Nokia's Present & Future

Both implementations are clearly different in the way they're trying to achieve better output.
The 808 can take 38Mpixel photos, but its main purpose is to use pixel oversample to take very good 5 and 8Mpixel photos.
Also, they can resort to pretty decent "zoomed" pictures and videos without having to cram an optical zoom (unlike DSLRs, that's a luxury that smartphines can't afford in their current form factors).

Nokia have had very good noise reduction software in the cameras in the past. I remember taking pictures in Moaning Cavern in California with my N95 in very dark conditions.

Cheers
 
For all the investment they put into cameras, are they being used widely?

Do the camera capabilities help sell their phones? Are there a lot of pictures from Nokia camera phones being posted to Flickr, Facebook, etc?
 
Increasing sensor resolution to these levels is of debatable value. Not only do you get increased photon noise you also have a greater proportion of non active area between sensor sites (= waisted light) and you get increased colour bleed between adajacent primary colour sites.

Yes SW can apply some clever algorithms but there are limits to what is achievable given the net degradation of the data retreived from individual sensor sites i.e. garbage in garbage out will start to apply.

I also doubt these phones would have optics capable of resolving more than 5-8MPixels (being optimistic) so the zoom arguement is unlikely playout very well either.

Basically there are very good reasons why digital SLR's have started reversing the rush for more pixels, these reasons are as equally applicable to a low cost camera phone as they are to a high end SLR.

John.
 
Both implementations are clearly different in the way they're trying to achieve better output.
The 808 can take 38Mpixel photos, but its main purpose is to use pixel oversample to take very good 5 and 8Mpixel photos.
My main point was had they kept the sensor at 8/11MP while increasing it's size to where it is they would have got quite a bit better image quality than with the thing they have done (unless they broke physics). Pretty much the only thing they get with it is zoom that doesn't get too blurry. Without zoom the image quality will quite definitely not be as good as it could be.
 
Increasing sensor resolution to these levels is of debatable value. Not only do you get increased photon noise you also have a greater proportion of non active area between sensor sites (= waisted light) and you get increased colour bleed between adajacent primary colour sites.

Yes SW can apply some clever algorithms but there are limits to what is achievable given the net degradation of the data retreived from individual sensor sites i.e. garbage in garbage out will start to apply.

I also doubt these phones would have optics capable of resolving more than 5-8MPixels (being optimistic) so the zoom arguement is unlikely playout very well either.

Basically there are very good reasons why digital SLR's have started reversing the rush for more pixels, these reasons are as equally applicable to a low cost camera phone as they are to a high end SLR.

John.

I would advise to look at the whitepapers for the "Pureview" imaging tech before jumping to fast and "cheap" conclusions like that.
All the criticisms you made are addressed in there.

Just because it isn't using the exact same approach as DSLRs, it doesn't mean it's "bad technology".
It's not a "numbers game" either. Nokia has stated very clearly that the purpose is to take better 5 and 8MP pictures (5MP is the camera's default setting, btw).


My main point was had they kept the sensor at 8/11MP while increasing it's size to where it is they would have got quite a bit better image quality than with the thing they have done (unless they broke physics). Pretty much the only thing they get with it is zoom that doesn't get too blurry. Without zoom the image quality will quite definitely not be as good as it could be.

Are you 100% sure that "pure" 8MP would be better than 8MP oversampled from 38MP at the same sensor size?
I'm in no way interested in this Nokia 808, but I kind of think Nokia usually doesn't make drastic mistakes regarding the imaging part of their camera phones. That certainly wasn't the case with N95, N86 and N8, where all these devices took the crown for best available camera in a phone.
 
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Here are some "unprocessed" photo samples:

http://cdn.conversations.nokia.com.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Archive2.zip

Regarding the technical specs, the whitepapers say there's a "special companion processor" within the camera sensor itself that "handles pixel scaling" before getting them to the image processor. This should be the case for 5 and 8MP modes, but what about the 38MP mode?
If it's using the BCM2763, can it be sending two parts of 19MPixel images that are then joined together?
 
Are you 100% sure that "pure" 8MP would be better than 8MP oversampled from 38MP at the same sensor size?
Yes for the reasons JohnH pointed out.
I'm in no way interested in this Nokia 808, but I kind of think Nokia usually doesn't make drastic mistakes regarding the imaging part of their camera phones
My guess is they wanted to get zooming working as well as possible and that will be helped by the increased pixel count. But as I said that 86mm^2 sensor with just 8MP would have provided higher quality when not using zoom.

I'm sure the phone will have higher image quality than N8 but that will come from the increased sensor size and not from anything else. Had they not increased pixel count the non-zoomed quality would have been even better.
 
My guess is they wanted to get zooming working as well as possible and that will be helped by the increased pixel count. But as I said that 86mm^2 sensor with just 8MP would have provided higher quality when not using zoom.

I'm sure the phone will have higher image quality than N8 but that will come from the increased sensor size and not from anything else. Had they not increased pixel count the non-zoomed quality would have been even better.

Yes, although that doesn't take credit from the "Pureview" solution for a smartphone implementation.

The N8 achieved standalone camera quality without optical zoom.
The 808 aims to achieve a better quality camera, with "zoomed picture/video" quality on par with standalone cameras that use optical zoom.
This is the justification for the increased resolution. Nokia isn't aiming for DSLR performance, yet.

There's also the thact that the 808 takes high-profile h.264 1080p videos at up to 25mbps with dolby digital encoded sound using stereo microfones that can take up to 140dB.
The thought of taking smartphone videoclips that are worth watching in a home theater (and not just a computer screen and tablet) is really nice.
 
Well, if you've seen 1080p videos out of DSLRs, it's not clear they're worth watching on a big screen.

If I take shots with my D7000 and then record a video at the same location, just the thumbnails show the video quality is poor. Not really unexpected but to make video worth watching, you have to have it lit, miked and planned well in advance, then do good editing on it.

Most cell phone videos are going to end up on Youtube anyways, so 1080p resolution and DD sound without production values?
 
N8 already had superb sound quality on its video recordings. High volume live music sounded good on it, I really like to see this 808 in action.
 
Well, if you've seen 1080p videos out of DSLRs, it's not clear they're worth watching on a big screen.

Perhaps because they're very poorly encoded?



If I take shots with my D7000 and then record a video at the same location, just the thumbnails show the video quality is poor.

You can tell the video quality of a 1080p clip is poor from looking at the thumbnail?
I'm sorry, that sounds silly...
 
Well, if you've seen 1080p videos out of DSLRs, it's not clear they're worth watching on a big screen.
What DSLR and what optics did you use? There is a HUGE difference between different cameras and obviously their optics. Hell, you can screw up a nice result by a simple wrong configuration from the camera menu :)

Also judging video quality by it's thumbnails is so out of this world that I'm not even sure what to say about it.
 
I'm just saying compared to the 16 Mp shots taken with the same camera, the video looks fuzzy.

Plus they're handheld, so not the best capture.

THey probably look fine on a big screen but a slide show of stills from the same camera probably looks better.
 
I'm just saying compared to the 16 Mp shots taken with the same camera, the video looks fuzzy.
Without knowing anything about the conditions and settings used (aperture, ISO for movie+photo and shutter speed for photo) it's meaningless to try to compare the two. When I shoot videos with my 60d it generally pumps up the ISO compared to photo taking in same conditions, especially when shutter speed for photo taking approaches filming FPS.
 
I would advise to look at the whitepapers for the "Pureview" imaging tech before jumping to fast and "cheap" conclusions like that.
All the criticisms you made are addressed in there.

Just because it isn't using the exact same approach as DSLRs, it doesn't mean it's "bad technology".
It's not a "numbers game" either. Nokia has stated very clearly that the purpose is to take better 5 and 8MP pictures (5MP is the camera's default setting, btw).

Interesting, where did I jump to "fast and cheap concluesions"? I pointed out the real technicals issues that occur when sensor site size is reduced. Nowhere does the nokia marketing address these issues e.g. oversampling does not address the issue of increased colour bleed and will not entirely compensate for the increased photon noise that comes from decreased sensor site size (the increased dead area between sites alone sees to that).

Now, if the increased number of pixels is coming entirely from the increased sensor area then I would agree that this should result in improved image quality.
 
Interesting, where did I jump to "fast and cheap concluesions"?

Where you questioned the validity of increasing sensor resolution, without knowing why it was done in the first place (hence the "fast and cheap"):
JohnH said:
Increasing sensor resolution to these levels is of debatable value.
(...)
I also doubt these phones would have optics capable of resolving more than 5-8MPixels (being optimistic) so the zoom arguement is unlikely playout very well either.


Here's an interview from Damian Dinning:
http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/28/the-engadget-interview-nokia-lead-for-imaging-experience-nokia/
 
Where you questioned the validity of increasing sensor resolution, without knowing why it was done in the first place (hence the "fast and cheap"):

Try reading eveything that I wrote rather than picking out one small part of it, here it is for you,

Increasing sensor resolution to these levels is of debatable value. Not only do you get increased photon noise you also have a greater proportion of non active area between sensor sites (= waisted light) and you get increased colour bleed between adajacent primary colour sites.

Everythign I say here relates to increasing sensor resolution while maintaining the same area, it isn't a "fast and cheap" comment as you keep insisting, it IS technically accurate wrt the current state of the art. My only mistake here was to assume that you had the intelligence to associate this with packing more pixels into the same size sensor.

Now, the video contains one useful peice information i.e. that the sensor appears to have increased in size in proportion to the increase in the number of pixels. Given this it comes as absolutely no surprise that they're getting high quality images out of the camera as more area means more light incedent on the sensor without a reduction in the quality of the data taken from each sensor site...
 
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