Nokia 808 PureView Sensor (a look by DPReview) (MP War is over?)

http://4.s.img-dpreview.com/files/news/9716437399/NokiaSensor.jpg

Nokia caught the gaze of camera centric sites yesterday when they announced the unthinkable. The Nokia 808 PureView. Many phone/tech sites marvelled – all but the ones seemingly naive or jealous of what the 808 is actually capable of.

The megapixel race is a game Nokia played yesterday and destroyed. Not only do they rule at the top with a 41MP sensor, they are also the ones who most understand that it’s not about the amount of pixels in a picture.  In both cases Nokia wins. Those who argue for more MP for marketing (er HTC) and those who will downplay Nokia’s pixels (because they’re obviously no where near there yet with their own offerings – and also, quality is not about mp) because the intended output size for maximum image quality and performance is a manageable 5MP (though the 38MP images are not to be ignored either)

The best images from the 808 might indeed be coming from the 5MP output at PureView mode. (I’ll be interested to see galleries in that format.). PureView Tech is there first and foremost, for performance and versatility.

The 808 if you look at PureView is all about having the perfect pixels. The HUMONGOUS 1/1.2″ sensor, with oversampling and pixel binning to reduce noise and create that perfect pixel. From several pixels, a perfect one is averaged out, reducing noise. Also you get effective enough true zooming without loss of quality, pretty much as if you had optical zoom. Unlike optical zoom, you keep the same f/2.4 aperture throughout, the zoom is silent (excellent for videos) and there are no unwieldy moving parts. All that and an amazing camera UI to boot, simple, easy but bountiful in features.

Reading the Nokia 808 story, we can understand that there is so much more to the 808 that meets the eye. Folks are literally blinded by the 41mp sensor sign and can’t appreciate that there’s actually even more amazing things going on under the hood.

• http://mynokiablog.com/2012/02/27/the-story-and-secrets-behind-the-nokia-808-pureview-everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-pureview/
• http://mynokiablog.com/2012/02/28/video-13-minutes-with-damian-dinning-on-the-nokia-808-pureview-10x-greater-precision-than-slr/

One of the most influential and well regarded camera sites DPReview looks at the Nokia 808 – they and their audience seem well impressed with the mechanics and performance of this camera. They created the image above showing sensor size comparison. I was looking for one that showed comparison against other devices but dpreview has already acknowledged Nokia’s sensor already towers over other point and shoots (5x over camera phones, 3x over dedicated camera point and shoots). They’re most impressed with the oversized sensor, first seen in the N9 (though 808 has been in development for 5 years) that means there isn’t that much pixel loss when changing from 4:3 to 16:9.

• http://www.dpreview.com/news/2012/02/27/Nokia-808-PureView-with-41MP-sensor

There’s an unfortunate immediate recoil by some at the thought of Symbian, but seriously, Belle FP1 is quite decent. Nokia does know it needs this technology on other smartphone platforms and eventually it will get there. But rather than wait, the PureView technology (5 years in the making) is ready now and there’s no reason for delay.

Check out the full sized sample pics yourself. (Note they’re in the zip file, the pictures there and several on flickr are compressed and are not indicative of the quality).

• http://mynokiablog.com/2012/02/27/official-untouched-nokia-808-sample-pics-zoom-in-and-enhance/

Cheers stylinred for the tip.

Ah time to sleep (or go to bed, might be some time to fall asleep, and then wake up in a few hours again for uni haha). So much news in the past 24 hours about the Nokia PureView. That’s because it was such a ground breaking device. Truly exciting. It wasn’t merely increasing numbers, there was so much more to it. There was a lot of new innovations brought at Nokia that we have not seen in a long time. Very many first. We have a ground breaking, super ace for marketing 41MP that makes everyone fall over in disbelief, but the Nokia expertise to make damn sure your pictures aren’t fluff – that they are actually distinctly high quality that will make you question yourself, “I took this on a phone?!” Congrats DD and Nokia 😀

Category: Nokia, Symbian