Totally wrong my friend! Especially when you pretend not to be a noob, you should get your facts straight. First, there's no lens on a smartphone with an adjustable aperture...all are fixed. Nokia decided to go with the widest one (f2 ), which of course has the most naturally occuring lens blur. But their decision was justified by other user scenarios : macro photography and low light. As you mentioned, somewhat on the surface of the topic only, shallow depth of field gives you incredible close-up shots, also in lowlight it simply let's more light in without excessive and noisy ISO settings or shutter speeds. So of course there's some tradeoff - there aren't sharp AND wide lenses even in the DSLR space let alone ones that can be mounted on a smartphone. And still that tradeoff in my opinion is not that radical. Landscape photos after update are up there with other smartphones. Andyes, why so snobby when clearly you know close to nothing after asking if the aperture can be adjusted...
Here's why the 920's camera takes such terrible daylight/landscape shots:
- Thread starter c8m6p
- Start date
jlzimmerman
Member
To the OP, I don't support or disagree with what you said. What you wrote was pretty informative and the examples/proof you posted was good. I just hope you made this same complaint to Nokia through their proper channels as you have done here at WPCentral.
lol know what is lens you have and you will still take good pictures. In fact a long tap on the screen still pretty much get you focus on anything you want.
Amen to that. Words like "terrible" should be reserved for the cameras in old Blackberries and the like. Terrible is when you miss 9/10 shots you're going for because you need to drill down into fourteen submenus to even get to the camera app which then takes 45 seconds to initialize, or it's a blurry, noisy mess because it can't handle any lighting that doesn't involve standing directly on the sun (which may actually overexpose it). Terrible is when the one shot out of a 100 that you do find suitable to post on Facebook is technically a trainwreck, but you're overjoyed that you were even able to recognize your subject.
The 920's camera is fantastic for a cellie.
wilsey
New member
A very well-informed explanation.
I'm not sure about others but I remember there is one user that said, when you half-pressed the shutter button to focus, the image look very sharp, but right after you full-press the shutter button, the image will appear slightly softer (a bit out of focus) And I do notice this as well.
I'm not sure about others but I remember there is one user that said, when you half-pressed the shutter button to focus, the image look very sharp, but right after you full-press the shutter button, the image will appear slightly softer (a bit out of focus) And I do notice this as well.
congusano
New member
Two factors are involved, none of which are the aperture, that I believe significantly contribute to having less detail than people wish.
1. Sensor size. It is tiny. Very tiny. It has to capture 8 million pixels. Up close, that translates to a very crisp, "sharp" shot. Far away, that doesn't. Test this out with your own eyes. Look at the text of anything written very small up close. It looks good. Now, stand back and look at it and it loses detail very quickly.
2. Jpeg compression/noise reduction. Every picture taken from any single digital camera is shot RAW. In camera, some fine tuning is almost always used to create jpegs (or TIFF's). This reduces the file size, inherently adds noise and attempts at cleaning up some of that noise. The level at which the Lumia does it is quite high.
Aperature being wide open is not the entire reason these pictures aren't sharp as a tack.
1. Sensor size. It is tiny. Very tiny. It has to capture 8 million pixels. Up close, that translates to a very crisp, "sharp" shot. Far away, that doesn't. Test this out with your own eyes. Look at the text of anything written very small up close. It looks good. Now, stand back and look at it and it loses detail very quickly.
2. Jpeg compression/noise reduction. Every picture taken from any single digital camera is shot RAW. In camera, some fine tuning is almost always used to create jpegs (or TIFF's). This reduces the file size, inherently adds noise and attempts at cleaning up some of that noise. The level at which the Lumia does it is quite high.
Aperature being wide open is not the entire reason these pictures aren't sharp as a tack.
You're all looking at post processing... But the real reason is if you keep looking at the display as it focuses. You will see the camera try to auto focus, you'll see it go from blurry to sharp, and then to blurry, and never go back to the sharpest looking picture. If you hold down the button halfway you will see this time and time again. You have to be VERY picky about what you're focusing on, most of the time I have to focus on a completely different object, and then pan back to where I want to take the picture. Even still, this does not work. It never seems to grab the perfect focal point. Granted, even those rare times, in a close up shot, when it looks sharp in the display, when the picture is taken it still looks kind of blurry. However, looking at pictures I took yesterday, I'm noticing a LOT of noise in these pictures... I was using all default settings. It almost looks like a high ISO photo. I think that in general, the shutter is open for too long, or the AUTO ISO value is too high, and then they darken it with the post processing, which is not my point at the time. My point is it doesnt focus worth crap. I'll attach some images for comparison. The first one here took me about eight different attempts at focusing on something other than the center of the image. The second is just a touch of the screen image capture. The noise is VERY noticable though. None have been edited.
http://nokiashots.tumblr.com/
Check out these Nokia shots. If you don't have portico update unfortunately your picture quality will not be up to par.
Check out these Nokia shots. If you don't have portico update unfortunately your picture quality will not be up to par.
greycounciller
New member
Interesting posts. At the end of the day, my L920 takes poor pictures. Always blurry and focus not sharp. This was a poor upgrade from an N8.
If the same shot is producing randomly blurry/sharp pictures it could be a problem with the OIS.
Well, I have seen a case that a cam of Lumia 920 was bad (1st pic, on left side) ... and after Nokia repaired it, it was just great (3rd pic, on right side)
https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=ac95...44325B58F!4636&sff=1&authkey=!AA02sV0bicIsrMc
P.S. it is not my pic, I just bring it here for this thread ...
https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=ac95...44325B58F!4636&sff=1&authkey=!AA02sV0bicIsrMc
P.S. it is not my pic, I just bring it here for this thread ...
ricbon
New member
IDK about that I have portico on my 920 and i feel they are soft/blurry, and yes i keep my lense clean.
vlad0
New member
Spot on.
Can't expect anything exciting from 1.4 micron pixels.. just look at the new xperia Z, its shooting at 13Mpix for .. well.. marketing purposes, but its using 1.1 micron pixels.. so.. instead of improving the quality, its pretty much the same or worse:
Camera comparison: Sony Xperia Z vs Samsung Galaxy S III, Galaxy Note II, iPhone 5, Nokia Lumia 920
But most people think.. oh.. 13Mpix is more than 8Mpix, it should be much better! No. That is not how it goes. Just compare a 12Mpix pic from the Nokia N8 which shoots with 1.75 microns, and you will see the difference.
Also, the jpeg processing in the 920 is.. very tricky because of the low light performance. I've said this before, if they can't figure out a way to switch between night mode and day mode automatically, they should give the user a way to switch between the two.
On the previous page I showed couple of shots from my Phase 1 phone.. wide open at F2.4 ... there is more detail then you will ever need. So aperture is not a problem if you have a good sensor, proper optics, and the required jpeg processing.
There's a comparative review of smartphone cameras in Gizmodo today. They try to identify the best by considering performance under various conditions, and only pick the very best smartphones for the comparison. The Lumia 920 came out as the best performing. Interestingly, sailing in the face of the title for this thread, the Lumia won the round for best daylight pictures.
The Best Smartphone Camera
I don't really understand what point the OP was trying to make with the title to this thread. Perhaps they are comparing smartphone cameras to highend SLRs. It would be more accurate and helpful to general readers for the thread title to be changed to '... why smartphone cameras take such terrible pictures'. I don't think they do take terrible pictures, and it has been a long time since I would describe any picture I've taken with a smartphone in those terms.
The Best Smartphone Camera
I don't really understand what point the OP was trying to make with the title to this thread. Perhaps they are comparing smartphone cameras to highend SLRs. It would be more accurate and helpful to general readers for the thread title to be changed to '... why smartphone cameras take such terrible pictures'. I don't think they do take terrible pictures, and it has been a long time since I would describe any picture I've taken with a smartphone in those terms.
HeyCori
Mod Emeritus
While I appreciate all the thorough and well thought out explanations for the 920's camera, at some point you have to accept that you're using a smartphone and not a high end DSLR.
perspicatio
New member
Torro Rosso
New member
greycounciller
New member
vlad0
New member
They forgot the N8 and the 808 ..
Yes, and so does the Samsung Pixon12. I think Nokia figured out that using a mechanical ND filter does the job just fine, instead of going with a much more complex arrangement required for variable aperture. Both the N8 and the 808 use similar ND filter system, the 808 uses a ND8 filter ( Neutral density filter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ) which is basically a 3 stop reduction..
Hopefully once they properly port phase 1 to the Lumia range it will have it as well.
Here is how it works on the N8
It's sad just how many people do. Personally I find the recent popularizing of cameras as a main selling feature for smartphones, over and above OS design and function frustrating.
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