Nokia 808 PureView Low Light test vs Canon EOS 550D, Olympus PEN E-PL2, SGSIII

GSM Arena does a test now to see how low light works on the Nokia 808 PureView. It impresses when Xenon is used and outdoes the camera phones in low light no flash. But the likes of the 550D are on another league (though lens dependent too. A 50mm F1.4 on my 60D takes in soo much light at night). My 60D also has the added advantage of having an external flash (though another cost! and weight and something else to charge) which gives a little more versatility regarding light control (wall bouncing/diffusing/off camera flash etc).

However, for majority of usage when I want to take some indoor people pics or low light people pics, the 808 is what I need and does the job better than any other camera phone or even DSLR. For one, I can’t be carrying my DSLR everywhere. I can’t even carry a pocket cam everywhere. I can bring a phone everywhere though.

Looking at the pictures on my facebook in particular, I’d say they’d all benefit if they had the 808. Sometimes I’m looking at my tagged pictures in an album taken  I’m sitting there waiting for the gallery to load fully and remove that initial blur…nope, that’s just because it’s a blackberry. Not to mention they’re green, horrible and pixelated.

Conclusion?

If, after reading this article, you thought that Olympus and Canon should start trembling with fear, you are wrong. Image quality is one thing, but cameraphones lack the versatility of the larger sensor cameras with interchangeable optics, so DSLRs and EVILs won’t be replaced any time soon.

Nor was that Nokia’s idea when designing the 808 PureView. The 41 megapixel sensor was set to annihilate smartphone competition and hopefully steal some users from the casual point and shoot camera market. That’s why its low-light performance is so important – casual photographers are quite likely to be taking photos at a disco or at dinner table in a restaurant, where lighting is far from perfect.

Fortunately, the Nokia 808 PureView rose to the challenge and put up a performance closer to that of its MFT and APS-C competitors (again we are only talking image quality here) than to its smartphone rival. The huge leap forward for the cameraphone world is complete. Now let’s hope this is just the first of many more PureView cameraphones to come.

http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_808_pureview_low_light-review-775.php

There’s also a video here:

SGSIII’s video is soo bright compared to even the DSLR to the point some of the detail is a little washed out.

Cheers efekt for the tip!

Category: Nokia, Symbian