Zoom insufficient or am I getting paranoid?

[AlexCuria]

I would like some advice because I'm really puzzled.
The worst thing is not knowing: if you have a problem or you think you have a problem.

I'll try to explain myself.

I have a Lumia 1020 with Developer Preview 8.1 installed.(Also had a Lumia 720 before).

When I take 5+34 MP pictures (using both Proshot and Nokia Camera) the results are in my eyes far from what the marketing and what people say they are. I expected outstanding zoom capabilities. Now, I must admit that I'm no camera expert and that maybe I'm doing something wrong when taking pictures but I have shot pictures of a magazine cover from exact 2 meters away and the text I could read with my eyes, I could barely read it zooming in on the digital picture. Not even the highres picture. Even tried to check it on the computer and the result was slightly noisy/grainy. (btw. Pictures taken with very good light conditions and all in auto with flash).

This all started because one day a friend showed up with an Xperia Z1 and we did some test shots and to be honest I was just about to brag a bit about the difference in zoom power and when i zoomed in on the picture I was really dissapointed that my picture was only very little better than his picture.

Since I don't have another Lumia 1020 to compare (and know nobody with another one) I'm having a hard time to find out if it's just me being paranoid that I'm expecting too much from a smartphone or if there is really something wrong with the camera.

Any tips or tricks to find out?
Would a hard reset help or is it nonsense?

Thank you for reading and your time.

 

[acilsan]

From my experience, it may be focusing issue. Auto focus is not too good, so use manual focus. If your object is quite far, you can try this method: zoom in first then try to do auto/manual focus until you see an acceptable result. Take the picture while in the zoom mode and then re-frame to your liking.

 

[hprvez]

Nokia camera (beta?) is not zooming completely with 8.1... For now

 

[jojoe42]

Nokia camera (beta?) is not zooming completely with 8.1... For now

Works perfectly fine for me....and in response to the OP like others have said make sure the photo is in focus and also that you're viewing the photo in full-res (opening it directly in the Nokia Camera app rather than in the photos hub)

 

[buxz777]

could have been something simple like higher iso was used then the sony ;-)

did xenon flash fire? I find that adjusting the shutter speed for xenon flash shots can help , the auto mode chooses about 1/30s but as xenon flash is so quick you can go faster and get a cleaner result at the exspense of the background being a bit darker , the shots remind me more of 808 type shots if you make the shutter quicker

try to keep iso at 100/200 for the cleanest results with less noise

make sure you focus right , tap to focus can help a lot , as can tap to take picture as you might shake when using the button

phone might have ois but a steady hand always helps

 

[Crasstoe]

This is a crop to 16MP (2x zoom), from a 34MP DNG and you can see the detail is superb.
Whipsnade-12 by Crasstoe, on Flickr

Make sure you are shooting in dual mode and once you zoom you REFRAME, this is paramount as this triggers the PureView element of the post processing to downsample to create the final cropped image... or use DNG if you really want the most from your 1020.