Nokia EOS. 41MP PureView Lumia phone in MWC

[tissotti]

WPCentral seems to get wrong what My Nokia Blog is saying there. There is two prototypes of the device running inside the company, one of that will be released and at the moment Nokia is thinking to go for the dual core version to get the battery last.

But then as far as I know Qualcomm 800 is the only available in quad core version and Nokia needs exactly that SoC from Qualcomm so they are able to run that 41MP sensor and possibly even the oversampling were Nokia needed two separate GPU units on 808 PV. So imo it's not all totally making sense there.

 

[jmajid]

@tissotti - agreed....there is a mismatch there somewhere.
Snapdragon 800 is the quadcore...
But what is the dual core SOC then? and will it give the performance they need for processing that amount of pixels for photos and for videos?
Its going to be a very interesting topic of conversation i think...

 

[tissotti]

@tissotti - agreed....there is a mismatch there somewhere.
Snapdragon 800 is the quadcore...
But what is the dual core SOC then? and will it give the performance they need for processing that amount of pixels for photos and for videos?
Its going to be a very interesting topic of conversation i think...

It is. It's a big limiting factor again with these rumors as Nokia needs such a highly specialized hardware as it can't do what it wants on Windows Phone hardware and software.

We need to remember that it's not just the ability to run that 41MP sensor, the real number crunching comes from the oversampling technology on 808 PureView. Maybe Nokia could disable two cores and insert extra imaging buffer there somehow. Who knows.

 

[anon(5370748)]

Guys. Lots of details on 41MP Nokia EOS being reported by MyNokiaBlog. No word on source credibility but if they're true..holy ****

• 41Mp, OIS, LED, Xenon
• +/- Variable Aperture

variable aperture! That would mean a mechanical iris that adds bulk and more moving parts unless they're talking about some way to simulate it in software...

 

[vlad0]

^Yes, that is why Nokia moved away from variable aperture and added a mechanical ND filter instead. I think its worth 3-stops.. its not ideal, but it saves space and its more durable.

But maybe they've improved the technology since the N86...

edit. Yes, it is 3 stops (ND8) on the 808

"Shutter: Mechanical shutter with short shutter lag[SUP][13][/SUP] and ND8 (3 f-stops) neutral density filter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_808_PureView

Here's good example of 808 PureView beating 699 dollar standalone camera, Galaxy Camera.
Galaxy Camera vs. 808 PureView: Shoot 'em up - GSMArena.com

The galaxy camera has no chance at all against the 808. The sensor in there is pretty much slightly bigger than what they use in mobile cameras. The whole thing is a waste of space and plastic if you ask me. Its just not a fair fight. In fact, here is two cool graphs showing the difference in sensor size

so if you are buying a camera, you would want to be towards that orange rectangle, and NOT the red one where the Galaxy Camera is.

The 808 is much closer to those 1 inch mirrorless cameras, than the galaxy camera:

And here are couple of images to prove it

Canon G15
http://www.esato.com/phonephotos/cam/canon/canon_powershot_g15/201304122259cs2VT9.jpg

Nokia 808 (38Mpix resized to 12)
http://www.esato.com/phonephotos/cam/nokia/808_pureview/201304122259GFmfq8.jpg

And here is couple of shots compared to the Sony RX100.. in my opinion the best compact camera for the price right now.

RX100

808

RX100

808

Watch this video on YouTube. 920 is far better than 808.. "MP" is not really important much

The main reason for the huge MP count on the 808 is mostly for zooming, not image quality.. I think that came as a secondary effect after they decided to do lossless zooming.

He lowered the contrast on the 808, that is why the video from the 920 looks more vibrant..it also saturates a bit more by default. But overall the quality of the actual pictures is better on the Phase 1 device.. not surprising really.

Here is one I took on default settings, you can also see how the zoom works @ 1080p.. no moving parts, nothing mechanical.. its brilliant.

2012-08-31-2295 - YouTube

As far as filming.. they were doing it 2010 with the N8, and the results are not bad at all.

I do wonder if Nokia decided not to take the camera sensor and built in gpu from the 808, when did Nokia decide to start with the new implementation for WP?

I would guess soon after they signed with Microsoft. They know its an important differentiator, so the more they wait.. the less time at the top they will have. Hopefully after they show the EOS they can share some of the background story on it like they did on the 808.. that would be the only way to get some insight on their process.

Don't forget that they also might be trying not only to port phase 1 over to WP, but to actually make it even better.. which would take extra time.

 

[anon(5370748)]

It's only a matter of time before Samsung releases a 1GP sensor that is the world's slowest and crappiest, but sells the world's most units because people like the world's most specs on the box. It'd be good to get a good implementation that pushes mobile photography forward before that happens. Glad to hear June/July is the targeted release for the EOS. It's going to take all my willpower to not buy that off-contract.

The zoom may be the reason why they did the 41MP in the first place, but I suspect oversampling has a hand in why your sky gradients are _so_ much better than the 920s

I imagine most of Samsung's product management meetings look like a bunch of these gathered around a table:

 

[Mirtas]

I really hope Nokia releases a 41MP 1/1.2" censor phone. But also hope they improve their currently pureview (as used in the Lumia 920) to something like a 16MP 1/1.8"censor so they are ahead of the competition both in terms of the MP war as in terms of image quality. Before Sony does it and starts selling it to Apple and Samsung.

 

[vlad0]

The zoom may be the reason why they did the 41MP in the first place, but I suspect oversampling has a hand in why your sky gradients are _so_ much better than the 920s

Oh ya it helps tremendously with noise levels in pretty much all conditions, even when using the xenon at night, but I am pretty sure D. Dinning (he was head of the project at the time) said that the mpix count was mainly there because they wanted to do loseless zooming since the N93 didn't work out as well as they hoped.

And ya.. if the EOS is even on par with 808 it will be extremely hard to resist.

As far as Samsung and Sony... they have their P&S business to take care of, until they decide that the phones will replace their P&S for the most part, I don't think we will see a serious effort. They are lucky that Nokia happened to be in a ****ty situation when the Phase 1 came out.. because if they were in Apple's position for example, they would have killed the P&S market within 20 months.

 

[vlad0]

Someone posted this on mnb

2200-2400 mha
dual core with en extra gpu 70% and snapdragon 800 30%
micro hdmi and fm transmitter maybe
micro sd 100%
display pixel like the 920
amoled gorilla glas 3
gdr2 pre installed
new camera interface like on the 808
OIS, 41 MP, fuc*** good low light, new lenses, Xenon and Led
wireless charging
super sensitive touch
loudspeakers on the back with better sound quality
dlna pre installed
2 mp front camera
sexy alminium design a lot of you see this phone but don’t know that it was the eos
can’t wait to hold this in my hand


If they can keep it under 200 grams, and if the camera performs as good as the 808.. they might have a winner.

 

[tissotti]

Someone posted this on mnb

2200-2400 mha
dual core with en extra gpu 70% and snapdragon 800 30%
micro hdmi and fm transmitter maybe
micro sd 100%
display pixel like the 920
amoled gorilla glas 3
gdr2 pre installed
new camera interface like on the 808
OIS, 41 MP, fuc*** good low light, new lenses, Xenon and Led
wireless charging
super sensitive touch
loudspeakers on the back with better sound quality
dlna pre installed
2 mp front camera
sexy alminium design a lot of you see this phone but don’t know that it was the eos
can’t wait to hold this in my hand


If they can keep it under 200 grams, and if the camera performs as good as the 808.. they might have a winner.

He seems to be hinting that the aluminium phone we saw was actually EOS. Would be pretty mind blowing if they had stuck that sensor in to that body. Not fan of the design still.

That screen resolution will stick out though. :/ I wont care, but others will.

 

[vlad0]

The EOS will have a hump.. the question is how will they blend it in with the rest of the body. The sensor/optics combo is huge.. there is not much they can do to shrink that.

 

[anon(5370748)]

The EOS will have a hump.. the question is how will they blend it in with the rest of the body. The sensor/optics combo is huge.. there is not much they can do to shrink that.

It could look like a doorstop and they could just take the "thinness" spec off the bottom

 

[vlad0]

^ yes.. I am sure it will try to "fade it in" more than the 808, but either way it will be positioned the same way (top heavy)... which actually works very well in the hand. I think the biggest challenge in terms of the body will be size and weight.

As much as people say the 920 is fine in terms of size/weight, I think its right on the border.. it actually has a larger footprint than the 808 in both volume and weight. So.. maybe no OIS this time around.. 4.2 incher with a thin frame optimized for one handed use.. 10 mm. at the thin side and 15-16 mm. at the hump..

We will see.. the battery capacity worries me too. The oversampling algorithm require power.. I don't know how many shots the 808 can take per charge in pureview mode, but its not all that many.. it does take a toll on the battery. So.. over 2000 mAh is essential on that one, which won't help with the weight of the device.

I am really intrigued to find out how they will handle this phone.. its a engineering challenge, and I am sure it will be a marvel, just like the phase 1 device.

 

[JustToClarify]

we'll have to wait and see, however getting such a huge sensor stabilised will take its toll so I don't believe OIS will be present if they want to keep reasonable weight

it's 15 days left and we still didn't get any sample pictures, when 808 was presented we had sample pictures months before or I might be wrong?

 

[vlad0]

when 808 was presented we had sample pictures months before or I might be wrong?

No.. they kept it under wraps all the way until MWC.. no pics from the camera, no pics or renders of the phone (just a sketch), no specs... that one report from Germany a month or so before the announcement that claimed 41Mpix, but no one took it seriously because at that point 41 megapixels in a phone sounded kind of crazy.

There were official pictures from the camera after they showed the phone, and unofficial ones in between MWC and release date from prototype devices. For me personally the fact that they weren't afraid to show raw jpegs from the phone, and shoot the entire marketing campaign with the phone itself, meant that they had a lot of confidence in the product.. and the results were incredible. We saw non of that with the 920...

So, they are very good at keeping things away from leaking, especially if the project is of such importance like the EOS. They used to have a leak.. who I think was reporting to Eldar from mobile-review, but they flushed him/her out sometime in 2011.