Nokia Puts 41MPixel Camera In a (Symbian) Phone

judgecorp writes "We aren't sure what's the strangest thing about Nokia's new offering, the fact that it's got a 41 Megapixel camera or the fact that it runs Symbian. It has a very high resolution sensor and uses oversampling, apparently producing good results in low light. Users can either save a maximum of 38Mpixels, or else zoom and crop for normal resolution images. Observers expected a maximum of one more Symbian phone before Nokia shifts over to Windows Phone. This suggests either a longer life for Symbian — or maybe [that] Symbian was just an easier platform to make a show-stopping device that may turn out to be more of a concept phone."

Comments

Screw Megapixels

[Anonymous Coward]

megapixel race is over now, megapixel after a some level do not matter. why dont they understand this simple thing??

Re:Screw Megapixels

[SJHillman]

I usually don't recommend anything over 10-12MP unless you're going to be blowing up an image to poster-sized. I still use a 6MP camera and it's more than sufficient for daily use. I would much rather have a better sensor since I'm still reducing the image size anyway at 6MP.

I think the big issue is that the camera manufacturers pushed higher MP but never got around to telling Joe Public what exactly MP means to them. Sort of like Intel and AMD pushing faster clock speeds, but when max clock speed reached a plateau in the 3.6-4GHz range they didn't tell consumers a 2GHz quad core with a large cache will likely kill a 3.6GHz single core with a tiny cache so many consumers still go by clock speed alone.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[beelsebob]

I usually don't recommend anything over 10-12MP unless you're going to be blowing up an image to poster-sized. I still use a 6MP camera and it's more than sufficient for daily use. I would much rather have a better sensor since I'm still reducing the image size anyway at 6MP.

Even at 10-12MP you're fine for poster resolutions. This is the resolution current DSLRs operate at (even most full frame ones), simply because it's where you're going to get decent levels of sensitivity in the pixels and not too much noise.

More so, because the lenses, even on DSLRs can't actually resolve that resolution except in absolutely perfect conditions.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[FaxeTheCat]

Nokia understands it. They have a whitepaper on the technology which explains the use of the chip. Mainly, it is used for digital zooming.
Link to whitepaper: http://europe.nokia.com/PRODUCT_METADATA_0/Products/Phones/8000-series/808/Nokia808PureView_Whitepaper.pdf

Re:Screw Megapixels

[UngodAus]

You really didn't even pay attention to the summary, let alone the article did you? The core use here is for super-sampling with dedicated hardware that produces superior 5MP & 8MP images. So... they agree with you! They have created a better sensor. It just so happens that you can also use it in non-super-sampling mode if you really really must.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[MightyYar]

The core use here is for super-sampling with dedicated hardware that produces superior 5MP & 8MP images.

But you can also "super sample" by making fewer, larger pixels that will collect more light each. Canon stepped back to a 10MP sensor for low-light performance in their G and S9x series cameras (they've since gone back up to 12).

Re:Screw Megapixels

[UngodAus]

I don't agree, if you average the input of 8 pixels, you reduce the error that you would get by sampling from one. Pretty basic statistics.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[squidflakes]

BECAUSE MEGAPICKELS!

Typical consumers don't buy a camera based on the quality of it's optics. People could give two shits about Carl Zeiss and probably only know the name because someone on TV oooh'd and awww'd about something with a Zeiss label.

Typical consumers don't understand the circle of confusion or why a small cell-phone or compact camera sensor is going to produce inferior images to a larger sensor.

Typical consumers don't understand depth of field, fstops, the zone system, tonal quality, dynamic range, or any of that other nonsense.

A typical consumer CAN compare two numbers and figure out which one is larger. Since this something everyone can do, that is where camera marketing has focused.

Canon, for instance, pushes sensors with huge megapickle numbers, but side by side their resolution is the same as the competing level Nikon or Sony. The only way you're going to get an actual resolution increase over the ASP-C sensor is going larger. All other factors being equal, a full frame sensor (35mm) produces a better image than an ASP-C. A medium format sensor (60mm) produces a better image than full frame (35mm), and so on.

So why is Nokia peddling on the megapickles instead of the oversampling or the digital zoom abilities, or the sensor size?

Because of understandable marketing.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod up parent and reduce the rest of the comments into nothingness.

Pictures are 5MP standard.
On the short end, combining pixels help to reduce lens abberations due to pixel size.
On the long end, placement of relevant pixels in the centre reduces lens abberations.

And it could not be done in WP7, as the processing power is simply missing there.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[Anonymous Coward]

Eight pixels instead of one? I think there's a lot of holes in your CCD grid.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[gmueckl]

However, the signal-to-noise-ratio is higher for each individual pixel. I'm not sure how the noise does scale exactly with pixel area, so I can't tell whether plain supersampling helps that much or much at all.

A while ago I read rather vage explanation that camera makers for these kinds of tiny cams do introduce certain errors in the camera optics on purpose so that they can tweak their way around the resolution barriers for sharp images. This trick naturally relies on a post-processing step. I wish I had more information on this kind of trick to judge it.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[Lumpy]

My 20Mp camera let's me crop and correct in post framing issues. I have created fantastic photos from casual experiential shots because if the larger image.

Also. at 20X30 a 20mp image looks a LOT better than a 10mp image does, IF printed on a printer that can do the resolution. the garbage printers at Costco can not.

Honestly, sell your old Canon Rebel and get a Rebel t2i and get a camera that sees in the dark and kicks the crud out of that paleolithic age camera... IF.....

If you have decent glass. Crap glass will not take a better photo on more megapixels. L series glass really shines with the big sensors.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[MightyYar]

It's not just statistics, though. The sum of the light collected by the 8 is lower than the sum of light collected by the one - the surface area is smaller due to the extra circuitry and other non-light-collecting chip features.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[Kjella]

True, the good thing about recording shooting more than you need is that you can crop though, I've been reading some such thoughts about the Nikon D800 (36MP, $3000 camera) and the JVC GY-HMQ10 (4K, $5000 video camera). Need an extra 2x zoom on that camera? Crop it to 9MB and you still have a very useful picture. Is what you're trying to film moving to erratic for you to stay on target? Zoom back out and crop to 1080p in post-production. Not a cheap solution but if you're can't get another take, it might be worth it.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[ceoyoyo]

Meh, I saw a 6 MP image from an early DSLR blown up to ten story building size once. It looked fine.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[ceoyoyo]

"digital zooming" is just in camera cropping. If your sensor is exceeding the resolving power of your lens your digital zoom is just going to be blurry pixels. You can put a nice big number on the box though.

Silly sensor resolution is silly whether you use it for fake zooming or not.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[uniquename72]

This will help you with image quality, but will do NOTHING to solve the central problem that Nokia wanted to solve.

RTFA, fercrissakes.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Because you're not going to put a telephoto lens on a smart phone.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[NeoMorphy]

Honestly, sell your old Canon Rebel and get a Rebel t2i and get a camera that sees in the dark and kicks the crud out of that paleolithic age camera... IF.....

The Rebel t2i is very nice, have one myself. Just don't be cheap on the lens and filters. And if you install "Magic Lantern"(http://magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/Magic_Lantern_Firmware_Wiki), you really have a nice camera!

Re:Screw Megapixels

[21mhz]

And it could not be done in WP7, as the processing power is simply missing there.

Don't they use a dedicated chip to process the images? A driver for it can probably be integrated, given some time; Elop seemed to indicate it may eventually happen. Mind you, the technology has been 5 years in development as it is.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[cayenne8]

Even at 10-12MP you're fine for poster resolutions. This is the resolution current DSLRs operate at (even most full frame ones), simply because it's where you're going to get decent levels of sensitivity in the pixels and not too much noise.

More so, because the lenses, even on DSLRs can't actually resolve that resolution except in absolutely perfect conditions.

I dunno. I"m excited to see the new Canon 5D Mark III come out!!

I've been wanting to get a nice, high end DSLR for some time now, and have been saving and hearing this new version would be out soon.

This looks to be about 22MP....smaller than the recent Nikon D800 offering, which I believe was 36MP.

I'm going with the Canon...seems to have the right size sensor, MPs....quality for shooting HD Video (and yes, I plan to use off camera sound recording, etc).

But there is apparently a good reason to have greater than 10-12MP. From what I hear, people use it a lot to help let them be more free with shooting the shots, and then cropping as needed in post?

I'm looking, however, to also save and get some decent glass.

I'm hoping the new 5D will come with something similar to the last one, with a L zoom lens that was decent to start with...but I will save and get a couple of good primes too.

I'm trying to study and figure out what I want to get for primes...as that they can get pretty $$$$$, and I want to spend my money wisely.

But that many MP in a phone? I would have to agree on that...why would you need that many on a freakin' cell phone?

Re:Screw Megapixels

[sarysa]

More megapixels + multitouch interface = win
Reason: It makes digital zoom less of a gimmick

Imagine this: You take a shot, then do the pinch gesture to zoom in on a certain spot. You also use a single finger to get exactly what you want from the shot to appear on screen. You keep on pinching/dragging until you have the exact final image you want. You've ultimately zoomed 3x and focused on a bird flying by (or something else) and you click "save". You have an effortlessly taken image of a bird flying by, not needing any editing software to get it exactly how you want, with the same quality as current phone digital cameras -- but essentially an impossible shot since you'd have to be flying with other phones to take it.

With the right software and interface, even a gigapixel camera would be worth my $$.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[yurtinus]

You can't really compare a cell phone image sensor with a reasonable camera image sensor. There is generally a very significant difference in size between the two. Larger sensor collects more light. More light on the sensor means less sensitivity gain, means less noise in the picture it produces (particularly in low-light). Even if you compare two identically sized CCDs, one with eight times the pixels, you end up with eight pixels with significantly more noise than your single pixel simply because less than 1/8th the light is hitting each of those sensors (hence an even *higher* gain on each of those).

I'm not saying it's going to be a bad cell phone camera, I'm simply saying that increasing the number of pixels over the same surface area of the sensor doesn't in and of itself give you a better image. I think the main benefits they will get with the high resolution CCD here are the ability to do significant digital zooms by cropping and using pixel averaging to keep a reasonable quality for images that aren't zoomed in.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[cayenne8]

Just don't be cheap on the lens and filters.

Speaking of filters....

I'm looking to soon get either the Canon 5D Mk II or the new Mk III....depending on the specs/price for new and how much the price drops for the current model.

Anyway, wanting to shoot video outdoors..and be able to open the aperture up full. I've been reading about neutral density (ND) filters. I've been reading that there are some good single units that are variable, and was thinking that might be where my money is best spent (as that I'll be a bit poorer after the camera body investment).

Do you or anyone else have insights on this and recommendations?

Also, for a new FF camera, hoping it comes with a decent zoom lens as a kit...but I want to get a couple nice, fast primes. Suggestions for those?

Re:Screw Megapixels

[robmv]

but but how we will get those CSI like scenes where people zoom in a lot with perfect resolution in order to obtain the evidence, don't you want to catch the criminals?

Re:Screw Megapixels

[sexconker]

You really didn't even pay attention to the summary, let alone the article did you? The core use here is for super-sampling with dedicated hardware that produces superior 5MP & 8MP images. So... they agree with you! They have created a better sensor. It just so happens that you can also use it in non-super-sampling mode if you really really must.

Uh, what?
They're not super sampling, they're down sampling. The physical sensor is always 41 MP. They can only super sample temporally, which is retarded.

They've got a 41 MP sensor. You can run at 41 MP and get the noisiest image in the world. Or you can run at a few MP and get a that 41 MP sensor's image shrunk down, or (even dumber) you can get a crop of that 41 MP sensor (YAY DIGITAL ZOOM!). Super sampling is the process of taking more samples than required for the output. The sensor is always 41 MP and always takes that many samples. Digital zoom throws most of them away. Taking a lower resolution picture just resizes the image. To super sample with a fixed sensor array like in a camera, you'd need to take multiple pictures, either building one larger image and then sizing it down (hope you have a steady hand) or taking multiple pictures over time and laying those on top of each other (hope your subject doesn't move).

The "dedicated hardware" is just some piece of shit DSP that tries to voodoo away the noise. It's gaussian blur + unsharp mask on a chip.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[Anonymous Coward]

Note that your lens has more resolving power near the center than at the edges -- when cropping, you can make use of a somewhat higher pixel density than you can full-frame.

And this is a 1/1.2" sensor, so the density is less "silly" than you might think -- it's on par with regular cameraphones.

Together, this means you might have optical resolution of 1 or 2 pixels cropped to 8Mpx -- not silly.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[sexconker]

I don't agree, if you average the input of 8 pixels, you reduce the error that you would get by sampling from one. Pretty basic statistics.

Nope.
The "error" from sampling a pixel comes from the sensor being shitty, not your ability to read it.
The shittiness of a sensor is directly tied to its physical size / MP.

Given sensors of 5 MP and 40 MP, of the same dimension, the 40 MP sensor will be far more susceptible to noise. Each pixel receives less than 1/8th the amount of light, and you get a shittier image as a result. (It's less than because of the overhead. Draw a square, then divide it into 9 squares. The lines are the overhead you don't get to sense light from.)

Re:Screw Megapixels

[oji-sama]

Yes, but you will also lose the possibility to zoom by selecting a specific area of the sensor for the final 5MP image. Of course you will get less oversampling, and finally only the actual pixels, but at least there's no digital zoom involved.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[suy]

I still use a 6MP camera and it's more than sufficient for daily use.

Then you are going to love this phone's camera, since the default setting is 5MP, and unless you set explicitly the "tricks" mode, 8MP is the largest setting in normal mode.

I think the big issue is that the camera manufacturers pushed higher MP but never got around to telling Joe Public what exactly MP means to them.

I think all agree on this. Even Nokia. In the paper they published they say:

People will inevitably home in on the number of pixels the Nokia 808 PureView packs, but they’re missing the point. [...]

It all stems from the very early days of digital cameras, when image quality was affected by the limited number of pixels available. As the pixel numbers increased, image quality dramatically improved. However, once the resolution reached around 5Mpix-6Mpix, the real-world benefits became debatable.

But by then, the market had made a direct correlation between number of pixels and quality of image. The more pixels the better, was the received wisdom. And this thinking has stuck. Though today manufacturers would happily reduce the number of pixels in their cameras, and instead concentrate on their lenses and sensors, they’re not so sure the market would accept this.

Is nice that the company selling the device is stating this from day 1.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[MightyYar]

[ahem]

Nokia says that the phone has “superior” low-light performance,

Now to be fair, they do go on to add:

“People will inevitably focus on the 41 megapixel sensor, but the real quantum leap is how the pixels are used to deliver breath-taking image quality at any resolution and the freedom it provides to choose the story you want to tell.”

Translating the horrid marketing speak - they are saying that you can also use it for digital zoom. But I'll believe that when they show me an image that isn't a brightly lit sky scene, lacking any shadows - every point-and-shoot I've owned since the 1.3 megapixel days has been limited by it's lens in all but the best conditions.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[w.hamra1987]

yes, exactly! i prefer that my images are sharper, i use a 6 MP camera, a point-and-shoot Sony, and the images are all blurry, and i reduce them to 1280x1024 pixels anyway... i prefer it takes *sharp* 1280x1024 pictures rather than blurry, or dark 987432432x9890432 pictures.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[oji-sama]

Taking a lower resolution picture just resizes the image. To super sample with a fixed sensor array like in a camera, you'd need to take multiple pictures, either building one larger image and then sizing it down (hope you have a steady hand) or taking multiple pictures over time and laying those on top of each other (hope your subject doesn't move).

The "dedicated hardware" is just some piece of shit DSP that tries to voodoo away the noise. It's gaussian blur + unsharp mask on a chip.

Mmm. I read the white paper.

You know, the default output size is 5MP. What do you think happens when you size a fixed size 38MP (depending on the aspect ratio) to 5MP? Why yes, I believe you will have several samples for a single pixel. And guess what the dsp does. It voodoos away the noise by shrinking the image down from those (extra) samples. (The separate chip is needed because the processing power limitations of mobile chipsets (at least at the design time. I think this is about to change)).

Zooming by throwing some of the samples away is not ideal, but it does allow zooming without need to upscale the image, which is nice. Especially if you are taking a video.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[MightyYar]

Of course you will get less oversampling, and finally only the actual pixels, but at least there's no digital zoom involved.

Agreed, but have you ever seen a pocket shooter (let alone a cell phone camera) that isn't lens-limited? Maybe they can make this useful with full-daylight landscape shots with lots of midtones and highlights, but there is no way that you can take a picture of like a family reunion group shot and get usable portraits by digitally zooming. And for a typical 4x6 or computer monitor or MMS, there is plenty of oversampling already even with a 4 megapixel camera.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[oji-sama]

The nice thing is that fixed lenses (generally) produce better images than zoom lenses. I'm waiting for articles with some comparison images, should be interesting.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[painandgreed]

I usually don't recommend anything over 10-12MP unless you're going to be blowing up an image to poster-sized.

Well, unless you decide to crop. Then you can see your MP drop fairly quickly if you only want to print part of a photo.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but that way you get more blurry "downsampling".

Re:Screw Megapixels

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, but when it's software you can average out bigger area than the bigger pixels would cover and compensate the blur by weighing the samples properly.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[Darinbob]

The high megapixel is used as an artificial "zoom". I'd prefer optical zoom in the first place but if you don't even have a real camera and just a dumb-smart-phone then it's a second best option. (at least until they find out that a pearl sized lens is not the best optics no matter what the brand name on the box)

Re:Screw Megapixels

[thsths]

> I still use a 6MP camera and it's more than sufficient for daily use.

I still have a 6MP DSLR, and it blows away any compact camera, 16MP or 41, unless you have a very specific use case.

The whole megapixel craze has mostly just lead to smaller pixels and more noise, degrading image quality. It is time to reverse the trend, because some of the 14 and 16MP cameras are truly horrible and even identified in reviews as a whole step backwards compared to the previous generation (10/12MP, which was already subtly worse than 6/8MP). See http://mpixel.org/en/

Re:Screw Megapixels

[thsths]

> What’s more, based on Nyqvist theorem, you actually need oversampling for good performance. For example, audio needs to be sampled at 44 kHz to get good 22 kHz quality.

Send those guys back to the signal processing course at uni. They obviously didn't understand it.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[FaxeTheCat]

Have you read the whitepaper?

Re:Screw Megapixels

[Locutus]

remember that the Windows Phone 7 OS can't support multiple processors so they can't use any of the new SoCs Android phones are using. Notice on the Android phones how it's mentioned how many cores the hardware has? Nokia can't do this with their Windows Phone phones so what else can they market/advertise about? Screen size and the camera is about it. Notice how the Lumina phones are pretty much the same hardware with differing screen sizes?

The way I figure it, they're putting this ridiculous setup out to pave the way for mega pixel race in Windows Phone phones. They'll not really sell many of the Symbian models but it's a marketing technique to pave the way for a mega pixel race with Microsoft based phones. Again, because they really can't use newer multi-core SoC's.

LoB

Re:Screw Megapixels

[White Flame]

If somebody would release a 41-megapixel *monitor*, I'd be all over it.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[Luckyo]

It's not a part of megapixel race. What they're doing is supersampling to bypass several lens-related problems in camera phones. It's a brilliant solution on many levels.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[Luckyo]

Thing is, this is a PHONE. Not a DEDICATED CAMERA. It has issues with size of camera module and severe issues with lens that cameras can easily bypass.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[Luckyo]

They probably also use a dedicated chip, but thing is, in terms of calculating efficiency and OS overhead, symbian runs circles around all other mobile operating systems.

That's the main reason why it can still get away with low power ARM11 on low clocks, and still run fine (at least anna and belle do).

Re:Screw Megapixels

[ceoyoyo]

Yes. It's not really a "whitepaper" at least not as we used to know them. It's a long form marketing piece with some rough technical details in it. Are you referring to something in particular?

Re:Screw Megapixels

[danomac]

That must've been one hell of a big printer.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[MightyYar]

Right, the lens has to be smaller than a point-and-shoot, which is why this scheme is nuts. They are super-sampling a fuzzy picture.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[Lumpy]

Yeah. Dont get a 5D. If you must have a "pro" camera get a 7D and spend the cash on L series glass.

Honestly, put the cash in the glass. the 5D does not take any better photos than the rebel line. the Glass on the other hand makes all the difference.

My 50mm prime 1.2 L lens is magical. utterly magical.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[Luckyo]

You do realise that "fuzzy picture" will be much cleaner then original because of super sampling with proper algorithms? Or do you not understand how super sampling works and why it's used?

Re:Screw Megapixels

[MightyYar]

No, I don't understand how they overcome the small lens with smaller pixels and math. I'd love a link to that!

Re:Screw Megapixels

[Anonymous Coward]

And it could not be done in WP7, as the processing power is simply missing there.

WTF does an OS have to do with processing power? You could do it in DOS given the correct processors. Heck, it can even be done on a device with NO OS!

Re:Screw Megapixels

[Luckyo]

What "smaller pixels"? Read the OP before claiming falsehoods to back up your statements. This camera has a sensor surface bigger then most if not all pocket cameras (as in dedicated camera devices), and completely unprecedented in camera phones.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[polymeris]

You probably already have decided you want that camera, but if I were you, I would invest in glass first (keeping your current body or getting a cheap one) & only later upgrade the camera. Decent to good lenses might last you many decades, the body will be obsolete in 5 years.
A entry level DSLR is as almost as good as the top-tier ones, anyways, barring build quality.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[MightyYar]

What are you talking about? Where in the "OP" (original post, right?) does it say the sensor is so huge? It doesn't even mention the sensor size in TFA. Even if the sensor were the size of a football field, it wouldn't get more light through the lens.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[MightyYar]

So I found a pdf describing this system, and it says the sensor is 1/1.2", which is quite large for a phone. Nevertheless, I'm quite skeptical that the sensor is the limiting factor - though it looks like they bulked up the lens quite a bit, too. The lens is f/2.4, which is the same as an iPhone, but has to be much larger to accommodate the larger sensor.

So I don't doubt that this camera will take better pictures than other phones - I just doubt that the resolution is useful. I bet a camera with a sensor of the same size but with 1/2 the number of pixels would take equivalent pictures in all but the most perfect of conditions, and would actually do better in low light. A Rebel with an APS-C sized sensor only has 18 megapixels. That a much larger sensor (almost 4x larger) with a much better optical path, and Canon sees fit to limit it to 18 megapixels.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[terjeber]

Rubbish.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[terjeber]

There is one huge difference, the sensor size. A bigger sensor, particularly if the pixel count is similar, is more light sensitive, and it also (typically) can reproduce a bigger color gamut. The Nikon D800 (and big brothers) and the new Canons can (with the right photographer) produce rather spectacular images that are very difficult do to with a smaller sensor.

Also, not forgetting the light sensitivity of these sensors. Shooting at above 6400 ISO is not just an option any more, it produces images of a quality that can not be matched (or even come close to) with the smaller sensors.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[ceoyoyo]

Do the math.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[cayenne8]

I don't have a body yet.

The thing is, I've been talking with people here in New Orleans, and with all the tax breaks here, it is like Hollywood south....if I can get a body and even 1-2 decent lenses, I have people that can get me workingw with them immediately mostly for video work, and I can share their lenses with them....but lots of stuff to do here for $$ with multi-cameras....

That's one of the main reasons I'm on the plan I am.

If I can make some $$ to pay towards the camera (which I'll likely get on amazon for 1yr interest free), I can then start picking up good glass too.

I want to shoot good still to...so, this would be a good investment for me.

But right off to bat, I have opportunities for shooting HD video for production down here....

Re:Screw Megapixels

[cayenne8]

But, my main first use would be for HD video.

There is a ton of work here in New Orleans, for shooting with 5D mk2..and soon with mk3. I already have offers to come on board with crews here for multi-camera shoots...and I can borrow some of their glass on these.

I figure I get this camera from like amazon, 1yr interest free....and I should be able to get money from it to help pay it off fairly quickly....and also be buying my own glass.

I want to shoot stills and all too...but the 5D line offers opportunities to earn some $$, that I already will have lined up when I can get it....

Re:Screw Megapixels

[cayenne8]

Oh...one question, I'd been looking at the 50mm 1.2L lens....

I'd read people saying it had some kind of 'back focus' problem...is this something you're familiar with or have run into yourself?

Re:Screw Megapixels

[terjeber]

I did - it's rubbish. A six megapixel camera has about 2000 lines of resolution (3000 x 2000). A ten story building is about 20 meters high. Your pixels would be in the neighborhood of a cm square (quick calc in head). You need to be rather far away to not see the pixelation. Obviously, any picture can be blown up to any size and look fine providing the viewer is far enough away.

Re:Screw Megapixels

[ceoyoyo]

Yes, that's the point. You don't look at a ten story high poster from three feet away. You also don't look at an 11x14 in your lap. Six megapixels seems to provide sufficient resolution that the angular size of a pixel is acceptably small for any reasonable viewing configuration.

People who say you need X megapixels for a Y x Z enlargement are silly. If I'm going to look at a 4x6 from an inch away with a magnifying glass I need lots of resolution too, but nobody would do that. Just like nobody would try to look at a ten story poster from three feet.

I DID see a 6 megapixel image used for a commercial, building-sized poster. It DID look fine. No, I wasn't three feet away. That would have been silly.

Optics

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless it has a DSLR-type lens, the limitation is going to be optics, not resolution.

-taktoa

Re:Optics

[bemymonkey]

Look at the sample shots. 41MP be damned, those photos look goooooood.

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

Me likey...

Re:Optics

[Anonymous Coward]

It has Carl Zeiss optics. For the focal length of the lens (f2.4), it should be quite decent.

Re:Optics

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Yup, there's a physical limit to how much light you can get through a lens the size of your pinky nail and all the megapixels in the world won't change that.

Re:Optics

[Anonymous Coward]

larger sensors (larger than point-and-shoots)

Re:Optics

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, they're decent... for a phone. Won't make me throw away the camera though.

Re:Optics

[batistuta]

You think so? I just see vibrant colors, not 41megapixels detail. With a clear blue sky like that, and plenty of light, you minimize the problems of small sensors/lenses.

It is known that you can print up to A3 size with a 6 MP camera. So the only advantage would be when using digital zoom. If I zoom in those images I see a noisy sky. Sure, it can be a problem with jpg format. But in any case, the same picture could have been obtained with a 6MP camera.

Re:Optics

[Andy_R]

That's true, but this isn't a tiny lens. The spec sheet doesn't give the actual lens size, but it does say there's a 1.5 inch sensor in there, which is a clue to the real flaw with this product. It's not really a phone with a surprisingly good camera, it's actually just a consumer level compact camera that happens to also be able to make calls. The big idea of getting rid of the optical zoom and just downsampling in the box, gaining both hardware simplicity and the advantage of averaging out noise when using less than max quality is fundamentally sound, but it probably isn't ready for real-world deployment in an actual consumer level compact camera... hence the decision to slap a phone on he back and pretend it's not a consumer level compact camera. This probably explains the decision to put symbian on it, the CPU of the camera this really ought to be probably wasn't beefy enough to run anything modern at a decent speed.

Re:Optics

[RenderSeven]

Kodak used Carl Zeiss optics, and their cameras always tested well for it, and look where it got them.

Re:Optics

[bemymonkey]

What exactly is wrong with them? Can you point out something?

Re:Optics

[Idbar]

While optics become a limitation, the sensor size is larger in size not just resolution (thus better aperture and less noise).

But I don't think you can have it all on your cell (I wished a F/1.4 11mm-5000mm lens but that would be kind of bulky - if possible).

To me, the news come down to
1. The bandwidth of the sensor to pull all that data out in a "fair experience" for the user
1.b. The embedded processing capabilities (DSP, etc)

2. The capability of analyzing a 41 megapixel image, with fairly low noise and try to interpolate to obtain very good results on night shots using a cellphone.

Re:Optics

[squidflakes]

Those are nice shots, but they were also taken by a professional photographer in perfect lighting conditions. The ability of the average user to reproduce these will be reduced to "Happy Accident."

Now, a person with a good eye for composition and lighting will be able to turn out some pretty nice stuff on a consistent basis, and if you're looking to be able to make calls and play Angry Birds on your camera, more power to you.

Re:Optics

[Idbar]

Ah.. yes. I forgot...

3. A fairly good quality digital zoom that can crop 41MP to 4.1MP to avoid more complex optical zoom mechanisms.

Re:Optics

[bemymonkey]

Hmmm, good point. My Galaxy Nexus take barely usable shots in broad daylight but churns out murky crap at night... maybe it really is time for a bigger camera.

Re:Optics

[ColdWetDog]

Pretty much this. An iPhone (which, until the 4S had spectacularly bad cameras) can take good pictures under optimal conditions. ANYTHING can take good pictures under optimal conditions. Especially if you're looking at it on Facebook on some random browser at 400 pixels across.

Have the light wash out, have the subject move, put the subject close or far away, print poster size - then you're pushing hardware.

Re:Optics

[ColdWetDog]

You don't need the digital zoom - that's what all the pickles are for. Just subsample. That allows you to have simpler, better lens. Zooming is faster. It allows the 'photographer' to decide what to do with the picture later. That's important in these miserable little 'cameras' since the form factor and lack of a decent viewfinder make it hard to compose, especially when the subject is busy yorking up all the Doritos in the corner. Gotta get that special moment!

Re:Optics

[Anonymous Coward]

FWIW, because it has no optical zoom, the main benefit of this many pixels is that you can do electronic zoom up to some reasonable point without losing resolution excessively.

Re:Optics

[ceoyoyo]

I'm glad you put photographer in quotes.

Re:Optics

[Anonymous Coward]

I fail to see how this is a flaw. Even assuming you're right and they're using an "underpowered" cpu, it simply means they're targeting a different niche. This may come as a surprise to you, but there are lots of people out there who use their phone primarily *as* a phone. For such people a decent camera with an integrated crappy smartphone may well have a lot more appeal than a decent smartphone with an integrated crappy camera.

Besides which, I fail to see how their use of Symbian is evidence that it has an underpowered cpu - I would be very surprised if the Nokia-Microsoft deal doesn't strongly discourage them from using Android, so their choice would be between their in-house OS which they can fine-tune for this different niche product, Microsoft's crappy OS with associated license fees, or some third-party's in-house OS. Given the options, which would you choose?

Re:Optics

[WalkingBear]

Kodak's failures had nothing to do with what optics they used or didn't use.

Re:Optics

[WalkingBear]

Look at the photo of the caribiner. Look closely along the inner line of the caribiner and the rock. You'll see a bit of.. mushiness.. or blurred noise there. That's an artifact of the supersampling and processing being used to get the 38mpx sized images out of a censor that is physically lower resolution than that.

There are noise artifacts all over the images, and anywhere you get a sharp contrast in color or tone, you'll get that noise.

It's a *fantastic* image for a camera phone. The optics on Nokia's phones have always been top notch, as have their censors (the n95 notwithstanding) and LED flashes. It's the OS on the phone that has always been their week spot.

But if I can spend $600 for a reasonably capable phone with optics and censor of this level, I"ll count it a bargain.

Re:Optics

[WalkingBear]

I routinely print up to 17x24 with images from my Nikon D50 (6mp). A touch of sharpening, some smart blur, and, if needed, a touch up here and there and even printing at 75-100 pix/inch gives you a great photo.

Re:Optics

[peppepz]

The CPU of the camera? I don't think that the average MCU found in a camera would be enough to run Symbian.

The idea of this phone is to get the best possible camera inside a phone form factor, which is very different from the one of a "consumer level compact camera": try putting one in your pocket.

Nokia has never produced cameras, instead they're known for manufacturing the phones with the best embedded cameras (N8, N93), and this one is their attempt at keeping that title.

They used Symbian instead of Windows Phone probably because Windows Phone doesn't (currently) offer the flexibility that is needed to support specialized hardware.

Re:Optics

[the linux geek]

The sensor is 41mp. They're subsampling, not supersampling; generating a (supposedly) superior 5/8mp image from an original, potentially fairly noisy but high-detail, 41mp image.

Re:Optics

[Luckyo]

Best part is, it will probably be cheaper then that.

Re:Optics

[Luckyo]

Symbian doesn't run "beefy things" also known as "graphics" on CPU. It has a dedicated GPU to offload these tasks to.

Re:Optics

[polymeris]

f=8mm

Re:Optics

[Idbar]

Perhaps I didn't explain myself well, but is you get to characterize you sensor well enough, you can design better algorithms for that "sub sampling", from within the device. Not sure if that's what you meant, but it's closer to what I meant.

Re:Optics

[Anonymous Coward]

At least until those super lenses come out with negative refractive indicies.

Re:Optics

[Anonymous Coward]

Slightly larger than 3/4 cameras, actually. It is huge.

Re:Optics

[graphius]

another clue this is a camera with a phone, rather than the inverse is the lens they chose. They spent the money on a Zeiss lens.
Actually I am kind of surprised they put a fixed lens on it, but obviously they were building to a price. On that note, I wonder what it will cost? If it is around $100 to $150 it will do well. If they try to price it as a smartphone at $400 or more, It will flop

Re:Optics

[truckwash]

posted to remove accidental mod

Or perhaps this isn't Star Trek

[rufty_tufty]

"This suggests either a longer life for Symbian — or maybe Symbian was just an easier platform to make a show-stopping device that may turn out to be more of a concept phone"
Or perhaps the phone has been in development for some time, maybe it takes longer than Marketing announcement cycles to design and deliver new technology.

Re:Or perhaps this isn't Star Trek

[suy]

Or perhaps the phone has been in development for some time, maybe it takes longer than Marketing announcement cycles to design and deliver new technology.

I can't find now the link (maybe it was on a video), but they say they have been developing this technology for four years.

And BTW, the summary is somewhat unfair. On the announcement they have posted (besides some impressive photo samples) a whitepaper were they clearly say that is not about quantity of megapixels, is about the quality you get when you average the results given by each one. I've also seen some of the videos were you get a very smooth digital zoom without loss of quality, and is quite remarkable.

Re:Or perhaps this isn't Star Trek

[kanto]

And BTW, the summary is somewhat unfair. On the announcement they have posted (besides some impressive photo samples) a whitepaper were they clearly say that is not about quantity of megapixels, is about the quality you get when you average the results given by each one. I've also seen some of the videos were you get a very smooth digital zoom without loss of quality, and is quite remarkable.

Bleh, you're boring the appletards with technical details.

Re:Or perhaps this isn't Star Trek

[agentgonzo]

Is there some modern variant of Godwin's law that applies whenever you mention Steve Jobs or Apple in an unrelated conversation?

Re:Or perhaps this isn't Star Trek

[Anonymous Coward]

There is one-time big marketing&buzz potential with 40Mpx camera that you can hardly hope to generate later again. It doesn't make sense to launch the phone with OS declared dead year ago if you have another phone with the "right" OS few months later (this Symbian phone should be on sale in May, Windows Phone 8 should arrive in Q4).

Actually the problem seems to be that both WP7 and WP8 are incapable to handle the image processing just now.

Re:Or perhaps this isn't Star Trek

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the variant is called "mod point".

Re:Or perhaps this isn't Star Trek

[ColdWetDog]

Is there some modern variant of Godwin's law that applies whenever you mention Steve Jobs or Apple in an unrelated conversation?

iGod's law?

Re:Or perhaps this isn't Star Trek

[Anonymous Coward]

This has been in development for more than five years. That's why it's running Symbian.

Re:Or perhaps this isn't Star Trek

[yurtinus]

I think Jobwin's law would be more betterer.

Re:Or perhaps this isn't Star Trek

[kanto]

Is there some modern variant of Godwin's law that applies whenever you mention Steve Jobs or Apple in an unrelated conversation?

I'm just making informed and estute observations like the rest of the pack... sometimes I just get tired of pretending to be a mobile phone market analyst.

Re:Or perhaps this isn't Star Trek

[jimbo]

Indeed, it takes a year to crank out a new model. It's not done overnight. New hardware, SW updates, rigorous testing in lab and on networks, beta cycles, bug fixing.... Repeat until ready...

Also Nokia used to have a S40 and a S60 arm internally, the two being completely independent and competing. Now the Symbian and WinMo arms are probable as independent of eachother, the only overall strategy being how much funding each receives and how many new models are cranked out in a year.

"Observers expected a maximum of one more Symbian"

[oodaloop]

Shouldn't they expect a mazimum?

Question is..

[ackthpt]

Is it really pixels or is it phonus balonus theoretical pixels?

I have and Olympus FE-47 cheepie "14 megapixel" which has worse actual resolution than my old Nikon Coolpix 800, which only is 1 megapixel.

Re:Question is..

[lagomorpha2]

Well there's no way they're going to fit a lens capable of giving a great picture onto a phone.

Re:Question is..

[ackthpt]

Well there's no way they're going to fit a lens capable of giving a great picture onto a phone.

Oh, I think they could, but it'll cost ya.

I'mma think this is more like the behavior of the Olympus FE-47, where it saves a picture, which has a resolution of 14 mp, but the actual quality leaves something to be desired.

I'm looking elsewhere, from camera phones, for my next camera anyway, why do I need some kind of quality like that when I'm going to have fingerprints and dust all over the lens, anyway?

Re:Question is..

[Anonymous Coward]

Sensor is much larger than a traditional 5MP phone cam sensor:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/2012/02/27/Nokia-808-PureView-with-41MP-sensor

Re:Question is..

[beelsebob]

Oh, I think they could, but it'll cost ya.

Even £1500 lenses for DSLRs aren't capable of resolving this kind of resolution across a full frame.

Re:Question is..

[synapse7]

I had the same fear, the image at actual size would have bad detail. However, Nokia has sample images available for download that look amazing, seems suspicious. Link to sample pics towards the bottom. http://www.dailytech.com/Nokias+41+MP+Super+Phone+to+Sport+Symbian+See+EuroOnly+Launch/article24093.htm

Re:Question is..

[FaxeTheCat]

It is actual pixels. Have a look at the whitepaper on the technology. In essence, it can be used for digital zoom where you still have a decent resolution on the final image:
http://europe.nokia.com/PRODUCT_METADATA_0/Products/Phones/8000-series/808/Nokia808PureView_Whitepaper.pdf

Re:Question is..

[xmas2003]

Ditto that - salient point here is a much larger sensor which has a big effect on reducing noise. It's still not anywhere near the size of a DSLR, and at least in the pics I saw (all taken in daylight), there was a lot of "smearing" at 100% ... so diffraction is coming into play here.

Note also that the samples were all "wide-angle" - the "telephoto" is not optical - basically just using a subset of the sensor to do it electronically. So makes the device much simpler (no moving parts), but in essence is digital zoom, so image quality is going to suffer as you zoom in.

Nifty idea though.

Re:Question is..

[Andy_R]

According to the product briefing, it's actually very odd. There really are 41 megapixels, but you can't use more than 38 megapixels at any given time. You can shoot either 16:9 images that chop off the top and bottom or 4:3 images that chop off the sides of the full 41. This means the corners of the sensor are never used, as they are always cropped off, so the lens doesn't need to be big enough to let light into the very corners.

Re:Question is..

[PybusJ]

It's not all that odd. Panasonic already do the same trick with some of their Lumix cameras. It makes a lot of sense as all lenses produce a circular image.

Re:Question is..

[Entropius]

Actually, they are. (Nikon thinks so, at any rate, since they just made a DSLR with that kind of resolution.)

What you should ask is "Are these lenses capable of delivering a MTF significantly different from zero at a frequency of 5000 line pairs per picture height?" (In engineering terms, this is 2500 cycles per picture height.) This is an unambiguous criterion for being able to make use of that extra resolution: can the lens deliver detail up to the Nyquist frequency of the sensor?

The answer is pretty unequivocally yes, as can be shown by several tests. The simplest of them is to consider teleconverters. I don't have a 48MP camera handy, but I *do* have a 12MP camera and a 2x teleconverter. Any lens capable of resolving 3000 lp/ph well with a 2x teleconverter will be capable of resolving 6000 lp/ph without it, since an ideal teleconverter just magnifies the image. I have a $125 lens (the Zuiko Digital 35mm f/3.5 macro) which easily satisfies this criterion: it delivers images that contain detail all the way down to the pixel level on a 12MP sensor (i.e. 3000 lp/ph) with a 2x teleconverter. (I use this in the field to get more working distance for bug shots since 35mm is quite short for a macro lens.) Thus, it will deliver useful detail to twice that resolution without the teleconverter, which corresponds to a 48MP sensor at the 4:3 aspect ratio.

This is a $125 lens. (It's also the sharpest I own.) If a cheap lens can do this -- and can do it when focused well into the macro range, which provides special optical challenges -- then there are plenty of more expensive ones that can, too.

Another test is to look at an extremely dense sensor already in existence: the 24MP Sony NEX-7 sensor, which has a crop factor of 1.5x. It's got the same pixel density as a 50+MP fullframe sensor. But people use fullframe lenses on it, such as the Carl Zeiss ones built for the Sony mount, or Leica M lenses, or whatever, and get useful detail out of all that resolution. Those lenses, then, are capable of delivering useful detail to a 50+MP fullframe sensor.

Zoom lenses may have trouble resolving this sort of detail, but even most cheap prime lenses can. (Of course, the very fast ones won't be able to at f/1.4...)

Re:Question is..

[squidflakes]

Reading the article, it states that the sensor size is 1.5 inches. (38.1mm) If we assume that the measurement is like other camera sensors, that is the diagonal measurement and a little trig tells us that we can get a ~27mm a side right triangle from that, which is on par with APS-C sensors, or most DSLRs in production today.

The smearing is probably coming from the focal distance between the lens and the sensor and a fixed aperture. Unless there is something they aren't telling us, the lens has to be focused to infinity and the aperture is f2.4, which is going to produce a very wonky area of critical focus. Plus, as you mentioned, diffraction is going to be a huge problem. The formulas for focus to infinity that close to the image plane are going to be very limited and your CoC is probably going to be well outside optimal. I would also guess that when oversampling, they are averaging the images to simulate critical focus, but using one sample to also simulate bokeh.

Re:Question is..

[squidflakes]

And let me reply to my own post here. The whitepaper says the sensor is going to be 10x7mm, which is a little under half an inch diagonal. Nothing about that sensor can equal 38mm, so I'm wondering which measurement is a misprint.

Re:Question is..

[ColdWetDog]

Thank you for taking the trouble to debunk that particular issue. I think the idea of a 'cheap' fixed focus lens vs. a 'complicated and expensive' zoom is very salient here. By using a fixed focal lens of presumably decent quality (remember, the sensor is actually fairly large for this sort of application which means you make a relatively large lens) and doing the zooming in the computer, you 1) speed things up for the user 2) make the camera physically simpler and hopefully higher image quality 3) thus make manufacturing simpler.

It appears that with the modern crop of sensors / lenses and support electronics, this approach is doable. Now, dump the ancient OS and put it in a real camera, er, phone or whatever.

Re:Question is..

[Savantissimo]

It's a 1/1.2inch sensor = 2/3inch sensor, in which these are not actual inches but nominal inches related to the sizes of old TV camera sensor tubes, which had a sensitive area only in the center, but were specified by the outer diameter of the tube.
The nominal diameter in inches is about 1.5 times the real sensor size on the diagonal.

Type / Diag. / W / H (mm) / Area (mm^2)
1/3.2" 5.680 4.536 3.416 15.49 Phone camera
1/2.3" 7.700 6.160 4.620 28.46 compact camera
1/1.2 13.10 10.80 7.500 81.30 Nokia 808 41Mpix
4/3" 22.50 18.00 13.50 243.00 a.k.a. micro 4/3"
1.8" 28.40 23.70 15.70 372.09 a.k.a. APS-C
35mm 43.30 36.00 24.00 864.00 ratio of diagonals gives 35mm crop factor
(above information calculated from http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/Glossary/Camera_System/sensor_sizes_01.htm )

Re:Question is..

[graphius]

Sensors use a strange measurement for size based on the size of a square in a circle with circumference x*
from Wikipedia:

The sensor sizes of many compact digital cameras are expressed in terms of the non-standardized "inch" system, as approximately 1.5 times the length of the diagonal of the sensor. This goes back to the way image sizes of early video cameras were expressed in terms of the outside diameter of the glass envelope of the video camera tube

*This dates back to when we were showing square images on CRT screens

Re:Question is..

[squidflakes]

Ahhh, thank you for the correction. I assumed the sensor plane was measured the same as the film plane.

Re:Question is..

[perryizgr8]

Ditto that - salient point here is a much larger sensor which has a big effect on reducing noise. It's still not anywhere near the size of a DSLR, and at least in the pics I saw (all taken in daylight), there was a lot of "smearing" at 100% ... so diffraction is coming into play here.

Note also that the samples were all "wide-angle" - the "telephoto" is not optical - basically just using a subset of the sensor to do it electronically. So makes the device much simpler (no moving parts), but in essence is digital zoom, so image quality is going to suffer as you zoom in.

Nifty idea though.

i watched a video review of this thing. there seems to be an actual mechanical shutter in there. also, xenon flash.

Megapixels are cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

Its the optics (especially larger apertures) that deliver better resolution and quality. Moreover, higher number of pixels in the same sized sensor means that each pixel is smaller and inherently more noise. They would have been better off just producing the same megapixel sensor (~5MP) with better (newer mfg process) pixels, if they really wanted better low light performance.

But what they really wanted was marketing headlines... Oh well :-/

Re:Megapixels are cheap

[FaxeTheCat]

Again, check out the whitepaper which explains how the pixels will be used:
http://europe.nokia.com/PRODUCT_METADATA_0/Products/Phones/8000-series/808/Nokia808PureView_Whitepaper.pdf

Megapixels means *absolutely nothing*

[Anonymous Coward]

The resolution is determined by the sensor size, not the "number of megapixels". Why do sites report on a number that means nothing whatsoever?

Re:Megapixels means *absolutely nothing*

[Entropius]

Not true. So long as you are away from the diffraction limit and your glass is good enough and you have enough light, the resolution is determined by the pixel count.

Those conditions are very hard to satisfy for very high pixel counts, and there usually are other limiting factors (noise/focusing errors/optical aberrations). But, in principle (and sometimes in practice) it's the pixel count that limits absolute resolution.

Diffraction limited?

[ControlFreal]

Your average phone has a ~4 mm (diameter) lens. This yields an Airy disc of some 1.15 minutes of arc.

Even at a wide field of view (say, 60 degrees), this yields a maximum lateral resolution of some 3200 pixels. Isn't thus any camera with more than ~10 MPixels diffraction limited by the tiny lens, and not sensor limited?

Re:Diffraction limited?

[agentgonzo]

You are correct in your calculations. That also assume perfect optics, so the actual value will be lower than this. However, if you'd RTFA you'd see that the lens is much larger than 4mm.

But expect a whole host of replies agreeing that 41MP in a phone is ridiculous.

Re:Diffraction limited?

[jmv]

Exactly my thought. I've got a 10MP DSLR and even then I get the impression that the limitation is still the lens. Sure you can do averaging with lots of pixels, but then you can just use fewer, bigger pixels.

Re:Diffraction limited?

[MozeeToby]

Summary is terrible and misses out the parts of the camera that are actually exciting. First, they never intend for people to use the 41MP setting, instead, they intend you to use 5MP and let their fancy new pixel averaging do it's thing to dramatically reduce noise levels by averaging out 8 pixels into one. That will allow higher iso settings, better low light pictures, etc. The other interesting thing is the size of the sensor, 10x7mm, which is ludicrously large for a phone, about 4 times more surface area than the latest iPhone's sensor. Heck, it's larger than the vast majority of point and shoots. Now obviously, just like megapixels, I imagine that sensor size could be artificially inflated just like any other number, but the example pictures they have posted look pretty incredible for a camera phone.

Re:Diffraction limited?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are assuming that the lens is the same size as on other cameras. What if the lens is 8mm?? That should give an Airy disk that would give around 40mp. What if the lens is further from the sensor? That would increase size as well.

From other news reports, the sensor is quite large -- about 3/4 size of what is used on the Nikon V1.

Re:Diffraction limited?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the interesting point here is actually : more pixels => larger sensor (at constant pixel size) => more flux captured => less noise. This is not about resolution but about noise !

Re:Diffraction limited?

[ArcherB]

That will allow higher iso settings, better low light pictures, etc.

That is what I want to see. I'm tired of having to turn on every light in my house and open all the blinds to get a good picture on my child doing whatever it is that she may be doing. And even then, if she is moving at all, it's going to come out blurry. Most of the time, I give up and go grab the DSLR and take the picture that way, but it certainly doesn't help when I'm on the road.

I want good, clear, low-light pictures of objects that were moving when the photo was taken. I simply don't think that is possible with a lens that is the diameter of a pencil.

The samples I've seen from this camera are out door shots in a friggin desert! I want indoor shots of a dog running taken with the window blinds closed, flash off, and no more light than what you would get from a standard lamp with a 15 watt CFL. When this shot is clear and bright, I'll buy that phone for the camera.

Re:Diffraction limited?

[Entropius]

What lens is it? Lots of the lenses that come with DSLR's are terrible. The 10MP models that come to mind are the Canon XTi (400D) and Olympus E-410/420/510/520. The lens that comes with the former is sort of a stinker, the ones that come with the latter (especially the 40-150mm) are not bad.

Re:Diffraction limited?

[Entropius]

The key here is the sensor size, not the pixel count itself. There are sensors that are huge but have low pixel counts (the 12MP fullframe sensor in the Nikon D3s, for instance) that have tremendously low noise. As you say, big sensor -> more flux, regardless of how many pixels you slice it into.

Re:Diffraction limited?

[jmv]

I've actually got a Sigma 28-300 lens to replace the one that came with my 350D (8 MP actually). So the lens is pretty good, but when you look at the image carefully, you see that there's still a bit of blur between adjacent pixels.

Re:Diffraction limited?

[Shompol]

After having wasted a few terabits over a year of experimenting, I came to a conclusion that flash is a necessary evil. An f1.7 lens helped significantly, but most images simply don't come out sharp. A diffused flash that bounces off ceiling is not that bad actually, I am currently working on how to reduce recycle time without having to drag a flash that's bigger than my camera.

Re:Diffraction limited?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your problem is definitely down to the lens.

I've got a 10mp Sony A200, and a Sigma 28-300. Its a practical lens, but stick a decent lens on there and there's a massive difference.

41 Megapixels

[Oswald McWeany]

41 Megapixels - wow, that will take up an entire 2008 SD card per photo.

Does it actually have a good enough lense to use all 41 Megapixels- or is this a case of the megapixels being greater than it can really accurately capture?

I know megapixel is often not a good indicator of the actual photo quality.

Re:41 Megapixels

[SJHillman]

The captured image will occupy a small space in the upper left of the picture, the rest will be solid white but when you open the file it will still be 41 million pixels.

Re:41 Megapixels

[tgd]

41 Megapixels - wow, that will take up an entire 2008 SD card per photo.

Does it actually have a good enough lense to use all 41 Megapixels- or is this a case of the megapixels being greater than it can really accurately capture?

I know megapixel is often not a good indicator of the actual photo quality.

Not really. A moderately high end DSLR with, say, an 18MP sensor saving in RAW (18m 12-bit samples)+JPEG is around 25MB an image. Based on Nokia's numbers, *if* the sensor can save in RAW, *and* its using 12-bit, you're talking in the order of maybe 35-40MB an image, and that's probably a stretch. In JPEG, its probably under 10MB/photo.

That would've filled a cheap card you would've seen in a digital camera ten years ago, but not five years ago. Most of the SmartMedia cards I've got in a box at home from a ten year old 2mp-ish camera are 128MB cards.

Re:41 Megapixels

[na1led]

It's not designed to take massive high resolution pictures. All the megapixels are there for the Zoom capabilites that most cell phone cameras lack. It's not like you can put an optical zoom on a phone, so this is the next best thing. Only problem is how well can they stabalize the picture if you zoom in 20x times.

Re:41 Megapixels

[Aggrajag]

Nope, they'll use 90% JPEG compression.

Get the facts

[Anonymous Coward]

I strongly recommend reading the white paper:

http://europe.nokia.com/PRODUCT_METADATA_0/Products/Phones/8000-series/808/Nokia808PureView_Whitepaper.pdf

Re:Get the facts

[khoonirobo]

Really, just please read the whitepaper.

And if that is too much, then here is an abstract.

The sensor is 41MP. Then they use a technique they are calling oversampling wherein multiple pixels are used to calculate a perfect average pixel and as far as I understand the final res of the saved image is configured. For an example, they say a 5 MP image.

Pretty cool stuff and as an engineer "Doh" moment stuff.

And yes, Mod Parent up.

Re:Get the facts

[Neil Boekend]

The paper is good and clears up a lot but it does not indicate any solution to the maximum resolution of this lens size. Albeit a Carl Zeis lens helps, there are reasons a small lens will not get this resolution (other /.-ers are far more capable of explaining this, and have done so in this topic)

Re:Get the facts

[Entropius]

This isn't terribly new -- I do it every day when I display the 4000x3000 images from my camera on my 1920x1080 screen. My image display software does some fancy averaging to make fewer pixels out of the average values of the pixels in the original jpeg.

The only difference here is that you're doing it in software *before* you save the image to the card, rather than in software when you go to *display* the image later. But even that's not revolutionary -- most digital cameras have a mode that does pixel averaging in the camera and then saves a lower-res image.

The only difference is that this phone has so many pixels (or, to put it another way, so little detail at the Nyquist frequency) that it's designed to be used this way.

Re:Get the facts

[ceoyoyo]

The "whitepaper" is marketing. "Oversampling" is just pixel averaging, and it has well known effects. You're better off having more pixel area and NOT averaging.

The sensor resolution does give them flexibility to do things like not include an optical zoom, etc. but the image quality will not be better than a sensor with fewer, bigger pixels.

They do get nice images, because they've put a big lens and a big sensor in a cell phone. But if you believe their claims that because of some marketing speak you're going to get results like a professional shooter with a kilo and a half, $2000 can of precision fluorite optics, you're dreaming.

Re:Get the facts

[petermgreen]

Read it but remember it's a whitepaper, that is it's the companies claims about it's own products, NOT a third party opinion of the product. It is also completely lacking in hard comparisons to other devices with comparable sensor size but more conventional pixel counts.

One major question is what does having lots of small pixels (more than the lens can likely resolve) and averaging them gain you over having fewer larger pixels (which gather more light per pixel and hence have less noise). The main answer seems to be that you can output in any resoloution without having to scale down by small factors or worse scale-up.

The other question is does the bigger sensor and better optics you can get into a limited sized device by not having optical zoom make up for the fundamental disadvantage of digital zoom (which is that you are only using part of your sensor area).

P.S. someone else categorised this as a camera with a phone built in rather than a phone with a camera built in and i'm inclined to agree with them.

ARghhhh

[ciderbrew]

I'll look forward to getting 20 of those pictures in an email. Thanks mum, the 10 gig of pictures with nothing but the food you ordered whilst on holiday are great.Oh - I can see some bugs you missed in the salad :) / fires up Photoshop - Mwwhahahhaaa.

Re:ARghhhh

[21mhz]

Depending on the defaults in mom's camera app and the mail app that might impose its own preferred resolution, you will get the same compressed jpegs with e.g. 5 megapixels of effective image data.

Mazimum

[Anonymous Coward]

mazimum

You say that as if there was a plan...

[Kjella]

This suggests either a longer life for Symbian - or maybe Symbian was just an easier platform to make a show-stopping device that may turn out to be more of a concept phone.

Or as most of us have figured out, Nokia has been a rudderless company and this is probably the work of the "let's turn Symbian into a smart phone" faction and this is just to recover a little bit of all the money they've wasted, just like the pathetically few N-series phones they released. They probably jumped on the wrong ship when they went all in on Windows Phone, but at least that one is going somewhere. Nokia never managed to agree on one thing and then actually do it well, so Apple and Google ate them for lunch. Epic management fail, if you ask me.

Re:You say that as if there was a plan...

[Anonymous Coward]

They probably jumped on the wrong ship when they went all in on Windows Phone, but at least that one is going somewhere.

Yep, nothing can stop it now. Next stop, the ocean floor.

Re:You say that as if there was a plan...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or as most of us have figured out, Nokia has been a rudderless company and this is probably the work of the "let's turn Symbian into a smart phone" faction and this is just to recover a little bit of all the money they've wasted, just like the pathetically few N-series phones they released.

Yes, the 21 different models of n-series phones released is really sad compared to the wholesomely jaw-dropping range of what the other manufacturers have done.

Re:You say that as if there was a plan...

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the decision to drop MeeGo was malicious. The Nokia N9 is feature complete, and is better than any of their Symbian phones. From a developer's standpoint, there's also no reason to choose Symbian over MeeGo.

If Nokia wants to make Windows phones, fine. But dropping MeeGo and then claiming they don't have a plan B is much better justified by malice than stupidity.

Re:You say that as if there was a plan...

[Kjella]

Yes, the 21 different models of n-series phones released

You do know different colors don't count as different models right? Or would you like to try listing them...

Re:You say that as if there was a plan...

[Cederic]

I'll him the bother. Just go to Wikipedia, it has 27 models mentioned in the same paragraph:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_Nseries

Re:You say that as if there was a plan...

[Anonymous Coward]

My N95 was probably the best phone I've ever had!

Re:You say that as if there was a plan...

[Anonymous Coward]

The only place WinPhone is going is to zero market share and the destruction of billions of euros of Symbian revenue in exchange for nothing in return (yes, billions! with a b) . Dumbest decision ever.

Re:You say that as if there was a plan...

[Kjella]

Ah, I was thinking of the non-symbian phones - kinda important distinction. They created the Maemo platform and managed to put out a whole of three phones (N800, N810 and N900) and what now looks like their first and last MeeGo phone, the N9. What I was trying to say was they didn't manage to turn Symbian into a smartphone OS nor did they commit to getting Maemo/MeeGo-based phones out there in volume.

sample pictures

[jcupitt65]

Some sample pics, apparently:

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

They look OK, and amazing for a phone.

Re:sample pictures

[ArcherB]

Some sample pics, apparently:

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

They look OK, and amazing for a phone.

I disagree. These are shot on a sunny day in a desert of objects that are not moving or are moving very slow. Show me a shot of dogs playing in doors at night with no more light that you would get from ceiling fan light fixture (say, four CFL bulbs). When that picture is good, I'll agree.

Also, look at these pics at 100%. I can see pixels! I shouldn't see pixels when viewed at 100%. My old Sony Mavica wouldn't show pixels when viewed at 100 percent and it had a maximum resolution of 640x480 and wrote to floppy disk!

Re:sample pictures

[jcupitt65]

Oh I agree it's no DSLR, but they compare well to a compact camera. Here's a pic from a Canon S90:

http://www.rollthepotato.net/~john/img_0900.jpg

It has a range of annoying artefacts (very oversharp, too much noise reduction, very visible chromatic aberration, etc.) but it's roughly similar to the Nokia. And of course the Nokia has four times as many pixels.

Re:sample pictures

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I saw a presentation of the device, there was an image of a Samba carneval in Rio, taken 1 AM, and the picture was bright and crisp. Search 808 pureview rio to find it. Full size pics seem to take about 1MB of space.

Sorry about prefering women instead of dogs, and congratulations on the new glasses.

Sample imeges remeased.

[FaxeTheCat]

The blog here: http://www.knowyourmobile.com/blog/1263008/nokia_808_pureview_photo_samples_released.html has bot a brief explanation of how the pixels are used and some sample images. Same images as in the zip file in the previous post.

Pixel peepers...

[yodleboy]

sigh, i see this thread devolving into flames by pixel peepers who will find the most minute issue to pick at while failing to just look at the damn pictures admit that they look quite nice. The kind of folks for whom photography has little to do with the actual content of the picture. I think the samples look pretty good considering they came from a cell phone with "fake" 41MP sensor and a lens that's "too small".

Nice job Nokia. Would have been nice to see this tech a few years sooner when you still were a player in the US market. I'd love to see them license this. I don't plan to buy a Nokia phone, so it would be cool to have a decent camera in the form factor of say a thumb drive that i could just keep on my key chain.

Re:Pixel peepers...

[Jagen]

Yes, the pictures look "quite nice", so what?
Do they look significantly better than what Sony, Samsung or Apple have in their top end phones? Not really, and none of those phones are nearly 2cm thick at the camera module.
It's an interesting tech demo, but that's really about it at the moment.

Re:Pixel peepers...

[21mhz]

This is not how you properly bash camera quality in a Nokia phone. Learn from this fellow: the iPhone photos are clearly better, because the little piggies are more vividly pink! And the white background is pink too! The dull picture from the Nokia just does not deliver it the way the user wants to see his porcelain piggies!

Shut up ignorant yankees

[kalpaha]

Keep making fun of Nokia ignorant yankees. One of the main reasons Nokia is non-existent in US is because it tried to stand up to the telcos and protect consumer's rights by not crippling the phones as per the request of your greedy-ass cellular carriers. I guess it won't be making that mistake anymore.

The 808 just goes to show that some companies still employ engineers instead of designers. I mean, Apple has to rip off that patented technology from somewhere. ( http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/apple-pays-up-licenses-patents-from-nokia/50558 )

I'm not new here, so I know it's a lot to ask, but in addition to reading the fucking article, I encourage everyone to read the white paper too: http://europe.nokia.com/PRODUCT_METADATA_0/Products/Phones/8000-series/808/Nokia808PureView_Whitepaper.pdf

Also check out the sound quality of the 808 recording (listen with good headphones or speakers to really appreciate the difference) http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EbLFtF50y9A

Re:Shut up ignorant yankees

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Nokia has never been known to be very consumer oriented. And about not cutting deals with carriers => That's why my second last Nokia (the last one has been the N900, completely different story), the E61 has had a couple of dozen different firmware versions, customized to the likings of the specific carriers. And it strictly (without TLC) refused to cross-update the phone.

One of the popular "bad things" was to bind a key to the "WAP" internet browser, and disallow reassignment => every time somebody without a data plan (back than that was most) pressed the button by mistake, the carriers cashed in nicely.

Currently, Nokia has NO phones worthy consideration, but they still have a number of rather nice Bluetooth accessories :)

And yes, the company completely lacks leadership and vision. OTOH, Nokia going down will be painful for the industry, because of the hugely expanded "Intellectual Property" rights as pushed by the US administration and multinationals. Nokia has been a big player in the mobile industry for way to long not to have amassed a huge pile of IP. And while they certainly have a number of FRAND patents, I don't think that's the whole story: FRAND is required for critical must have patents for industry standards like GSM/UMTS. The interesting stuff is not there, it's all the stuff around the core. Patents that are not critical, but not having them makes it awkward to do mobiles. (Analogy: Every one can get a patent at FRAND conditions to produce a knife, but the patents on putting a handle on the knife are not FRAND as you can cut stuff with a blade-only knife. Much fun with your blade-only knife.)

Re:Shut up ignorant yankees

[janimal]

I know noone's going to read this, but you might kalpaha:

You seem to be knowledgeable about Nokia (and a bit frustrated). Im a Nokia fan myself, but lately it's very difficult to remain one and it is difficult not to blame bad management for it. Here are my reasons:

1. Can the lack of a decent camera on the E7 be explained by anything other than management failure? A business phone is sometimes used as a crude document scanner. This is not a nice to have these days, as everyone snaps pictures of offers, contracts, notes, etc. Someone should get fired over it.

2. Who the hell officially "scrapped" Symbian when it isn't being scrapped? Have you seen the quality improvement of that platform lately? It's actually finally good! Why isn't Nokia fighting the "Symbian is outdated" idiocy? There are 2 ways to do this: A. Call the next Symbian release something else that isn't Symbian and be done with that brand, or B. Have PR address the FUD.

3. How can you officially scrap two fantastic platforms on which the N-series phones run (newer Symbian and Maemo) and based on which the Nokia premium phone buying crowd pride their superior taste? It's like a slap in the face to your most valueable sales guys. Yes, those guys spending tons of cash on new gadgets and then running around showing their friends how fantastic Nokia is. If you want to retire a platform, retire it with the new and *better* replacement already in stores. Otherwise, STFU, or you risk making your track and field sales and marketing team (i.e. me or my wife) look like weirdos. While I may not care, my wife is much more sensitive to that kind of backstab.

4... I'm not going to start on WP7 and its qualities. I'll just say that taking $1B for its marketing... I have no words... have they seen this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTmXHvGZiSY

Not for taking 38 Megapixel - for 5 megapixel

[mrops]

The point is not to take 38 megapixel images. I don't know why everyone is focusing on the megapixel, that is not the story here.

The story here is the approach they take, 41 megapixel oversampled images processed algorithmically to produce superior 5 mega pixel images. The story may even be Symbian, definitely not the 41 mega pixel sensor.

Re:Not for taking 38 Megapixel - for 5 megapixel

[xystren]

I think people are focusing on the overkill of 38 megapixel image on a camera phone. Sure, it's kind of cool from a technological perspective, but from a practical standpoint, considering the limitations of aperture, focal length, optic distortion, etc., constrained within the tiny framework of a phone is pretty pointless - even Zeiss optics have their limitations. Also, as mentioned previously, one can only allow so much light into a small and tiny lens (which is limited by the form factor of the size of the phone.)

The concept of taking a oversampled image to produce a superior lower mega pixel image is not new. It's called a loss-less digital zoom (which does sound like an oxy-moron) but as you mentioned was part of the story's approach. My old Sony DSC-V1 (2004) with a 5mp sensor has a similar feature - set your saved picture size down to below 5mp and you would get an extra bonus of loss-less digital zoom due to the oversampling. Interestingly enough, that camera would not permit you to digitally zoom beyond anything that would sacrifice quality.

Megapixels

[Idetuxs]

Obliged http://xkcd.com/1014/

Re:Megapixels

[Anonymous Coward]

Why Nikon > Canon

41 megapixel porn...

[ardiri]

now we will end up seeing way too much. TMI.

summary != right

[Anonymous Coward]

By default it takes pictures at the highest resolution, but then uses 7 pixels for each pixel (called pure pixel or something like that) and downsizes the final image to 5MP. This was you the user also has a non-optical lossless zoom (magnification depends on what final resolution you use). Apparently this technology was in development for over 5 years.

Did something similar...

[fran6gagne]

I've put a ferrari motor on my lawnmower. Now it can go superfast and I could do races with it, but I still use it mainly for what it was design for, mow the lawn...

Not too many pixels in fact.

[rnbc]

Actually since this is a near diffraction limited lens working at f/2.4 the spot size is going to be about 0.56um * 2.4 ~ 1.344um on the focal plane. The cycle size is about double, or 2.688um.

Considering it uses a Bayer array, and the pixels are spaced at 1.4um, the green pixels will be spaced at 2um (minimum distance to next green pixel). To properly sample you need at least 2 pixels per cycle (said Mr. Nyquist), but since pixels are not exactly points (they have an area) astronomers working in diffraction limited imaging advise 3x sampling in practice.

What this means is you would need a pixel size of 2.688/3/sqrt(2) ~ 0.63um (or 0.9um if using a Foven-style sensor) to properly sample this lens. 1.4um vastly undersamples the lens, as can be seen near the central area in the available samples: they are razor sharp in the central area, and otherwise are limited by aberrations.

A practical article describing this, with example images, can be seen here:

http://samirkharusi.net/sampling_saturn.html

Re:Not too many pixels in fact.

[Anonymous Coward]

i know some of these words!

Re:Not too many pixels in fact.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for doing that math, I was tempted but have shit to do today.

I will do the necessary followup in debunking this snake oil, which is to say that with such a radical amount of oversampling employed, frame rate is going to suffer. Who cares about frame rate? Well, it's the reciprocal of shutter speed. So, you're looking at long-ass shutter speeds, and you will never be able to capture spontaneous shots.

For a company going down the tubes rapidly, this is a very interesting choice for a fake gimmick. sigh, I remember when Nokia was good.

Re:Not too many pixels in fact.

[Savantissimo]

You read that wrong, apparently. The lens is more than good enough for the sensor. Your point about shutter speeds is wrong, too. The light falling in any given area is the same as it would be for any other f/2.4 lens, and the sensor has a mechanical shutter, too, so readout times are not determining shutter speed. The problem is not a lack of sensitivity, either, as the pixels are the same size as regular cameraphones and the effective pixel size can be increased (and noise can be reduced) by using a 5-8Mpix downsized version. There is a slight penalty to be paid in higher readout noise relative to signal (lower light per pixel, same readout noise as a big pixel), but is a relatively small price. In fact there is also a neutral density filter that can be switched in front of the sensor to reduce the light and allow longer shutter speeds in bright light (allows blurring moving objects a little.)

Symbian

[Grindalf]

There are a LOT of people who adore Symbian phones, and they are VERY secure and stable in comparison with many other telephones.

What a crock of bullsh!t!

[uslurper]

First off, think about how people use their phone as a camera.

1. The keep their phone in their pocket.
2. They whip it out holding it in the air and take the picture.
3. They post it on facebook.

OK now lets talk about a 43mp will look after this process. Or for that matter even a 5mp super-processed perfect picture.

1. Keeping the phone in a pocket or purse.
The lens will invariably get covered in dust, fingerprints, and get scratched from cleaning with a t-shirt. This will take about 24 hours from the purchase of a phone to degrade the lens to a point where even a good 43mp imaging system will look like a carnival mirror.

2. They whip it out holding it in the air and take the picture.
Hand-holding a camera invariably add some jitter to the image. You will have better luck in daylight but indoors or at night, its enough to degrade the image from slightly soft to psychedelic . Oh dont you wish the phone had a flash? Most dont because it drains the battery and adds bulk.

3. They post it on facebook.
After you wait 10 minutes for your image to be uploaded over the wireless connection.. Guess what happens to your 43mp image or your super-sampled 5mp image? it gets resized to a puny half megapixel image.

Enjoy!

Re:What a crock of bullsh!t!

[phik]

You don't know what you are talking about. Your comment is bullsh!t. People won't be taking many 41/38 Megapixel images. People will mostly be taking 8 megapixel images with the 808.

1. Gorilla Glass - won't scratch under normal human usage. Dust can be wiped off, even if you don't, a dusty lens 808 pic is 100X better than a dusty lens Droid whatever camera pic.

2. Have you used past nokia high-end cameraphones? I have a Nokia N8 (the immediate predecessor of the 808) and I rarely have problems with camera shake. This is not some crap digital camera which takes a half second to capture an image. Also, the touch screen shutter works great, and a brush from a fingertip works there if you don't want to push the physical top buttom for that reason.
The Xenon flash on the N8 holds up well, Nokia has used them for years. Very few complaints. I'd imagine the 808's flash is more efficient.

3. Yup, #3 is a problem. But once again, a shrunken 808 image will look crystal clear compared a shrunken other-model image. Also, facebook does allow you to upload higher res images if you go into the settings. You can always use google+ or any of the other photo-sharing sites.

What cell network are you on? The sampled 5 meg image is no bigger than any average 5 megapixel image. I uploaded one this morning in 40 seconds. On t-Mobile, hardly the fastest US network.

The key is larger sensor

[Anonymous Coward]

The "41 megapixel" helps in impressing people but the really interesting thing in this phone is the size of the sensor (see dpreview for a comparison of sensor sizes). Physically larger than the majority of sensors found in compact cameras, it allows for better image quality.

It is likely that a 5 megapixel sensor of the same size would be equally and even better suited for taking images in low light conditions but such a sensor would lack the so-called "digital" zoom described for the PureView phone. The "zoom" is nothing more than cropping the image to smaller and smaller sizes and lower and lower quality. But it is there.

I do hope that compact camera makers will follow the example shown by Nokia and provide the new models with larger sensors providing better image quality. It is likely that such a move is detrimental to camera makers as it might steal from the dSLR territory.

lens cap

[Anonymous Coward]

and still no lens cap i bet some nice pocket scratches for that arty feel.

read TFM

[Anonymous Coward]

The example shots look pretty grainy up close, but the idea really isnt to try to utilize the full megapixels and instead rely on the sampling algorythm.

I dont care how many megapixels, it comes down to optics. Even if the optics are 4x as big as the average smartphone, they are 10x smaller than a modern point'n'pray and a digital zoom does nothing to improve this. Lets see some bigger optics and then we'll talk.

I would take a 10MP with great optics over a 20MP with mediocre optics any day.

More about the sensor

[Fallingwater]

Daniel Rutter of Dan's Data has interesting things to say about this sensor on his blog. Short version: it might just not be as stupid as I thought.

Nokia have always put good cameras in phones

[Colin Smith]

Since it has been possible. They are no SLRs but for something which you always carry about with you they can produce very good results. Their N series are generally superb camera phones. Very good lenses, very good sensors and very good software. The N8 which has to be a year old now has for example a 12mp sensor, carl zeiss lenses.
MS define the hardware for WP and Nokia moving faster than Microsoft, it explains why Symbian is still around.

Re:Nokia have always put good cameras in phones

[justforgetme]

I never really liked Symbian so I was partially happy when Nokia announced they were ditching it. But from that point on
I think they have been very reluctant to do so. Nokia doesn't seem too sure about the Windows move after all. Still
I cannot undestand why they would want to push another phone with the unconventional for smartphoneland Symbian.

n97 look-a-like

[alexgill]

Neat stuff this 808, really! Just that I bought Nokia flagship n97 three years ago -- which as you might be aware receive negative reviews for good reason. This 808 is eerily similar looking. That alone makes me think twice about it...

Re:Who are they?

[terjeber]

Not strange you were modded down, you can't even read. When did Ballmer peddle Symbian? Moron.