Nokia Lumia 1020 Video and Photo Shoot Preview

MojoKid writes "Nokia, perhaps more-so than any other smartphone manufacturer in the game right now, needed to find a way to make something special. The new Nokia Lumia 1020, though it sports essentially the same internals and display as Nokia's Lumia 920, most definitely is different, and perhaps even an attractive alternative, depending on your specific needs. 41 megapixels of resolution, floating image stabilization and a powerful camera app to back it up, will make the Lumia 1020 pretty 'special' to some people, some of whom might be considering a Windows Phone for the first time as a result. Initial impressions of the device and its camera performance, show Nokia's new flagship device does shoot impressive still images and video, thanks in part to the Lumia 1020's image sensor and stabilization features. Nokia's Pro Cam app is comprised of a slick dial interface that offers virtually all of the controls you'd find in a DSLR camera. From White Balance, to ISO, Focus, Exposure and Flash Control, it's all in there. When you snap a picture, the 1020's camera grabs two versions of the shot; a large full resolution (7700x4300, roughly) shot with a huge 11MB file size is captured and an additional 5MP image is derived from that and stored as well. The results, especially in decent lighting, can be impressive."

Re:Digital image stabilization makes a comeback.

[MojoKid]

The context of the article notes controls "like you'd find in any DSLR camera." These controls allow you to actually affect image capture settings. Nokia didn't use that to "trick" people into anything. They just gave users more control over settings. The reality is, the camera and app are the best for any camera phone on the market now, but yet, it's still a built-in smartphone camera, albeit a really good one for what it is.

Re:Digital image stabilization makes a comeback.

[HideyoshiJP]

If they're as good as the Lumia 925 (and I assume they are), they're damned good. Far better than my Galaxy S3. Definitely not DSLR good, but damned good, nonetheless. At a recent concert, I was impressed how well it handled the stage lighting and everything. Many other phones didn't fare nearly as well as mine did. I did end up wishing I'd picked up a 1020 instead, as the performer's face was completely lacking any detail at the distance I was at.

Re:Digital image stabilization makes a comeback.

[viperidaenz]

sure? This phone has optical image stabilisation. One of the elements in the lens floats - hence "floating image stabilization"

Re:Meh

[Doug Otto]

I also shoot professionally and I do have an earthly idea what the fuck I'm talking about. It'd produce better images with fewer pixels.

Nokia is feeding on naive consumers who believe the myth that more pixels is automatically better. If you look at their marketing information they drive that fact down your throat. Pixel size and distance between pixel sites has much more to do with image quality than the number of pixels.

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no, it wouldn't. You do understand the concept of "super-sampling", don't you? They knock out a ton of noise by oversampling the image. Lowering the pixel count to make the pixel sites bigger doesn't really benefit that significantly when we're talking about a sensor this small. But adding more pixels, and then averaging them together, yields a big win in terms of picture quality, and even professional observers (of which you're clearly not) can tell that the quality gained from oversampling is significant.

Re:To quote Bender,

[viperidaenz]

Because loading a 40MP image can bring computers to their knees. Even at 3 bytes per pixel (which most implementations use 4, iOS does anyway) for image data, you're looking at 120MB of RAM just to uncompress the image.

Why not have the dedicated hardware built in to the camera processor scale it down so the ARM cores don't spend a few minutes trying to do it in software?

Re:Could'a had an Android

[rtfa-troll]

It wouldn't have existed, since Nokia would be bankrupt without the financial help of Microsoft.

A lie does not become truth if you just repeat it all the time. We keep hearing this all the time "Nokia was losing money" "Nokia's customers were abandoning it" "Nokia would have gone bankrupt". The truth:

• Up until Steven Elop's burning platforms memo Nokia had always been profitable for many years;
• Up until Steven Elop's burning platforms memo Nokia had continuing increasing sales.
• Up until Steven Elop's burning platforms memo Nokia had consistently increasing profits (though not every quarter)
• Nokia had a huge and growing cash mountain of several billions of Euros.

If they did nothing they could afford to quietly and silently develop an Android phone far better than the ones Samsung puts out. It was announcing the decision to move to Windows phone and the cost of that change which killed Nokia. Not their past successful products.

Re:7700x4300?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://conversations.nokia.com/2013/07/11/nokia-lumia-1020-picture-gallery-zoom-in/ this picture seems to be close (first one of the city)

or you could have used a image search engine to find it yourself... but i guess that is too much to expect, it is after all easier to just complain about something regardless of the truth

Re:Digital image stabilization makes a comeback.

[thegarbz]

The problem is they didn't just say "like you'd find in any DSLR camera." the summary said "virtually all of the controls you'd find in a DSLR camera." This is a laughable comment at best. It does not offer fine control over shutter aperture in different priority modes, fully manual control, bracketing, manual AF, viewfinder grid, horizon level, etc that you find standard in nearly all DSLRs on the market and many point and shoots. No I have seen many point and shoots that give more controls than what this offers.

Is it a good step forward? Yes. Is the sentence comparing it's controls to that of an actual camera justified? Hell no.