Wow!! This camera is.......bad

[antsin3d]

One thing to note, if you're taking photos during the day, set your ISO to 100. That will maximize sharpness and minimize grain.

 

[mrcrusha829]

I am a camera cell phone geek stuck on Verizon. I always want to have the best cell phone camera, kind of a hobby. Cell phone is always with we and today's cell phone take good to great pictures. I was sooo excited for this phone with all the camera hype. May 16 could not come fast enough. First the good. Video is amazing second to none. Now the bad...the rest of the camera quality. The photo quality is terrible in standard light and daytime conditions. Anything more than 20 feet is out of focus and a smear. I ONLY use cell phone cameras and know how to take a photo with them. I had a droid the much camera criticized razr hd for a while and could get much better photos with that. I so wanted to love the camera on this. I was excited to try a windows phone. I will try any phone that has a great camera (again stuck on Verizon). But this, unfortunately except for video...is not it. Really disappointed.

Are you sure you don't have fingerprint smudges on the lense?

 

[Serious Tone]

Minimize noise not grain. :smile: Sorry, photographer tick.

 

[Bobbman]

i am by no means claiming my outdoor daylight pictures to be outstanding...im not a photographer. I can say that my Nokia 920 takes MUCH BETTER daylight pics than my GS3 did...not even a question. Again, i wouldnt consider myself an expert but i myself consider these very good quality. you are open to rip them apart lol.
Wow!! Nice pictures..what settings for those? I can get close to that with my DNA but close at all with my 928...lens is clean...tried both screen to focus and hard button...nothing seems to work. Again REAL nice pics!
View attachment 34172

View attachment 34173

 

[Bobbman]

Wow!! Nice pics!! What settings? My wife's GS3 can do similar, my DNA as well. My 928, however, not even close.

 

[vlad0]

One thing to note, if you're taking photos during the day, set your ISO to 100. That will maximize sharpness and minimize grain.

Can you go under 100 on these phones ?

 

[squire777]

This is odd since most reviews I have read so far said good things about the camera, and put daytime shots on par with the iPhone 5. None of them said the camera was 'bad' or 'terrible'.

 

[prjkthack]

If the 928 is the exact same camera as the 920, it should take great pictures in daylight and even better photos at night. My 920 blows any other phone that I've owned away.

But, the 928 is not the 920, and therefore I could totally understand if there are some updates or tweaks that need to happen before the camera performance really shines. Kinda like how there were some issues with the 920's camera at launch, but a few updates solved those issues. I expect that Nokia/Verizon will push some updates if this becomes a widespread issue.

Wow!! Nice pics!! What settings? My wife's GS3 can do similar, my DNA as well. My 928, however, not even close.

The Droid DNA takes horrible photos. They look great on the screen because the DNA's screen is beautiful. But once you really get a good look at them, they just look terrible. The DNA was almost universally panned for its terrible camera performance. I believe I remember people saying even the One X was better. I don't get why HTC can't do cameras right. The One is probably as good as it gets for them at the moment.

 

[chezm]

Wow!! Nice pics!! What settings? My wife's GS3 can do similar, my DNA as well. My 928, however, not even close.

like i said, i know NOTHING about cameras or settings haha...i believe most is standard (auto?). i did add some contrast to the second pic...but very little. The only thing i usually change is "Scenes" from Auto to Close-up, back forth depending. Thats all. You know your way around a camera it seems, im sure you just need to play around with it a bit and you'll find what you're looking for.

 

[waazzupppp]

The other things that has to be taken in to account regarding the 'softness' of the images is that the lens on the 92x's are all fixed f/2.0 lenses. This means that regardless of the amount of light that is available, it has to adjust the 'shutter speed' to compensate. If there is too much light, it can't adjust enough and the image becomes over-exposed and washed out. The other draw back is that by allowing that much light into to the sensor, the focal depth of the lens is greatly reduced which can lead to fuzzy images or a very shallow focus area. The plus side to running a f/2.0 lens is that they shoot very well in lower light conditions. With proper tweaks to the settings, you can easily make the camera take better images just like Justin429 did... And sharing those tips is what makes communities like this so much better.

So, to the OP, thanks for the comments and allowing us to post some tips to help others learn how to get more from the cameras on the Lumia. They not only help with the 9xx series, but also with my wife's 8X and my 810 as well. In fact, they probably even help the Android users that pop in here from time to time just to see what's new.

For my tip of the day, I'll just try and remind everyone that the Xenon flash on the 928 is much hotter than the LED flashes that people are used to. The Xenon flash has a hotspot inside 4 feet and doesn't work out side 15 feet. Normal LED flashes (or dual LED) work from about 3-10 feet. Don't try and use them inside or outside that range and expect too much in the way of awesomeness... Of course, you can create some pretty good effects by blowing out or under exposing flash images as well.

 

[Somerichs]

Bobbman, it would go a long way if you could post some of the pictures you've taken with your phone that you were less than thrilled with for folks to see and react to.

It sounds like there's quite a few people on this thread with good photography background and a good working knowledge of the 920/928 and could help fix what ails ya.

Antsin3d, I have my 928 ordered and it'll be my first Nokie/WP. So it gives you the ability to set ISO. If you change it does it keep that change until you change again? Does it offer similar control over other settings, too? thanks!

Edit: also, similar to most point and shoots, with these phones are you able to tweak settings to your liking and then save those settings for future use or as a default?

 

[Bobbman]

I will be giving it another go around ,this evening with some of the tips given. Great forum!! Thanks to all!! If I figure out how to upload some pics will do that as well.

 

[lisainsf]

here are a few I took today so if you are seeing this level of sharpness and color then you may want to exchange your phone

 

[antsin3d]

lisainsf, I think you've shown that the camera can take some astonishingly nice pics. Those are great

 

[Bobbman]

All on auto settings? Maybe with a tripod? Wow!! Real nice. Mine are an embarrassment next to that. Yet I can use any other camera phone and get close to it...just not the 928. Not yet anyway!!

 

[lisainsf]

All on auto settings? Maybe with a tripod? Wow!! Real nice. Mine are an embarrassment next to that. Yet I can use any other camera phone and get close to it...just not the 928. Not yet anyway!!

no tripod all hand held and any softness is probably due to a slight breeze blowing. I set the iso to 100, white balance to daylight as auto tends to be more yellow and that was it..took the pictures. Skies tend to be noisy but thatis more a small sensor thing than a camera thing and foliage and extreme corners tend to have what is known as smearing a bit but again that is a small sensor and wide angle thing not a fault of the phone camera...happens to the most expensive lenses and cameras as well

 

[falconrap]

This is why I use Proshot...the Auto selects better settings for most scenes than the default Nokia Auto setting does. Since a large chunk of my pictures are "moment" shots of my kids, I needed to be able to quickly load the camera up and take great shots. Otherwise, on Lumias, they usually have the settings available if you know what you are doing. Clearly the camera is capable.

 

[lisainsf]

This is why I use Proshot...the Auto selects better settings for most scenes than the default Nokia Auto setting does. Since a large chunk of my pictures are "moment" shots of my kids, I needed to be able to quickly load the camera up and take great shots. Otherwise, on Lumias, they usually have the settings available if you know what you are doing. Clearly the camera is capable.

I did switch to pro shot as well for a few shots and it was better on the yellows so I agree it is a good app for when you just want to snap and not fiddle as well as if you want more control as well over your images

 

[texas tk]

Works great for me...love the camera...
I will say that the pictures looked even better _after_ I took the protective plastic sticker off...

 

[fwaits]

Bobbman, it would go a long way if you could post some of the pictures you've taken with your phone that you were less than thrilled with for folks to see and react to.

It sounds like there's quite a few people on this thread with good photography background and a good working knowledge of the 920/928 and could help fix what ails ya.

Antsin3d, I have my 928 ordered and it'll be my first Nokie/WP. So it gives you the ability to set ISO. If you change it does it keep that change until you change again? Does it offer similar control over other settings, too? thanks!

Edit: also, similar to most point and shoots, with these phones are you able to tweak settings to your liking and then save those settings for future use or as a default?

You can change ISO, White Balance, Exposure value, Aspect Ratio (16:9, 4:3), and toggle the focus assist light and yes you can save the values so it will stay that way until you change them again.