The amount of noise in these images is too high!

[tbonecopper]

Today I acquired a Lumia 1020, black, from the at&t store. Have to admit, I was super excited until I got home and saw the images this thing produces. Maybe I got a bad phone, but I doubt it. The images are incredibly noisy, and I expected much better.

Before anyone asks, yes I'm looking at the images with high-res in the file name. And all of these were on automatic settings (except for one or two where I turned the flash to "assist only".)

Links below... have a look. Is it this bad everywhere? Maybe a bad phone? The images is horribly oversampled and pixelated even at low zoom levels, or default "just looking at the picture". My Lumia 920 doesn't look like this on normal photos (when you don't zoom in). I'm *really* tempted to return the device.

http://nyc.mt-cloud.com/lumia/1.jpg
http://nyc.mt-cloud.com/lumia/1-highres.jpg
http://nyc.mt-cloud.com/lumia/2.jpg
http://nyc.mt-cloud.com/lumia/2-highres.jpg
http://nyc.mt-cloud.com/lumia/3-reframed.jpg
http://nyc.mt-cloud.com/lumia/3-highres.jpg
http://nyc.mt-cloud.com/lumia/4.jpg
http://nyc.mt-cloud.com/lumia/4-highres.jpg
http://nyc.mt-cloud.com/lumia/5.jpg
http://nyc.mt-cloud.com/lumia/5-highres.jpg

 

[thaddyusmaximus]

I think they are fine. How are you viewing them? I'm looking at your pics using a 15" thinkpad with 16x9 res and look fine to me. I can only see the noise when zoomed in. The photos are pretty sharp. Although I think it would be nice if we can control the sharpness and saturation like on the 808.

 

[falconeight]

I think they look amazing

 

[jt09xlt]

I also think they look fine. Try adjusting settings to see if it helps at all. On a lighter note holy landscape lights batman!

 

[crash1989]

They are not the best shots with a 1020 but they are not as pixelated or grainy IMO. The high res shots are less sharper than 5MP ones which is understandable, the extra sharpening is clearly visible.

I think you should capture some more images and compare it with another device , say your 920.

 

[tbonecopper]

I think they are fine. How are you viewing them? I'm looking at your pics using a 15" thinkpad with 16x9 res and look fine to me. I can only see the noise when zoomed in. The photos are pretty sharp. Although I think it would be nice if we can control the sharpness and saturation like on the 808.

Viewing on Windows 7, in browser : Chrome... otherwise the Windows Picture Preview app... resolution on my monitor is 1920x1080.

I think they look amazing

Are you trolling me? lol

I also think they look fine. Try adjusting settings to see if it helps at all. On a lighter note holy landscape lights batman!

Hah, yea. It's a "thing". I live in BFE. You can see almost all of the constellations from here (when they're above our part of the sky, anyway). No city smog

It's the noise in the images when doing a light zoom, not heavy intense zoom. Images just get noisy/blurry. I'm not too keen on it, tbh.

 

[tbonecopper]

They are not the best shots with a 1020 but they are not as pixelated or grainy IMO. The high res shots are less sharper than 5MP ones which is understandable, the extra sharpening is clearly visible.

I think you should capture some more images and compare it with another device , say your 920.

Yea, I'll have to do that later this evening when I'm not playing the role of desk rabbit.

 

[hcrick]

That's not noise, that's your window screen.

Seriously though, the pictures look great IMO and I don't think my tolerances are unusually low. Give me first dibs if you decide to ditch your "bad" 1020.

 

[vlad0]

If your eyes are that sensitive to noise (I am the same way) you should've been able to see it right from the first official images Nokia published at launch day...

I think they will be able to remedy to some degree with software updates, but don't expect 808 like performance in terms of noise levels.

 

[webfoot1]

I think the photos look great!

 

[Dk92]

The only photo that didn't look very good was the one of the dumpster. All of the other ones look great.

 

[tbonecopper]

The only photo that didn't look very good was the one of the dumpster. All of the other ones look great.

Interestingly, that picture is a reframe of the larger version also linked.

 

[Stil_1]

If your eyes are that sensitive to noise (I am the same way) you should've been able to see it right from the first official images Nokia published at launch day...

I think they will be able to remedy to some degree with software updates, but don't expect 808 like performance in terms of noise levels.

Why do you say that? I would expect the issues we are seeing is primarily software and not really hardware related. yes the pixels are smaller, but they are BSI, so they don't have a screendoor effect on top of the larger pixel. Lens is a wider aperture, so more light in general can hit the sensor, so it should theoretically be a wash on the hardware side.

If you mean to get the same processing as an 808 does because it's hw vs sw, then that would only affect speed of processing, not end result, right? In any case, I'm hoping for the same customization as the 808 so we can get a closer comparison since the processing on the 1020 is currently not to everyone's tastes.

 

[Rodrigo Mendes]

Really nice to me too.

 

[WinFan1]

Those photos are beautiful dude.

 

[Muessig]

These really aren't all that noisy. The level of noise you see in these pictures can be incredibly easily removed using post processing if it bothers you that much. I think you need to manage the expectations you have from a fixed aperture device - see my Photography guide in my signature for more information on this. I've seen pictures taken with a variety of DSLR's that have just as much if not more noise than this - granted maybe taken at a higher ISO.

 

[GolferChris68]

The level of noise is very low in these. Your camera is fine. And if you print any of these, you won't see the noise at all.

 

[Edgar Ochoa]

these pics are really great, I guess you can really zoom in with these pics! you can read the "11798" on the mailbox!

 

[TechFreak1]

just quickly scanned through the images damn these look pretty good especially the flowers.

 

[thaddyusmaximus]

I suggest try viewing on another monitor. All of us here cannot see higher then normal noise. There's also just a tad bit more noise than my 808 but these photos are sharper.