Icon on Imaging AMA

[Dreamspell]

Q: what kinds of imaging improvements I get for my Lumia 1520 after Nokia Cyan update?
A: There will be a lot improvements for Lumia 1520, Icon and also Lumia 930.
- much better low light performance
- better colors
- continuous autofocus
- better video quality
- and even the raw images will look better because we are using the sensor in more clever way.

Q: Why go with a narrower f2.4 aperture on the 1520/Icon/930 instead of a wider one to allow more light in?
A: It was the best balance for overall image quality. Lumia Cyan update makes the low light performance much better.

Q: Are we going to see a faster shot to shot time on the large >= 20MP sensors?
A: We improved the shot to shot time somewhat in the new camera application which will be part of Cyan update.

 

[hopmedic]

Nice - thanks!

 

[Muessig]

Thanks for collating this, interesting stuff. Glad to hear shot to shot time is improving.

 

[anon(7901790)]

A significant improvement of shot to shot time would be great. I still get a noticeable shutter lag as well, even if I have pre-focused. I hope continuous focus will improve that as well.

 

[anon(7901790)]

Btw, could you give us the link to the entire article? I'm interested in what else was discussed.

 

[Dreamspell]

Here you go: Conversations LIVE: with Juha Alakarhu & Eero Salmelin - Conversations

 

[anon(7901790)]

Thanks!

 

[anon(7901790)]

Q: what kinds of imaging improvements I get for my Lumia 1520 after Nokia Cyan update?
A: There will be a lot improvements for Lumia 1520, Icon and also Lumia 930.
- much better low light performance
- better colors
- continuous autofocus
- better video quality
- and even the raw images will look better because we are using the sensor in more clever way.

Q: Why go with a narrower f2.4 aperture on the 1520/Icon/930 instead of a wider one to allow more light in?
A: It was the best balance for overall image quality. Lumia Cyan update makes the low light performance much better.

Q: Are we going to see a faster shot to shot time on the large >= 20MP sensors?
A: We improved the shot to shot time somewhat in the new camera application which will be part of Cyan update.

This is interesting too. I would be interested in getting RAW (DNG) processing available on camera too.

Q: What about on device DNG editing? are we gonna see a feature like that?
A: Its an interesting idea. Thanks

 

[Blacklac]

I just wonder what would improve with the ability to edit RAW images. They'd either need to add the ability to use DNG in Nokia Creative Studio or we'd just be the same place we are now. DNG converted to crappy JPG and edited. Lol. Unless I'm missing something.

 

[anon(7901790)]

Basic RAW editing in Nokia Creative Studio would be sufficient. That would include exposure, white balance, contrast, vibrancy, saturation, and sharpening.

 

[Robinsonmac]

They need a really big speed improvement, really big...

 

[anon(7901790)]

Not so much a speed improvement, but optimizing to make better use of multicore processors. Mobile devices are running into the same problems that desktop/laptops ran into. As they got faster, desktop programmers just added more stuff to the program. They didn't take the time to optimize the program to run better. The same is happening with mobile app developers. They fix bugs and add features, but don't put enough effort into optimizing their apps to run better. Why is Photoshop so good? It's not just because of features, it is primarily because that it is designed from the ground up to work with multiprocessors, and therefore works well on multicore processors. All Nokia has to do is optimize Nokia Creative Studio to work with multicore processors the same way Photoshop is optimized to work with multiprocessor systems. That was one of the draws that Windows Phone had. The ability to run an OS and apps efficiently on slower (cheaper) hardware. Now that we have Windows Phones with the hardware specs comparable or better than Android and iPhones, WP App developers are (seemingly) paying less attention to making sure the apps run efficiently and more attention to adding features. When they should be doing both.

 

[Robinsonmac]

Sorry but I was talking about actually taking pictures, the time it takes the app to open is very slow, the time it takes to focus is very slow, the time its takes to take another picture is very slow. This is using the 5 MP only option or the MS camera app. The fact of the matter is the whole picture taking process is very slow, period.

 

[anon(7901790)]

Lol. Sorry. Yeah, that is true. Again, I think optimizing the app to use multi-threading for multicore processors would go a long way to solve that too. There is so much untapped potential with current smartphone hardware that's being held up because of bad app development technique/tools; which are essentially the same since the original iPhone and Motorola Droid.

Remember the first iPhone, Motorola Droid (first Android phone), Windows Phone, and Black Berry, all had single core processors. The hardware has evolved, but the app development hasn't.

 

[a5cent]

@timothy
Almost all graphics operations should be executed on the GPU. Even PhotoShop has been going in that direction these last few years, moving ever more operations off the CPU.

At least for graphics processing, multi-threaded apps that rely on multi-core general purpose CPUs aren't the way to go.

 

[anon(7901790)]

In any case, I believe the developers can do a WHOLE lot better at optimizing their apps. It helps prevent bloat. When you think about it, out of the thousands (or more) lines of code in an app, how many are actually needed? This goes for ANY platform, not just WP.