Video & Gallery: Nokia 808 PureView vs. Sony Nex-5N (Dedicated Camera)

Taken with the 808 PureView

We’ve seen loads of comparisons and videos pitting the Nokia 808 against almost every device imaginable  besting almost all of them, the HTC One X, the SGS3, The Note 2, the iPhone5 none of them proved to be a match for the great 808 pureview. But what about dedicated cameras?

I recently picked up a Sony Nex-5N (Nex = Sony’s line of mirrorless cameras) so I decided to do a little testing, pitting it against the 808; the results are below:

Video:

Video-wise both the 808 and the Nex shoot at 1080p (while filming I thought that the Nex was shooting at 60fps but it turned out to be 30fps, same as the 808). You can notice that the colors look brighter on Nex, while the 808 dulls them out a bit; in reality the true colors is someone between the two (best noticeable on the orange roof tiling), it seems that the 808 couldn’t capture enough light due to the fog and clouds, while the Nex’s larger lens overcompensated for the lack of light by pumping up the color saturation. I think the Nex has the edge in overall video quality (and it comes in a much smaller file size).

Zoom wise the Nex-5N was fit with the standard 18-55 zoom lens, which provides a decent amount of zoom, but is still no match for the zooming prowess of the 808 which almost doubled the zoom without any loss in quality.

In terms of audio recording I had expected the 808 to be clear a winner, but was surprised by the quality of the NEX as well (I hadn’t known that it records in stereo as well) so I’ll call that one as a tie; but it is worth noting that both the 808 and the NEX did an amazing job cancelling out the wind interference (I was on the rooftop of a 7 floor apartment building on a very windy day, yet you can barely hear any at noise at all).

Unfortunately I still haven’t figured out how to do side by side video processing (plus Sony Vegas seems to have disappeared off my laptop after upgrading to Windows 8 so they are two separate videos)

808 Video Sample:

Nex-5N Video Sample:

Photos:

For photos all the NEX’s images were taken WITHOUT flash (seeing how the flash is an external add-on that I was too lazy to go get from my room); I left the 808’s flash on auto in all shots expect the stairwell where I turned it off, as well as the “cat” as it was giving false colors and washing out some details. In general I realized that the 808 is “Flash Happy” firing the Xenon flash even when there was more than enough light to take a picture without flash.

As usual click on the image to view the full res on Flickr

Wet Flower: This was taken on Full auto on both, flash was not used for the 808; here I moved both less than 2 feet away and then zoomed in.

808:

Nex-5N:

View From the edge of the road (note the fog, lesser cameras such as the 900 can’t even show fog, making it appear as dust or just a blurry sky)

808:

Nex-5N:

Bookshelf: image take indoors in medium lighting (not actual lights, but the blinds were open, the 808 insisted on firing the flash here):

808:

Nex-5N:

Stone Walkway- here the pureview had some trouble getting the right colors in, the picture looks un-appealing compared to the NEX

808:

Nex-5N:

Hitch Hikers guide to the galaxy (highly recommended) both were taken about 2 feet away from the subject- here the 808 seems to have pulled off a better shot than the Nex did (pretty sure it was with flash)

808:

Nex-5N:

Book- here the 808’s Xenon flash definitely came in handy; taken from about two feet away.

808:

Nex-5N:

Potted Plant- for long I’ve criticized Apple’s cameras since they give unrealistic colors, unfortunately this also happens with the 808 from time to time, as seen here it gave off a very appealing deep green color, which is unfortunately un-real

808:

Nex-5N:

Sleeping Cat- here surprisingly the 808 managed to gather more light than the Nex, even though the flash was not fired… impressive stuff.

808:

Nex-5N:

Dirty Keyboard- here the 808’s flash-happiness gave me alot of trouble, where it would bounce off the keys making them look shiny and ugly, took about 4 tries to get this pic on auto

808:

Nex-5N:

Dark Stairwell- this one as expected wasn’t really fair against the 808 seeing how I turned off the flash here, but this is one test I’m looking forward to retaking with the 920-

808:

Nex-5N:

Apartment entrance- this was an interesting one seeing how the background was lit from a distance but the immediate area was significantly darker, although the Nex got much more detail of the actual interior the background is equal quality on both (look at the raindrops

808:

Nex-5N:

Volks Wagon- here for some reason the 808 had a blue tint in it (look at the background) something we’re used to seeing on the Lumias, mostly the 800.

808:

Nex-5N:

Category: Nokia, Symbian, Video