Weekend Watch: Nokia 808 PureView 1 hour presentation!
Good morning folks! Do sit down, grab a muffin and a coffee for this 1 hour presentation (well 56 minutes) of the Nokia 808 PureView!
This is like a wonderful lecture all about the Nokia 808 PureView from the Zeiss Plant. This probably contributed to a lot of the tech blogs finally understanding what PureView is about.
I’m writing this (as with the other weekend watch) as a scheduled post – it’s 2am and I’ll probably be watching this as it gets published at 08:08 am GMT.
by IdeePalast
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Hey, thanks for reading my post. My name is Jay and I'm a medical student at the University of Manchester. When I can, I blog here at mynokiablog.com and tweet now and again @jaymontano. We also have a twitter and facebook accounts @mynokiablog and Facebook.com/mynokiablog. Check out the tips, guides and rules for commenting >>click<< Contact us at tips(@)mynokiablog.com or email me directly on jay[at]mynokiablog.comSubscribe
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- Nokia 808 PureView: 1 hour presentation | UK Mobile Review | May 26, 2012
glad they’re educating the journalists about the 808 and judging from the reviews recently its obviously paid off
can’t wait for the phone hopefully they’ll release it soon…. funny how Damian wasn’t expecting any delays for release based on the final touches they had to do.. I should have known better than to believe him
I get a feeling that Nokia holds back everything to avoid loosing the sale of 1 WP phone instead of 1000 other phones.
Yes, all this publicity, and its not even going to go Global or given to Carriers.. A wasted opportunity and sales. Not good enough for this awesome phone..
well the blog world is finally realizing that there is no bs marketing here.. for the most part is real innovation.
Sure, if you call adding resolution innovation. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a great camera with a great image quality. There are however some features that are over hyped. Like the ability to zoom. We had a nice chat about zooming with the device and the conclusion was that it was not really made for zooming. The PureView supersampling is disabled if you zoom to the max and you get actually less pixels and all the ‘benefits’ of a small sensor when you do that.
However this device can realy take some great pictures when you just point and shoot. It’s all about those 38 Mpix images that matter. You just can’t get those with any other handset. Just don’t believe all the hype there is.
It was also made for zooming.. A 5mp camera zoomed would give a small sample of pixels, resulting in a poor image.. ie 5mp zoomed could reduce image to less than say a 1mp sample.. However , the 41 mp zoomed, could still give you a good quality image of 5mp or thereabouts.. A vast difference.. The same effect is given when cropping.. The 41 mp is going to give a good size and quality image even with cropping.. This should not be confused with oversampling, which is a different concept.
You can’t zoom a 38 Mpix image without losing some of the details. The so called zooming is done with cropoing the 38 Mpix image. You can find the same consept from several handsets where you can take the image with lower than max resolution. Nothing new there except the huge resolution.
This phone is about having a huge sensor. That just may confuse people who think cropping is equal to the zooming what it is not.
Yes but the loss is much less with a 41mp sensor than say a 5mp sensor.. Thats the beauty of it.
Yes, there is much less loss at that situation. That’s just the idea of cropping. You do it using a picture with a lot’s of resolution and the result will be a part of the image with no loss in quality.
However calling cropping zooming is a bit strange. You can take some android device, take a picture with a full resolution and crop it. Now, the idea is just the same. The 808 produces better result just because it has a bigger sensor.
.. cropping and oversampling in real time, in a device with volume of only 95 cubic cm. ? No innovation at all..
You know what, make your own.. see what happens.
Cropping and oversampling has been done before the 808. In real time comparable to the 808. The 808 is improving on this but hey, if you want to call adding processing power and pixels an innovation, it’s your call.
The 808 is a great device but it’s still a good idea to understand what’s hype and what’s real.
The innovation comes from the size to pixel ratio.. that is how I see it. And I can’t recall any other camera using this particular way of zooming.. I know it has been around for a while, but no one has implemented in such way before.
We, as consumers, are so spoiled.. nothing is ever good enough.
You can use any phone to zoom by cropping images. The 808 does this a bit better but still, it’s cropping.
I remember several phones raising the bar for the amount of the pixels on the sensor. I don’t think that was some true innovation every time it happened. Not even if there were some new way of making the images better.
again you seem to be confused…
To lord US : Zooming with a 808 is an innovation. When you use an optical zoom, there’s two major problems : you loose light AND definition, so with the 808, yes, you loose the benefits of pureview but you still have a good aperture, and you don’t loose light. Try to zoom with a good “TZ” panasonic, or any good camera, and you’ll see.
And finally, they explained that in zooming mode, the 808 use the center of the sensor, wich is usually the better part of a it.
Sure the zooming with the 808 is an innovation if you call cropping any image zooming. Unfortunately that’s not an new innovation since cropping has been done for years. Actually for decades if not longer if we consider just processing images.
Using the zoom of the 808 actually gives you less light. The whole consept of the PureView is getting more light for a pixel. The light of up to seven pixels can be used to create that one pure pixel. Now if you zoom with the 808 you lose that light of those six pixels and get the light of only one pixel. The actual active sensor size is only 15% of the original and you end up with a less accurate image.
It seems that Nokia is using sensors with dead pixels on them. Nothing new on this either since it’s trivial to discard those and replace them with calculated ones. Now it’s good news that they actually accept less of those in the center of the sensor because the cropping zoom would reveal those. Yeah, and please don’t tell me you didn’t know the yield is increased all over the industry by using this technique. This is good news. Not bad.
The push/hype is behind the PureView mode – that above everything else is able to produce stellar images. That’s what all those pixels are used for. As an advantage also, those additional pixels in certain conditions, can produce excellent zooming. There is a trade off between maximum zoom and maximum pixel binning.
In optimum conditions, you can go ahead and take 38MP that are still amazingly super sharp all the way down to the pixel – and these are samples by ordinary users talking. This means that in optimum conditions too, the zooming would be very good as you’re pretty much just cropping down to very good pixels in the middle of a picture anyway.
I think there is also some great innovation in getting the camera its own processor that can deal with that much information.
I think there is some real great innovation in how they made the lens so accurate for something so tiny
I think there is some great innovation in shoehorning such a large sensor in a phone (though there is bulk, it has not been done)
I think there is some great innovation in having rich stereo recording – unlike any other.
So there you go. It’s not just about adding resolution. Everything does, at the end of the day and for all that it matters, produces a top end audio/visual recording experience. Nothing else specs wise matters, it does the job extremely well.
Thanks for clarication Jay.. I really didnt think it was that difficult to understand..
I don’t think anyone is denying the 808 is producing some really great images. The PureView supersampling is surely a great thing if you want to get better images when it’s a bit dark. You can see the same idea used in several cameras before the 808. The real difference is that the implementation in the 808 is far better.
However while you can use this cropping for zooming, you still get those 5 Mpix images. This is the drawback of not having an optical zoom. Also while zooming you just lose the advantages of the large sensor just as you told us. The PureView effect is lost and only about 15% of the surface of the sensor can be used to take the actual image.
Without the requiment of getting great zooming capabilities you get a great camera from the 808. With the zoom the quality is comparable to a decent compact with a 3x zoom and 5 Mpix sensor. Good images. Nothing less and nothing more.
Did I mention it takes great images without the zoom?
Bottom line is the 808 gives the user more flexibility without resorting to compromised images and its a device u can bring along everywhere u go except for highly classified military bases.
If u prioritise images with minimum noise, use PureView mode.
If u’re on stealth mode trying to catch ur friend’s spouse in dirty deeds, zoom in 360p with 12X zoom, keeping urself far apart. (wishing Nokia will take PureView further with true night vision mode)
When u’re on holiday especially, take random full resolution images of the scenery, go back home n frame multiple shots from that big ass full resolution images.
This is the flexibility i’m talking about.
Yeah, the 808 compromises camera-wise only in the zoom for still images and with the huge size if you consider it’s a phone. If you are ok with those, it’s a great device.
Talking about smartphone-wise it’s not so nice but hey, it’s intended to be a great camera.
Ooh.. gimme a break.. How smart can the smartest phone in the world be..? I’d rather be the smart user with a dumb phone than a dumb user with the smartest phone.
Btw getting myself ‘geekily’ familiar with a smartphone from the days of S60 2nd Edition(read Nokia 6600) I’d consider myself smarter than most of my Droid or iOS peers.. Like how Nokia would put it, its what u do with it.
Cheers..
Yeah, it’s just the way you told it. Get it for the camera if you like that and it’s great for you if the Symbian is not a problem.
In typical P&S cameras the loss of quality while using optical zoom is greater than in PureView’ case. Not only because smaller aperture, but also because lens distortion.
It would be fun to see someone making a real shootout between the 808 and compacts while both are used to zoom into max.
What kind of a lens distortion are you talking about? You do know that CZ is not selling only to Nokia nor are they the only manufacturer with any quality. What is the pricepoint of those typical cameras?
It surely takes better photos without the zoom. While zooming to the max the 808 has an 1/3.4″ effective sensor and that’s not so much.
Go away and read the white paper and then come back.
<3
I don’t think there is that kind of a white paper I’m looking for. Did you have some spesific one in mind?
Talking about the zoom seems to be a hot topic.
http://cameras.about.com/od/technologies/a/What-Is-Barrel-Lens-Distortion.htm
Well, I had buttered toast and Ceylon while watching this. Sosyal? No. hahaha!
This is the camera to beat.. but “they” can’t.
Not this year, not next year, not next next year(promise!), and by the time “they” come up with something to match the PureView, Nokia is already years ahead again. Positivity and good vibes lang this weekend!
I gave up watching this pretty quickly. Obviously it wasn’t filmed on the 808, the audio quality is sh1t in the extreme.
It’s a shame, I would have been interested to watch AND listen to this presentation, sigh.
Now we need some more sample pictures and videos taken in low light condition. In my book the low light picture and video quality is wats makes or breaks the camera. Most high end phones gives good enough results in good conditions for my taste.
I can’t wait to own the white 808! The contrast of black camera choola and white back cover creates a scandal that only Christian Dior was able to achieve back in 1947 with the “New Look”.
I really love everything about the 808 Pure View. The camera bulge is sexy like a husband’s crotch in white briefs.
http://thedreamstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Christian-Diors-New-Look-1947.jpg
Jay , great article and I agree with ur comments . For someone who seems to be an expert , Lord US doesn’t seem to get what the PureView technology is about . Speaking of which …
Lord US , I’m not the expert u seem to be , I’m going by what the experts ( such as Damian Dinning ) have said , so correct me if I’m wrong here ..
As I understand it , the purpose of the PureView technology is to give us stellar pics and lossless digital zoom , e.g. zoom with no loss of quality . This by itself is quite an innovation !
As Jay pointed out , one innivation is having a separate GPU just for the camera . I don’t recall any other SP ( smartphone ) having this .
Also , as Jay remarked , another innovation is the quality of the lenses in such a small package . Sure CZ is not the only quality optics maker but they r the best .
Yet a third innovation here is shoehorning a 41 MP module into a SP . No other SP comes anywhere close to that !
Plus , there’s the supersampling . The PV takes up to 7 pixels and combines them . Sure other SPs use pixel binning , the difference here is the quality and the separate GPU . When u have a LOT of light and 41 MPs to work with ,of course ur images r going to be vastly superior !! I’ve seen the 808′s zooms and they r wayy better than other SPs and even most DSLRs !
Last , u talk about how a PV 5MP image is just 5MP . Except it’s not … When u r combining 7 pixels into one , u r going to get a much , much better 5MP pic because it uses only the best ;the noise and artifacts get eliminated pretty much .
Hope this clarifies things ! Cheers !!