Nokia 808 PureView review: A photographer's perspective

Nokia 808 PureView review: A photographer's perspective When I first heard about the Nokia 808 PureView and its seemingly impossible 41-megapixel camera I was, to say the least, somewhat sceptical. In terms of performance it's not at all bad; from the phone's homescreen a press of the shutter button on the side of the case switches on the camera in approximately 1. The contrast detection autofocus system is fast enough in good light, and it has an LED lamp that helps at close range in low light, although at longer ranges it doesn't focus at all well once light gets below late evening levels. In fact, the 808's biggest limitation as a camera is the fact that it's in a mobile phone. Most compact cameras use 1/2. 2in chip measuring 10. 67 x 8. 44 x 5. 58mm, an area of 43. 4mm2. 2in, or in real terms approximately 4. Advanced compacts such as the Canon G12 use a 1/1. 42mm, with a surface area of 15. But then the 808 can also produce full-resolution images of 38 megapixels in 4:3 aspect ratio, or 36MP in 16:9, which is quite a party trick, and we'll be taking a look at these later. Another technological breakthrough that makes this larger sensor design possible is the 808's high quality Carl Zeiss lens, which was specially developed to match the sensor. By using a non-zoom, fixed aperture lens designed specifically to match this sensor, the camera unit on the 808 has the ability to remain relatively small, although it does still make quite a bulge on the back of the phone. The fact that it actually has a shutter button immediately puts it a couple of rungs further up the quality ladder than most mobile phones. The Nokia 808 PureView uses an even larger sensor than that; it's a 1/1. 33mm2. In other words, its sensor has nearly double the surface area of an advanced compact, and over five times the surface area of a typical telephone camera sensor. 00mm, with a surface area of 85. The lack of optical zoom is something of a limitation, but the 808 does offer a "lossless" digital zoom, adjusting the pixel oversampling to compensate for the cropping of the image and retaining much the same quality. In this mode the colour rendition is very good, with bright vibrant hues in good light, and plenty of fine detail, but it's really still not any better than a good 8-10-megapixel compact camera. It also suffers from a perennial problem of phone cameras. The level of detail at the full-resolution 38-megapixel setting (or 32 megapixels in 16:9 format) is undeniably impressive, showing up tiny details in the scene amazingly well. However that's not really the way the camera is intended to be used. Unless you remember to carry a lens cloth with you and clean it before every use you'll frequently find that a slight haze of reflected glare drastically reduces the quality of your pictures. It seems to have only centre-weighted metering, and even minor backlighting such as the sky will cause the foreground to be very under-exposed. 4, but it does have an optional neutral-density filter. It's awkward to hold it without accidentally touching the screen, which as I mentioned will move the focus point, and despite its relatively compact size it's difficult to shoot one-handed. Even the cheapest budget compact has better handling. 3in sensors, which typically measure 6. The problem of course is that it's a trade-off, and below a certain light level, with photocells that small it really doesn't matter how much you "oversample" them, they're still not very good at collecting light. Most compact cameras also have a better list of features. One area where the sensor does score fairly well is in dynamic range. In full resolution mode however the dynamic range is, not surprisingly, extremely poor. Nokia 808 PureView review: A photographer's perspective Trade News selected by Local Linkup on 03/07/2012