RAW DNG on Nokia Lumia 1520 and 1020 explained – first smartphones with RAW

NokConv talks about the Nokia Lumia 1520 and 1020’s ability to shoot RAW images. Basically digital negatives where you can tweak settings AFTER the photos are taken delivering maximum versatility when editing your images post production.

It’s a much requested feature, especially from the 808 users who wanted to push the boundary of mobile photography further.

Colours, tone mapping, noise filtering – change it how you like! Although on the one hand we’re moving towards the “point and shoot” simple photography, on the other, people are becoming more creative with how they’re editing their pictures. In Nokia Smart Camera (and in a way on the N9 I believe) Nokia allowed users to edit photos in a non destructive way. Likewise with cropping on Pro Cam. This allows for that and so much more as your images can be tweaked AFTER the photo is taken. Yes you can do that with jpegs but the quality and flexibility isn’t the same.

Juha says:

“But with RAW you can define these settings on your own, and this gives you enormous creative opportunities later on. That is the power of the digital negative – you can change the settings after taking the photo. You can tune the settings separately for each photo, just the way you like it – whether you a searching for a special artistic expression or the most natural representation of the original scene.”

“Overall, I’m so proud of what we have achieved in Nokia. We have the amazing camera hardware, very powerful camera user interface, and now the RAW support. When you bring this all together, the system is more than the sum of its parts. I’m always carrying my Lumia 1020 in my pocket. I use the manual controls, exposure bracketing, and RAW – and the results are just pure magic.”

There is also one more additional benefit when shooting and archiving photos in RAW. “The RAW computer software and algorithms evolve all the time. If you shoot with RAW, you can take benefit of the continuously developing algorithms in the future. Who knows what these tools will offer in 10 years!”

http://conversations.nokia.com/2013/10/29/another-nokia-first-digital-negatives-raw-dng-lumia/

The downside is the files are quite large, as expected in RAW images (and the fact that they’re 38MP!). 40MB. Fortunately there’s a memory card slot in the 1520.

Cheers Janne for the tip!

Category: Nokia