows a higher OS version than current 920's

Again not sure if this has anything to do with an upcoming camera update or not, but the phone on the photo is Lumia 920. But there is no official statements that i know of, yet.

 

[vlad0]

People are complaining about the soft detail in the photos. If you don't notice it, then I don't know what to tell you.

It's easy to see. Focus on something close with your camera. Push the button down to focus and look how sharp/detailed the image on the screen looks, then look how it changes once you actually take the picture. Becomes soft and the sharpness is taken away.

It's obviously a software issue, I just hope nokia fixes it.

Hmm.. I don't know if the change in sharpness from the view finder tot he final post-processed jpeg have much in common.

When you are looking trough the screen, I think its only showing you the picture in 0.9Mpix (720p) or whatever the screen resolution is.. its not showing you the 8Mpix image in real time. So.. try this, take a 8Mpix image that you took with the phone, downsize it to 1Mpix, and look at it on your 920 screen.. and then see which one looks better..

 

[Pete C]

THIS. THIS. THIS. THIS. I was taking pictures outside yesterday and the picture would look absolutely stunning before I would snap the shot and then noticeably softer afterward. The pictures are still clear and nice, but no where near as sharp as they are on the screen before the picture was taken. I mean, every blade of grass was completely visible and detailed before I would snap the picture.

Every cameraphone exhibits this behavior. The end results are what should be compared to other devices...not what you see on your screen beforehand.

 

[Mpm277]

Every cameraphone exhibits this behavior. The end results are what should be compared to other devices...not what you see on your screen beforehand.

I never noticed it on my iPhone. That's not me saying the iPhone is better, I just never noticed such a difference in quality and sharpness.

 

[vlad0]

I never noticed it on my iPhone. That's not me saying the iPhone is better, I just never noticed such a difference in quality and sharpness.

It depends on how the images are rendered on the screen.. The only way to look at the image quality is on a well calibrated 15+ inch screen at 100%.

My iphone 5 for example "hides" behind the fact that the OS won't let you zoom @ 100% on the screen..so they look great on the phone, but once you put them on a bigger screen things change rather quickly.

 

[Averry]

I haven't had a chance to really play with it myself, but it does seem that Nokia is over scrubbing out the noise and there for deteriorating the sharpness.


I'm a fairly experienced photographer (I had a 5D Mark III and Photoshop CS6) so I'm not too concerned about this camera, but if I have to do some editing with Nokia's software, it's nothing i'm not used to.

 

[jmarbutt]

This is why I return 2 920's

I made the switch from Verizon to AT&T just to purchase the Lumia 920. I bought 2 of them and it only took a few hours to find this issue compounded by the speed of taking pictures was extremely disappointing.

I probably could take 5 pictures on my iPhone compared to 1 photo on the Lumia. For a phone that its main feature is the camera, this is extremely disappointing. We ended up taking them both back before the weekend was out.

Hopefully the phones on Verizon will handle this better.

 

[sdreamer]

I don't have a 920, my dad just got one, but I won't see it until the weekend because I'm at university. Anyways, I know on my 900, unless you zoom in on the picture you take, it looks really soft. Once you zoom in, the sharpness comes back due to the constraints of showing a high resolution photo on a lower resolution screen. Not sure if this is the case on the 920, but try zooming in slightly on a photo after taking it and see if that helps.