[gilesjuk]

Erm it's a phone. A swiss army knife. Dedicated components are always going to be better.

I don't think it is correct to expect a tack sharp brilliant photo you can print at A3 size from any phone.

Noise can be filtered in post processing, not a lot you can do about that in a camera phone. The sensors are so small that you have to amplify the signal. A camera sensor is a hybrid device, an analog to digital converter. The visual equivalent of a sampler. If you have a low signal level with a sampler and boost the signal then you get noise.

In a phone it is extremely hard to minimise noise, there's lots of other chips inside there to provide crosstalk.

[SlightlyDum]

I honestly don't understand people these day...

People pay roughly 3500usd for a Canon mark III and then they pay roughly 700usd for a nokia 920 (international price or at least thats what i paid for in Thailand) and they expect the camera to be on par with one another? ....Or even a Canon 7d (1500usd) or a Canon t4i (800usd).

Where's the logic?

Can any DLSR receive phone calls, emails, browse the internet, or even play games? So why do people think a 700usd cellphone can take picture as good as a basic DLSR (Canon T4i) when the price of a cellphone is already cheaper and can do more then just take videos and photos.... seriously, where the logic in thinking this way?

[perspicatio]

^^
Very true. The camera in your phone is good for taking insurance photographs after a prang or your drunk friends at a party.

Squeezing 8 megapixels onto a sensor the size of your pinky fingernail is a decision made by the marketing department, not the technical department. My 14 year old 2 megapixel Nikon widdles all over my Nokia 920 in picture quality, just as one would expect

Expecting to do "photography" with a phone is like trying to do motor racing with a caravan. Even a high-spec caravan is not going to impress the guy with the Subaru.

[Raghu Gundlapalli]

totally agree with this post, i was never able to get a good picture from my Lumia 920 in daylight, doesn't focus anything, almost all the pictures are blurry, on the other hand videos are great, may be i am missing something in settings.

I have both halves of the brain, so I should not post here, but I will take my chance.

L920 daylight pictures miss sharpness everywhere in the frame. It’s not like the camera focuses on something (like in OP’s first picture), and that something gets sharp lines, and everything else is out of focus. No, nothing in the picture gets that sharpness of other high end phones. Any lens should be able to focus on something, but L920 has a hard time to do so in daylight. (Well not really focusing, but post processing). Close-ups are excluded, which we know how great they turn out.

And yes, Portico made daylight photos so much better and nobody changed lenses. The OP needs to get off his high horse.

[anon(5370748)]

Squeezing 8 megapixels onto a sensor the size of your pinky fingernail is a decision made by the marketing department, not the technical department. My 14 year old 2 megapixel Nikon widdles all over my Nokia 920 in picture quality, just as one would expect

HTC finally got it and reverted back to a 4MP camera with larger pixels in the new One they just announced. Unfortunately, like the Megahertz marketing campaign, the Megapixel one worked exceptionally well and trained people who don't know any better that more is always better in that department.

Expecting to do "photography" with a phone is like trying to do motor racing with a caravan. Even a high-spec caravan is not going to impress the guy with the Subaru.

This I don't agree with completely. You can produce some stunning images with a phone if the subject and conditions fall in its wheelhouse. Granted a dedicated camera (especially an ILC) has a much larger wheelhouse, but it's also extra (sometimes annoyingly heavy and expensive) equipment you have to walk around with.

[sjhippie]

As others have said... There are few to no variable aperture cameras in cell phones. The iPhone 5 as stated is 2.4. From 2.4 to 2.0 there is little to no difference the average user will see. It's not like it's shooting at 1.2. I work professionally in video and shoot photography as a hobby and have been quite happy with the 920...because it fits in my pocket and can shoot pretty decent photos when called upon. In fact Ive been very impressed with the quality. Will it replace my 30D and 5DmkIII? Oh **** no. It also doesn't have a $1500 "L" series lens hanging off the front of it. But tools like ProShot have certainly given my 920 some really nice additions and make it a very fun camera to work with when I'm not lugging my main gear around. Am I going to print a 20x30 for a show? More than likely no. But the fun using it creatively is certainly worth it.

And btw as others have said... coming on to a forum and putting "terrible" in the title and proceed to state "I'm here to give an explanation to all the noobs..." "anyone with half a brain is free to chime in" comes off as childish, arrogant and condescending... especially after there have been countless posts of people asking about the softness in their photos. And the fact that you bought one even after reading the specs, and knowing full well it's a fixed aperture, and then proceeding to rant about being "stuck" with it doesn't help your argument to us "noobs"

Just my coffee fueled two cents...

[vlad0]

HTC finally got it and reverted back to a 4MP camera with larger pixels in the new One they just announced. Unfortunately, like the Megahertz marketing campaign, the Megapixel one worked exceptionally well and trained people who don't know any better that more is always better in that department. .

Well after Nokia showed the world that a 5Mpix image can be times better than any 8/12/20Mpix image a year ago.. I think they all got the message. Essentially, Nokia put an end to the megapixel war created and sustained by the imaging industry for over a decade.

[anon(5370748)]

Well after Nokia showed the world that a 5Mpix image can be times better than any 8/12/20Mpix image a year ago.. I think they all got the message. Essentially, Nokia put an end to the megapixel war created and sustained by the imaging industry for over a decade.

Let's hope!

[johninsj]

Anyone with half a brain is free to chime in, the 'OMG PORTICO MADE IT SO MUCH BETTER' people should refrain please. Thanks.

A lens that is a whopping 1mm deep and a sensor the size of the tip of your finger, means your only hardware choice is a fixed length, fixed (wide freaking open to get SOME light in) aperture lens.

So, you get a fixed aperture lens.

The 920, the iPhone (every one) and just about every other smartphone that is < 10mm deep have fixed aperture lenses.

Yes, they take crappy images. But great snapshots. Compared to the 4 pound DSLR with 300mm lens (which takes GREAT photographs) I am going to have the 920 with me about 99.99% of the time, and the DSLR about 1 time out of 1000.

[adaptor]

im really mad ...nokia rushed into this product ...its awful that even after a year it sucks ...it doesnt hold a candle to my older iphone 4

[JonnieLasVegas]

im really mad ...nokia rushed into this product ...its awful that even after a year it sucks ...it doesnt hold a candle to my older iphone 4

This is true. My daughter just got an iPhone 4s and it blows my 920 out of the water when it comes to pictures! Very quick to take those shots also, unlike my extremely slow 920 camera.