Got my Nokia Lumia 1020. Very disappointing.

[ludwik123]

wizard8080 wrote:

Okay, so I found the phone display setting for color saturation. Default was set to "enhanced" and I set it back down to natural. But this is the phone display setting, not the camera photo setting. So the pictures on the phone look better now. Thank goodness because I was horrified how bad they looked at first.

Still oversaturated and color off balance, but not nearly as bad as they seemed, when the vividness was doubled with both the camera and the display setting. Viewing on my IPS monitor is now consistent, which is how I realized the problem. Sorry, my bad for jumping the gun a little.

However, while now the photos seem much more reasonable, probably passable to the average person, they are still not what I would call enthusiast level quality.

Flash photos are still in the awful 1 star category. Absurdly yellow cast. Just a handful of flash photos so far though.

Here are some images:

Oversaturation: http://sdrv.ms/13jsm7s

Orange-yellow cast: http://sdrv.ms/13jsiVg

Blue-green cast: http://sdrv.ms/15lxqLW

Indoor lighting: http://sdrv.ms/13jsKTo

Xenon flash: http://sdrv.ms/13jsDaF

If they could just have a setting for saturation and make auto white balance a little more intelligent, it would go from 2 stars to 5 stars.

I give you credit for having high standards. These photos are not bad. 3 stars or maybe 4.

I have used many phones and compact cameras over the past 10 years. And I have seen much much much worse !

 

[natna]

Alupang if your phone is hckd or on custom fw, you can install the N8 image editor that's so much better than 808's. There is a port on for 808. I haven't done it though. People say it works ok

Thanks but no...I'm perfectly happy doing PP on my computer. No in-cam app can beat even freeware like Irfanview I believe. I just batch bluetooth all my new shots to my computer--no hassle at all.

I'd rather not carry all my large files around anyway, but thanks.

Nothing can beat PC PP...

Back to topic.

I think that the 1020 noise performance is non consistant. Some of the 1250/1600 iso low light pics, are better than some 800 iso brighter photos...

8MP Pureview is a must. Not 5mp web size...

And 645pro is indeed a powerful app. I've shot some night photos with a friend's iphone5, in jpeg-max mode, 1sec exp, iso 800 and turned out not bad at all, compared to my old Pany TZ7...

 

[Menneisyys]

wll wrote:

Hulamike wrote:

Hey Alupang, I have control over my iPhone. It's called using the right app. At present I'm using jag.r's Pure shot and 645Pro. 23 meg digital raw baby! There are many others that allow for custom color/tone/white bal combos. The slider you mention is a part of KitCam, available on screen all the time. With iphone you're not stuck with what the OEM geeks give you from the phone factory.

I too have about 15 + apps for my iPhone4s and you can control just about everything. Looking forward though to the next generation of iPhone ;- )

wll

Too bad you can't fine-tune / manually set almost anything on the iPhone and the iPhone 5S, based on the iOS7 API, won't have manual settings either. Unlike the Nokia Camera Pro, which lets you manually set up everything.

Currently, all you can do (in a decent third-party app allowing access to the entire API):

- use autofocus / expsoure (it can also be locked) with (separate) POI's. No manual focus is possible (touch-to-focus is still autofocus) and won't be in iOS7 either. (There, however, you'll be able to switch between "near" and "far" modes via AVCaptureDevice.AVCaptureAutoFocusRangeRestriction)

- en/disable ISO boost (binning) via AVCaptureDevice.lowLightBoostEnabled. No direct ISO setting possible.

- enable shutter speed extension to 1s, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8s from the, by default, minimal 1/15s. However, you can't dial in the exact speed you want it to use - it'll always select the one it prefers (it'll always strive to using the minimal ISO).

It not only has no API for ISO / focus / shutter time (again, except for extending it up to 1s), but also has no built-in API support for exposure bracketing. The only way is doing it is selecting the darkest / brightest point in the image to in/decrease the exposure of the image. (This can be somewhat helped by 645's bracketing mode but it also relies on manual brightest/darkest selection) VERY awkward and much less flexible than true exposure bracketing.

 

[Menneisyys]

Alupang wrote:

Hulamike wrote:

Yes. With both 645Pro and KitCam.

OK cool so I'm learning something new here thanks. So low ISO, long exposures night shots are possible with i-phone huh? I sincerely would like to see a good i-phone night shot; no flash of course.

Several AppStore apps support this. In addition to the above-mentioned, excellent but, from the AppStore, removed KitCam,

NightCap (Enabled and in effect by default)

645 PRO Mk II: (Settings > Low Light >Night Mode exposure limit (1s, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8s). Only works if you also enable Settings > Low Light > Night Mode (unlike enabling Settings > Low Light >High ISO support in the same group, which works without having to enable night mode))

ProCamera: (with the bars enabled (second icon on the left at the top), tap the 1/15s icon on the right of the histogram to switch to 1/7s. A tap-and-hold will switch to the longest possible value (1s).

Note: many apps in the AppStore use video recording for long-time (over 1s) shots. The two best of them (I've tested them all for my forthcoming iPhone photography article series) are Top Camera and LongExpo. Neither of them are capable of true low-light photography, as long as an up to 1s shutter is sufficient. As they record video and average its frames to get for example light trails, the effective resolution is significantly worse than with the apps allowing for up to 1s shutter times: 1440*1080 in their default 4:3 mode.

I'll very soon post some comparative pics taken on my iPhone 5.

Note that DPReview Connect also has a roundup at http://connect.dpreview.com/post/2275642385/app-roundup-nighttime-mobile-photography . However, the article doesn't mention the fundamental difference between apps that record standard videos and just average them for light trail effects (for any length of time, even minutes) and apps that genuinely increase the shutter speed up to 1s and are, consequently, usable for true low-light photography. 1s, however, means you won't make great light painting / trail pics with it – it's just too slow. The article should have emphasized this very important difference – after all, the two usage areas (using shutter speeds up to 1s to let in as much light as possible vs. averaging (waterfall / lightrail effects) under even daylight) are completely different.

 

[Alupang]

Menneisyys wrote:

Stevan G wrote:

Alupang wrote:

Hmmm a brand new user with 2 new posts today. Both posts highly negative with tags to L1020. You work for Samsung perhaps? Very odd.

probably a troll but yeah, the pictures from 1020 do look overprocessed

The 5 MP downsampled mode is indeed overprocessed and has a lot of false detail. (I've posted a lot of info on this at MyNokiaBlog.) The solution is, before Nokia comes up with a better algorihm (e.g., that of the 808), using full-res mode and use a desktop for PP / downsampling.

Super sharp and punchy 5MP is what most mass market consumer wants to share the wow factor. I like concept as long as the full size file is preserved unmolested for proper PP later. And in this case, it is.

 

[Alupang]

natna wrote:

Alupang if your phone is hckd or on custom fw, you can install the N8 image editor that's so much better than 808's. There is a port on for 808. I haven't done it though. People say it works ok

Thanks but no...I'm perfectly happy doing PP on my computer. No in-cam app can beat even freeware like Irfanview I believe. I just batch bluetooth all my new shots to my computer--no hassle at all.

I'd rather not carry all my large files around anyway, but thanks.

Nothing can beat PC PP...

Back to topic.

I think that the 1020 noise performance is non consistant. Some of the 1250/1600 iso low light pics, are better than some 800 iso brighter photos...

8MP Pureview is a must. Not 5mp web size...

And 645pro is indeed a powerful app. I've shot some night photos with a friend's iphone5, in jpeg-max mode, 1sec exp, iso 800 and turned out not bad at all, compared to my old Pany TZ7...

Iso 800 is way too high even for 808. Need iso 100 and 2 seconds at bare minimum. I use iso 50 @ over 2 sec often with my 808. I love results.

 

[Alupang]

Mishobaranovic wrote:

The answer is kind of. Some apps like ProCamera and 645 let you drop your shutter speed down to a second. From there you can manually underexpose which reduces the ISO . It's a workaround but lets you take reasonably clear lowlight shots at around 400 ISO.

I think the Nokia 808 starts to cough up bloody chunks at iso 400. Need iso 50 or 100 for clean night shots without smearing from noise reduction application.

 

[Alupang]

Alupang wrote:

Menneisyys wrote:

Stevan G wrote:

Alupang wrote:

Hmmm a brand new user with 2 new posts today. Both posts highly negative with tags to L1020. You work for Samsung perhaps? Very odd.

probably a troll but yeah, the pictures from 1020 do look overprocessed

The 5 MP downsampled mode is indeed overprocessed and has a lot of false detail. (I've posted a lot of info on this at MyNokiaBlog.) The solution is, before Nokia comes up with a better algorihm (e.g., that of the 808), using full-res mode and use a desktop for PP / downsampling.

Super sharp and punchy 5MP is what most mass market consumer wants to share the wow factor. I like concept as long as the full size file is preserved unmolested for proper PP later. And in this case, it is.

I say this because, for just one example, in mysymbian's retarded Nokia 808 VS SGS4 shootout, reviewer Steve rated the SGS4 higher in many cases for sharpness if you can believe it. Nokia obviously took notice that most people like oversharpened images, even with halos and artifacts thrown in. Sad reality huh?

 

[Hulamike]

Unfortunately theres always a trade off with a phone. As much as I love shooting with my iPhone, I've conditioned myself to understand that its basically futile in low light or with fast action. So I just don't use it under those circumstances. In good light, the shots can be clean and thrilling.

I'd still like to know why my lowly iPhone's auto white balance is better than my $2000 Nikon though.

 

[Stevan G]

Alupang wrote

Also, are you telling me that you cannot lower color saturation and sharpening enough to your taste?

you can't as there is no sharpness setting in 1020(and I'm not sure if there is saturation setting too)

you can postprocess it though

 

[Alupang]

Stevan G wrote:

Alupang wrote

Also, are you telling me that you cannot lower color saturation and sharpening enough to your taste?

you can't as there is no sharpness setting in 1020(and I'm not sure if there is saturation setting too)

you can postprocess it though

I was under the impression that there were two camrea apps one built into OS and another much more fully featured. I read they just updated for bracketing for the second app, surely more willcome.

Not a big deal to me as I pp everything on computer anyway with my 808

 

[Alupang]

Hulamike wrote:

Unfortunately theres always a trade off with a phone. As much as I love shooting with my iPhone, I've conditioned myself to understand that its basically futile in low light or with fast action. So I just don't use it under those circumstances. In good light, the shots can be clean and thrilling.

I'd still like to know why my lowly iPhone's auto white balance is better than my $2000 Nikon though.

Yeah the Nokia certainly has faults. I don't like the noise visable at even iso 200. DR could be better too. Also hate that the settings icons dont display the setting. You have to press to see. Still though, I cant find better image quality in another phone...yet anyway. Always looking.

 

[siberstorm27]

Alupang wrote:

Alupang wrote:

Menneisyys wrote:

Stevan G wrote:

Alupang wrote:

Hmmm a brand new user with 2 new posts today. Both posts highly negative with tags to L1020. You work for Samsung perhaps? Very odd.

probably a troll but yeah, the pictures from 1020 do look overprocessed

The 5 MP downsampled mode is indeed overprocessed and has a lot of false detail. (I've posted a lot of info on this at MyNokiaBlog.) The solution is, before Nokia comes up with a better algorihm (e.g., that of the 808), using full-res mode and use a desktop for PP / downsampling.

Super sharp and punchy 5MP is what most mass market consumer wants to share the wow factor. I like concept as long as the full size file is preserved unmolested for proper PP later. And in this case, it is.

I say this because, for just one example, in mysymbian's retarded Nokia 808 VS SGS4 shootout, reviewer Steve rated the SGS4 higher in many cases for sharpness if you can believe it. Nokia obviously took notice that most people like oversharpened images, even with halos and artifacts thrown in. Sad reality huh?

Oversharpened pictures look much better on small displays. Sharper images in general look better to most people. Same with punchy colors. Those who like natural colors and fuzzy, unprocessed images are in the minority. Nokia isn't trying to sell to them.

There are no sharpness and saturation controls on the Lumia 1020. It is not the 808. It's Nokia's fault for not including them and allowing users to choose what they like the most.

Every time there are negative things said about Nokia, accusations of troll start flying around. If the forum rules implicitly allow it, then I would like to throw my own accusations of too many Nokia trolls ruining every single thread by defending Nokia and lashing out at people.

I am not impressed by The Lumia 1020 photos either. I've seen dozens of full-res shots on flickr. They aren't significantly better than those from other smartphones, besides the large resolution. And you have a thick phone with a large hump running Windows Phone with outdated hardware and a price tag to match its inflated ego.

Being also a smartphone enthusiast, and a person who likes skinny phones and a wide variety of apps to download, there will be many smartphones coming out later this year with upped cameras as well. The Honami will have a 1/2.3" sensor and Sony lens. The Moto X which is about to come out has a 10MP clear pixel camera that supposedly lets in twice the amount of light with a new color filter overlay. It also has a customizable body, better specs than the Lumia 1020, and even has an amazing $299 pricetag. Built in Texas no less. LG's G2 is rumored to have OIS and a better camera, as well as the Galaxy Note 3.

If DPReview themselves don't find the difference between the 808 Pureview and Galaxy S4 all that drastic, why settle for a weaker unit like the Lumia 1020 that compromises in so many other areas? The new android smartphones coming out are really making Pureview more and more irrelevant.

 

[oklaphotog]

wizard8080 wrote:

Okay, so I found the phone display setting for color saturation. Default was set to "enhanced" and I set it back down to natural. But this is the phone display setting, not the camera photo setting. So the pictures on the phone look better now. Thank goodness because I was horrified how bad they looked at first.

Still oversaturated and color off balance, but not nearly as bad as they seemed, when the vividness was doubled with both the camera and the display setting. Viewing on my IPS monitor is now consistent, which is how I realized the problem. Sorry, my bad for jumping the gun a little.

However, while now the photos seem much more reasonable, probably passable to the average person, they are still not what I would call enthusiast level quality.

Flash photos are still in the awful 1 star category. Absurdly yellow cast. Just a handful of flash photos so far though.

Here are some images:

Oversaturation: http://sdrv.ms/13jsm7s

Orange-yellow cast: http://sdrv.ms/13jsiVg

Blue-green cast: http://sdrv.ms/15lxqLW

Indoor lighting: http://sdrv.ms/13jsKTo

Xenon flash: http://sdrv.ms/13jsDaF

If they could just have a setting for saturation and make auto white balance a little more intelligent, it would go from 2 stars to 5 stars.

I agree the white balance sucks. But the saturation isn't high at all when looking at them on a calibrated monitor. If anything it's a little less than what you see in most P&S cameras. Even my FF Canon's in standard color mode are at least as punchy as that first shot. I would be hard pressed to think that there is no manual control over these settings, especially with a 3rd party app.

Keep in mind it's still a cell phone, and it would be hard to rate any cell phone camera as enthusiast quality. Cell phones have pinhead sensors, and although they have come a long way in recent times, they still don't come close to enthusiast quality (mirrorless/dslr). But for web images and small prints, I bet this phone does better than anything else out there at this time. I think if you can get control over the settings it will make a fine camera to have at all times. These blow away what comes off my Motorola or my friends Samsung S3 by a mile and aside from the color balance issues, are quite impressive for a phone. These color balance issues are easily adjusted in post, and for "enthusiast" use you're going to want to PP any image you take anyways.

 

[Alupang]

siberstorm27 wrote:

Alupang wrote:

Alupang wrote:

Menneisyys wrote:

Stevan G wrote:

Alupang wrote:

Hmmm a brand new user with 2 new posts today. Both posts highly negative with tags to L1020. You work for Samsung perhaps? Very odd.

probably a troll but yeah, the pictures from 1020 do look overprocessed

The 5 MP downsampled mode is indeed overprocessed and has a lot of false detail. (I've posted a lot of info on this at MyNokiaBlog.) The solution is, before Nokia comes up with a better algorihm (e.g., that of the 808), using full-res mode and use a desktop for PP / downsampling.

Super sharp and punchy 5MP is what most mass market consumer wants to share the wow factor. I like concept as long as the full size file is preserved unmolested for proper PP later. And in this case, it is.

I say this because, for just one example, in mysymbian's retarded Nokia 808 VS SGS4 shootout, reviewer Steve rated the SGS4 higher in many cases for sharpness if you can believe it. Nokia obviously took notice that most people like oversharpened images, even with halos and artifacts thrown in. Sad reality huh?

Oversharpened pictures look much better on small displays. Sharper images in general look better to most people. Same with punchy colors. Those who like natural colors and fuzzy, unprocessed images are in the minority. Nokia isn't trying to sell to them.

Hardly, Nokia still left the backdoor wide open for those that appreciate the full resolution file saved along with the punchy and sharpened 5MP. Best of both worlds, if you ask me.

There are no sharpness and saturation controls on the Lumia 1020. It is not the 808. It's Nokia's fault for not including them and allowing users to choose what they like the most.

I believe it was about yesterday(?) that the Lumia 1020 cam app was updated to include bracketing. So I would bet sharpening and saturation are coming very soon. Does it matter that much to enthusiasts though? The skilled users are going to PP the 41MP full resolution files out of camera anyway.

I am not impressed by The Lumia 1020 photos either. I've seen dozens of full-res shots on flickr. They aren't significantly better than those from other smartphones, besides the large resolution. And you have a thick phone with a large hump running Windows Phone with outdated hardware and a price tag to match its inflated ego.

I hope I don't sound troll like if I disagree with you and tell you why. First, you cannot see much difference in Lumia 1020 images with its 4 times larger sensor than tiny sensor camphones like SGS4. Hmmm...I find that pretty unbelievable quite honestly. How can anyone not see much more detail in an image taken from a camera with 4 times larger sensor? The Lumia 1020 sensor is like 4 SGS4 sensors, creating one huge seamless perfect panoramic. So there must be 4 times more detail, yet you cannot see much of it. Interesting!

This begs the question then...perhaps you just don't want to see much difference?

Regarding price. The Lumia 1020 32GB costs exactly the same as similar hardware spec i-phone 5 32GB. So Nokia is giving away the 41MP camera free in comparison. I see this as a steal. I think both i-phone 5 and SGS4 should be discounted half of Lumia 1020 price.

You see a thick phone with a large hump. I see a skinny phone with insignificant height circular disc hump. I think it's very cool looking and iconic for a groundbreaking cameraphone like this. You do not. Nothing more to say here. We are both right.

Being also a smartphone enthusiast, and a person who likes skinny phones and a wide variety of apps to download, there will be many smartphones coming out later this year with upped cameras as well. The Honami will have a 1/2.3" sensor and Sony lens. The Moto X which is about to come out has a 10MP clear pixel camera that supposedly lets in twice the amount of light with a new color filter overlay. It also has a customizable body, better specs than the Lumia 1020, and even has an amazing $299 pricetag. Built in Texas no less. LG's G2 is rumored to have OIS and a better camera, as well as the Galaxy Note 3.

There will be only 2 large sensor cameraphones worth considering this year holiday season: The Lumia 1020 and Sony Honami. The Lumia 1020 has a larger sensor than the Sony. For me, that is most significant spec that trumps most. I also like WP OS efficiency for more battery life and less lag running smoothly on only 2 cores. Efficiency=GOOD. The Sony is an unknown at this point--could be a laggy OS bloated battery draining pig (Android often is) and have washed out, low contrast screen like Sony is know for. I'll take a lower reasonable resolution high contrast punchy color screen over a insanely high resolution low contrast screen any day. I hate washed out screens.

If DPReview themselves don't find the difference between the 808 Pureview and Galaxy S4 all that drastic,

Perhaps they are just being polite and apologetic? Like...most cameras are "good enough" for those that don't fit the demographic of camera priority #1, phone #2 enthusiast. I'm sure they try to be sensitive to everyone's feelings.

 

[Alupang]

oklaphotog wrote:

Keep in mind it's still a cell phone, and it would be hard to rate any cell phone camera as enthusiast quality. Cell phones have pinhead sensors, and although they have come a long way in recent times, they still don't come close to enthusiast quality (mirrorless/dslr).

Sorry; you are wrong. The Nokia 808's sensor is 1/1.2" and the Lumia 1020 is only slightly smaller 1/1.5". Take a look for yourself thanks to DRReview's sensor comparison image. Note that i-phone is 1/3.2" and SGS4 is 1/2.3".





[ATTACH alt="i-phone=1/3.2", SGS4=1/2.3" "]media_2610980[/ATTACH]
i-phone=1/3.2", SGS4=1/2.3"



I own and enjoy my APS-C Sony NEX. But my Nokia 808 often surpasses my NEX in wide angle performance at f2.4. This is due to its unbelievably sharp Zeiss wide angle optic. Good luck finding a better 26mm effective at f2.4 in any format.

Does this Nokia 808 shot hold up to mirrorless/DSLR in your opinion? I certainly think so.




Nokia 808

 

[Hulamike]

Amen brother!

 

[Menneisyys]

Definitely. After evaluating the latest DPReview Connect samples, I don't recommend using the 5 Mpixel downsamples at all. Because of the seemingly very simple algorithm used (prolly because of the, for this, slow CPU), they're of significantly worse than those of the 808.

Now, the full-res images, when you remove the 10% around the edges in 16:9, are tack sharp and absolutely excellent.

I've published a lot of stuff on this at MyNokiaBlog.

Alupang wrote:

The skilled users are going to PP the 41MP full resolution files out of camera anyway.

 

[wizard8080]

Several interesting developments:

1) After exchanging my yellow 1020 for the black one, I went and took a lot more photos. Color/white balance is much better now. Don't know if the previous unit was defective, or the bright yellow case affects imaging, or my early photos were just an anomaly. Photos are still overstaturated, but at least the majority of photos aren't way off in color balance. This ups my overall rating to 3-stars. Flash photos are still often yellowish

2) Nokia released a update to their Pro Cam app from version 1.4.x.x to 1.6.0.2. Only noticable change is bracketing feature. I was hoping they might have toned down the vivid saturation, but doesn't look like they have.

3) I loaded the full-res file on a PC. Still the same oversaturated images.

4) I found a third party camera app called ProShot which has a saturation adjustment, which seems to work. However, it doesn't save full res. Hopefully the developer will update to support the 1020 features.

Some other problems. AT&T Locker isn't uploading then the screen is locked making it rather useless. Skydrive does not upload full res even though it is set to upload best quality.

 

[bigley Ling]

Alupang wrote:

vlad0 wrote:

Stevan G wrote:

Alupang wrote:

Hmmm a brand new user with 2 new posts today. Both posts highly negative with tags to L1020. You work for Samsung perhaps? Very odd.

probably a troll but yeah, the pictures from 1020 do look overprocessed

Nokia should bring in the "808 mode" to the 1020 in terms of processing and color reproduction..

But the Lumia 1020 outputs two files...one sharpened and punchy 5 MP for casual sharing and also the full resolution file. I wish my 808 did this!

Yes I know I can resize in-camera with my 808 but I cannot sharpen too. I like to bluetooth smaller sharpened 1900x snaps to friends (with crappy tiny sensor phones) .

I think Nokia nailed the perfect solution with the Lumia 1020.

Also, are you telling me that you cannot lower color saturation and sharpening enough to your taste?

if want to post sharpen imags in phone, use "photproc" It is free and also lets you do shadow recovery, to increase the DR of images