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Pfeiffer Beach, Big Sur – Nokia 808 PureView

Published on 28 May 2013 by

Earlier this month, Bill Perry – Global Partner Manager for Imaging at Nokia - spent some time in Big Sur (California) and made a trip to visit Pfeiffer Beach, and he writes : “After a 2 mile windy road arrived at the parking and it was a beautiful day however upon walking to the beach it was apparent it was very windy. This short movie should give you a sense of what it was like that day: the wind, the surf and at times the tranquility.”

Pfeiffer Beach 4

It really makes for an impressive video and I’m happy to share it here. He shot all video with his Nokia 808 PureView with either a tripod mount or just hand-held: “I used a custom flat profile in creative mode so I could do my own post-processing. It also allows you to capture more details in the highlights and shadows that you can recover later. Color correction, editing, and exporting all done with Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5.”

Pfeiffer Beach 5

Pfeiffer Beach

Now I know for some reason you can’t see what’s shared on Vimeo in some countries, so I made a few stills to give you an impression… Those are above. Below is the what Bill Perry got from the Nokia 808 PureView!

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Nokia’s Jo Harlow: Computational imaging in future Lumia smartphones

Published on 27 May 2013 by

Nokia is not content with cramming 41-megapixel cameras into its phones, it is planning to do something insane, Rajat Agrawal writes in his interesting article at bgr.in. After the presentation of the Nokia Lumia 925 in London he set with Jo Harlow and spoke to her about Nokia’s emphasize on imaging as USP for its future Lumia range. I’m happy to quote some of his article below:

Jo Harlow says: “If you look at where imaging is going, computational imaging is an area of exploration. Being able to capture even more data — data you cannot even see with the human eye that you can only see by actually going back to the picture and being able to do things with them”

“I think that is a key challenge to bring to a smartphone because computational imaging or computational photography requires computational power. That was one of the limitations in bringing that kind of experiences on a smartphone. Changes in the processing capabilities of smartphones opens it up as an area of exploration”.

Rajat Agrawal concludes: Nokia is going full-steam ahead with its ambition of bringing computational photography to its Lumia smartphones. Nokia has announced it has invested in Pelican Imaging, which has the technology to bring light field cameras into a relatively slimmer smartphone form factor. Even on the chipset front,Qualcomm’s silicon with Adreno 320 GPU already has the capability to support such features.

And as to what Pelican is all about, he added a video from the company, that immediately shows what will be possible – maybe this year even? You’ll find Rajat Agrawal’s complete interview with Jo Harlow here.

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Admiring an FT Bonito with the Nokia 808

Published on 26 May 2013 by

On my way to do some shopping this afternoon, I suddenly hit the breaks when I spotted a car I’ve never seen before in my life. I parked my own, started walking around this amazing sports car. In the Netherlands you can tell the age of the car by its license plate, and I this one showed it was from 1972. But what was it? Volkswagen it said online: “Volkswagen FT. Bonito”. Whut?

I was taking shots with the Nokia 808 PureView and soon the owner came, enjoying my interest in his gorgeous car. And his father, who explained me about the car. His father was the one who built this car for eight years from 1969 (!) onward, based on a Volkswagen frame from 1972, if I understood correctly. His father explained me quite a few things about this FT Bonito.

Nokia 808 PureView - FT Bonito - 1c L

The car is probably better known as Fiberfab (check the link for all detailed information on Wikipedia). Bonito is one of the Fiberfab kitcar models, and you could build the car more or less choosing parts whatever way you like. The body of the car is made of polyester (not sure if fiberglass is the exact same material). Anyway, the body has no metal parts, like the Matra Murena you might know.

After driving it for a while, the car stayed in the garage and time passed. When it wasn’t possible to drive it anymore, he noticed his son’s interest in this FT Bonito, and he gave the car to him. His son – Remko de Winter from Hilversum – spent a lot of time getting it on the road again, and he recently even put a completely revised motor in it – looks brand new, doesn’t it?

Nokia 808 PureView - FT Bonito - 6c

You’ll see this and more in the next video, compiled of all the shots I made almost dancing around this car – including a little surprise as well :-) It’s not an extremely expensive Ferrari of Lamborghini, but I’d settle for this Bonito in a heartbeat. Mind you: in The Netherlands there are only twenty of the FT Bonito left on the road, and this one is probably in best shape.

And remember, if you want to get the best experience, don’t forget to choose fullscreen and Full HD! And since I’m used to sharing just about everything, all originals (and a few more I think) are on Flickr as well :-)

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In the mail: a funny low-light indoor comparison

Published on 26 May 2013 by

At the PureViewClub, I’ve come to know him as a very outspoken an passionate person, Junnior Reis from Brazil. He’s obviously just as passionate about mobile photography as we all are here at the PureViewClub, and last week he sent me some “night shots” he took with several smartphones (looks like Junnior is a passionate collector of smartphones too, or he borrowed a few, I don’t know).

Anyway, I promised I’d post a few of the shots he sent me. His set up is similar to a test I’ve done about half a year ago (see Tough Story), with some toys on a very dark table. He shot these with several smartphones, I’ll share the shots from the Nokia 808 PureView, Apple iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy Note II, Galaxy S IV and Sony Xperia Z (with the most recent software version). Unfortunately, Junnior Reis doesn’t have the Lumia 920 at his disposal it seems.

The Nokia 808 PureView was on Creative 8MP and all settings on auto, all other smartphones were set to night mode. I’ve resized the shots of course, but I took the liberty to publish all originals on Flickr so you can have a look at them in all the detail you’d like.

Nokia 808 PureView

NOKIA 808 PUREVIEW

Apple iPhone 5

APPLE IPHONE 5

Samsung Galaxy Note II

SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE II

Galaxy S IV

SAMSUNG GALAXY S IV

Sony Xperia Z

SONY XPERIA Z (NEW FIRMWARE)

I’d like to thank Junnior Reis for his effort to make these shots for the PureViewClub, since I know how much work that actually is. Again, you’ll find all originals on Flickr.

Do you think you can do better? I can’t promiss I’ll publish your attempts as well, but you’re always welcome to send your shots to pureviewclub @ gmail.com (and please use WeTransfer if you are sending original shots)

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DxOMark: Nokia 808 PureView best, Samsung Galaxy S4 second best smartphone camera?

Published on 24 May 2013 by

Camera ratingI just now learned about DxOMark’s Mobile Report and its newest ratings on “mobile camera’s”. Published three days ago, it’s not a surprise, but in some way reassuring this site still recognizes the Nokia 808 PureView as the best smartphone camera.

As they write in their review from december 2012: Camera historians will probably reflect back on 2012 as a banner year for digital photography technology. But they probably won’t cite a traditional DSC or DSLR as being 2012’s highlight.

Rather, the Nokia 808 PureView could be recognized as the device that flipped the idea of digital photography up onto its head – its 41-megapixel sensor and other jaw dropping specs helped shrink the image quality gap between smartphone cameras and DSC´s.

The runner-up however, according to DxOMark appears to be the Samsung Galaxy S4. I’ve shown some shots comparing both already, and I have to say I was really impressed with the results from the Galaxy S4 in these bright circumstances.

As pros, they mention: Impressive detail preservation in bright light conditions; the 13 M-pix sensor shows a significant improvement compared to the best 8 M-pix smartphone cameras. Autofocus is fast and accurate both in auto and trigger mode with little overshooting. Good auto-exposure even with tricky lighting outdoors; Pleasing, rich colors with various types of lighting conditions; Good image quality with flash.

As cons: Significant loss of detail in low light, due to excessive noise reduction. Strong ringing artifacts (over-sharpening halos). Slight color shading noticeable under low tungsten light levels.

You’ll find a much longer analysis at its partner site, connect.dpreview.com - just go there to check out their findings. In case you missed it, here is their impressive review of the Nokia 808 PureView (if anything, read the last page with the conclusion).

I copied their top 11, because it offers more surprising facts – as you will probably have seen already. I’m not surprised about the iPhone 5 ending in third place (although I don’t have one and never tested it myself) – I know it has a very decent camera.

I’m surprised about the Samsung Galaxy Note II and Galaxy S III as runners-up. And I’m really surprised by the BlackBerry Z10 ending before the HTC 8X and the Nokia Lumia 920 (both 66 points) and Sony Xperia Z (only 61!)

For one thing, I would never have tipped the Z10 as a better smartphone than the Lumia 920. So I guess it’s time for me to get a few phones out of of the vault at the office and start shooting…

I hope the weather will improve the coming days!

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A breathtaking shot from a gull in flight…

Published on 23 May 2013 by

Yesterday, @SteveLitchfield posted some incredible shots from the Nokia 808 PureView on AllAboutSymbian, and I just have to share those here at the club as well.

Steve called his post “Making jaws drop with the Nokia 808 PureView” and that’s exactly what happened to me just now – it’s nothing but amazing, and you’d say I’m used to the power of the Nokia 808 by now…

But no: it really never ceases to amaze me. This time it’s Martin Jeppesen making a shot of a gull in flight, in full resolution and flash on. For the full story, I’ll just direct you to visit AllAboutSymbian. I’ve copied and resized some shots from that post to motivate you to go there.

First, you’ll see the resized version of the full-res original, next the crop Martin shared on Flickr and then an even closer crop.

Seagull by Martin Jepessen crop close
Notice how easy it is to read the number on it’s leg! This is in flight, mind you…

There’s one more truly amazing seagull shot, but you’ll have to click to  AllAboutSymbian to see it (I don’t want to copy everything and the post is more than worth your time :-)

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