Nokia recently announced the Nokia Pureview 808 mobile phone with a never before seen 41 megapixel resolution camera. Off-course, we’ll knew this would happen someday but not expected it to happen so soon. Take example of consumer DSLR camera’s which at moment are offering superlative image quality while keeping megapixel count in check. It leaves a big question mark as to why, Nokia decided to make a phone cramming it up with 41MP? Has Nokia lost it after taking a beating from its competitors?
There was a time, when camera manufacturers were pushing the megapixels as huge marketing gimmick. People mistook their words, that more the pixels, better the image quality. This megapixel race did not last long as people became aware of the fact that its not the number of pixels but the size of sensor & quality of optics which dictate the resultant quality of the photograph. According to specifications, Nokia Pureview 808 seems to have a effective maximum resolution of 8MP, the 41MP image is obtained by a clever software tricks known as “Software Binning” & “Interpolation”. Here the pixels are multiplied by a software algorithm resulting into a higher resolution photograph but what suffers is the picture quality. Have a look at the digital cameras from cheap brands & you’ll know what I’m talking about. Off-course, over the time, the software algorithms to carry out the pixel binning process have improved by leaps & bounds but still there is no way one can get away with putting very few photo-sites(pixels) on the sensor.
To make the process of pixel binning actually work, Nokia had to put a good quality lens(optics) on Nokia Pureview 808. They did just that. The lens is made up of 5 elements in a single group certified by Carl Zeiss. No doubt here, Carl Zeiss has given us impressive optics in past & they continue to do so. It would have been impossible for Nokia to offer 41MP’s if they would have used a low grade optics in production. To help the matters, Nokia made a smart downgrade from 12MP on their Nokia N8 to 8MP for Nokia Pureview 808. This reduction in pixels enabled them to implement pixel binning with ease & not much loss in image quality as the pixels are now considerably lesser(hence bigger individually), if one considers the sensor to be of exact same size physically(Its not, as we find out ahead).
Finally, the imaging sensor of Nokia Pureview 808 is bigger than Nokia N8(which has sensor bigger than most camera phones) which is renowned for its imaging capabilities. The sensor on Nokia Pureview 808 measures at 1/1.2” which is way bigger than what most cellphones have. This is a good thing considering it is allowing the Nokia Pureview 808 to offer zooming while shooting videos & stills without sacrificing on the image quality. This is accomplished by using the centre pixels over the larger sensor than by what most phones did – Zoom Digitally. Also the larger sensor area, allows for a improved light collecting abilities when coupled with the fast f/2.4 lens.
Going by the above, the Nokia Pureview 808 should perform well. However, it won’t take time before it gets trounced by other camera phones which offer a modest resolution hike along-with optical zoom & larger sensors. Off-course the 41MP is still a too far-fetched claim to be made. I feel most users(casual & mobile photo bloggers) don’t require such high resolution photographs from their mobile phone. After-all, who will take the pains of resizing such bloody huge photo into a smaller size just to share on social networking sites or post to their photo blog. Mobile phone camera’s are generally used for documenting & most will use a capable standalone camera separately for their high end photography demands. Apart from this, the phone is coupled with a hardware which doesn’t shines but its just modest & with an OS whose future is already in dark. Nokia shot its own foot by not putting Windows 7 OS on this which would have been a deal maker.
As a photographer, I would not go for this phone. There are far better alternatives in form of iphone 4S or even the old but trusty Nokia N8(Since it will fall in price with the announcement of Nokia 808). I would never shoot with 41MP camera phone offered by interpolation. Keep the pixel count to modest, make the sensor bigger, couple it with good quality optics & photographers(like me) would embrace it.
“The sensor on Nokia Pureview 808 measures at 1/1.2” which is way bigger than what most cellphones have.”
Show me ONE other cellphone with an image sensor this size. In fact, the sensor is bigger than almost all compact cameras. The sensor is positively HUGE compared to the 1/3.2” sensor in the iPhone, for example.
“Here the pixels are multiplied by a software algorithm resulting into a higher resolution photograph but what suffers is the picture quality.”
No it’s exactly the other way around. Nokia upsamples the picture, removing random noise, to raise Image Quality. That is, 7 pixels are used to compare the pixels of each, deciding what is the image, and what is random noise, to create one much improved image pixel in the final image. If you can show a specific example of how the 808 PureView ruins the image quality, it would be interesting.
“As a photographer, I would not go for this phone. There are far better alternatives in form of iphone 4S or even the old but trusty Nokia N8”
You must be joking. How SPECIFICALLY are the iPhone and the N8 “far better alternatives.”? Just look at the images and you’ll see the PureView trounces ANY competition.
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The reason to go with iphone 4S would be a much better OS than Symbian used in 808. Also N8 offers value for money as it has become old now(If someone insists a phone from Nokia). The small boost in image quality on pureview 808 isn’t worth it seeing the other capabilities of the device.
Have seen the sample images shot with Nokia 808 but did not found radical improvement in the picture quality. Noise was imminent & other things were nothing to shout about inspite of the pixel binning feature. The N8 still makes comparable images.
The pixel binning process requires a decent hardware(sensor) as to what I’ve read. The tiny mobile sensors(even though) this is bigger are always going to bottleneck in using this process efficiently.
At the end of the day, even people were happy when N8 was announced. The pureview 808 isn’t bad either but Nokia stretched it too far. 41MP is still a marketing gimmick.
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Interesting post mate.
As gadgety raised some points, I agree with them. PureView Pro Techonlogy use 41MP sensor for super sampling the pixels resulting in noise free image. At 5 MP resolution, Around 7 pixels are available for super sampling. That means, we have 7x much more detail than we would have normally.
I have wrote an article explaining this technology here: http://nokiatips.in/2012/02/29/what-is-pureview-pro-technology/
“As a photographer, I would not go for this phone. There are far better alternatives in form of iphone 4S or even the old but trusty Nokia N8″
That would be foolish if you’re buying a phone for photography. I am sure you haven’t seen sample images taken with pureview, low light images.
Check following posts:
http://mynokiablog.com/2012/02/27/official-untouched-nokia-808-sample-pics-zoom-in-and-enhance/
http://nokiapoweruser.com/2012/03/31/808-pureviews-amazing-low-light-sample-pictures-with-and-without-flash/
http://thehandheldblog.com/2012/03/01/nokia-808-pureview-camera-samples/
http://mynokiablog.com/2012/02/29/nokia-808-pureview-sample-pics/
All I would say is, comparing pureview with any other existing device is funny.
You should also check Steve Linchfield’s post comparing PureView and iPhone 4S sensors http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/features/item/14347_PureView_pixels_versus_the_com.php
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