GIZMODO: Nokia Announces Lumia 1020 packing a 41 Mega-Pixel Camera

[JGxTech90]

Nokia Lumia 1020: A Great Camera in a Real Phone

Phones in cameras are so good now. Sort of. They're good when you compare their output to the smudgy, iffy images we put up with so many years, but an S95 can still blow them out of the skies. Maybe that changes with the Nokia Lumia 1020, which we'll meet today.

 

The camera is 41 megapixels, and according to leaked photos found on Flickr it'll have a f/2.2 aperture. That's down from f/2.4 on the PureView 808, which was the first Nokia camera with a 41MP camera. It shoots in 16:9 or 4:3. Like the PureView 808, it simultaneously saves a 5MP oversampled image that will be super sharp. The 1020 takes the oversampling tech to video, too.

 

It will be an AT&T exclusive "for now". (Ugh.) It'll be out July 26th for $300 (on two year contract). Pre-orders start July 16th. Global announcements are "this quarter". Colors are yellow, white, and black.

 

SEXPAN

D

Nokia's making a big deal about zoom, so here's a quick explanation of how its tech works. Because it shoots so many pixels on the 41MP sensor, it doesn't have to lose any actual "pixels" when it zooms in, it can go to 6x zoom by just cropping down on the original image taken (sort of like how the D4's 1080p crop mode works).

The way to think of it is that the full, unzoomed images actually throw out a bunch of data. You know how Apple's retina method sends 4 pixels to populate what used to be one pixel? The PureView sensor, more or less, does the same thing, so it's sending that "retina" packet to a non-retina screen. But that data's all there, and so you can "zoom" in and access the data that would have been lost otherwise. The 1020 saves the "oversampled", smaller image (which has lost some data), but also saves the full file so you can zoom all around the image and zoom wherever you want later on.

The 41MP sensor also has the optical image stabilization of the 920 and 928, which required totally retooling the stabilization rig. It uses a series of ball bearings around the sensor now.

 

SEXPAN

 

D

 

The phone is styled the same as other Lumia phones, in colored polycarbonate, but it's got a large, circular area on the back that houses the camera. It looks fine looking at it up on the screen, actually, but we'll see what it looks like in person soon.

 

 

SEXPAN

D

There's also a new camera app, called Nokia Pro Camera. It gives you easier access to manual settings, like manual focus, exposure, ISO, shutter speed, and other controls. There's a dial on the right side that you can set to any setting, and slide with your thumb. It looks pretty awesome in the demo. You can even do stuff like set a long exposure and light paint with a phone—a trick that's typically more of a thing you'd associate with a DSLR.

There's a new SDK to make lens apps for Lumias too. Early ones include CNN, Vyclone, Yelp, Foursquare, Pinterest, Hipstamatic, and other stuff.

 

 

SEXPAND

 

 

 

The original PureView 808, despite running Cretaceous era Symbian software, has amassed a fiercely loyal following, just from having a damn good camera in a (mostly) reasonably sized and stoutly built phone. Seriously, it's one of the most popular camera phones on Flickr, which demonstrates that 1. it's that well loved, and 2. people who care enough about photos to put phone pics on Flickr use this thing. The 1020 should be just as good, with a slight improvement to the lens, and the optical image stabilization of the Lumia 920 and 928. So really, it's a DBZ fusion dance phone of the Lumia 928 and the PureView 808, both of which we like quite a bit.

 

We'll have to wait until we hold the phone in the flesh, and see how it compares with the high quality point and shoots out there, but in theory at least, this should be interesting, at the very least.

Here's what else we think we know about today's announcement. The Lumia 1020, which runs Windows Phone 8, will reportedly have a 4.5-inch AMOLED screen at 1280x768 resolution (same as the Lumia 928).

 

Hopefully it'll have the crisper screen found on the 928, which sort of blows away the 920, even though they've got the same specs.

There's also a snap-on "camera grip" case that doubles as an external battery pack for $80. The flash for still images is the same wonderful Xenon flash we saw on the 928.

 

Other rumored specs include a 1.5GHz dual core Snapdragon chip, 2GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage.

Nokia is also talking about its Here Maps and some more interactions that you can do, a lot with augmented reality, and it really does look cool. Unfortunately, we've found Here to be populated with incomplete, not very current data about locales, even around high traffic areas like New York City. This is cool to look at, but window dressing, and not very great. The good news, at least, is that all the Lumia phones will get all the Here features.

 

We're at the launch event live, so we'll have more details as they're announced.

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Story published by Gizmodo.com

Link: http://gizmodo.com/nokia-lumia-1020-a-great-camera-in-a-real-phone-742465604

 

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Your guys thoughts on this phone? Is that many pixels necessary on a phone? Would you buy it or swap out your current phone?

 

As a Lumia 900 owner I have been satisfied with the simplicity of the WP platform and I love the Camera Tech but even I think that 41 megapixels is a bit overkill...

 

 

[andsu]

41 Megapixel is way too much, but why not? The cameras on the Nokia phones are really good. I have sgs 3 and the camera is really bad

[Levis95l]

Looks cool. Probably great for someone who likes photographing.

[I'm Batman]

41 WOOPİNG MP O.o

[jarreddean]

doesn't look that much bigger then a 920, pretty impressive 

[Whiskers]

I'll wait until I see real-life images captured with the device before deciding.

 

But it certainly looks and sounds impressive. Lol at last, a normal phone with a big-ass camera. Reminds me of the good old Sony Ericsson K800i with the CyberShot 3.1MP sensor and tremendous Xenon flash. I used to love that thing. I believe I still have it lying around somewhere...

[3DDude]

I've been to Windows Phone land (with an HTC 8S) now the nokia's do seem to do better considering that OS, and also they have a lot more apps (which are nokia only).

The main thing that sucked on WP8 was whatsapp.. but now it seems theres been an update (today / yesterday).

 

THe OS is OK but needs some improvements.. and unfortunatly the developers on XDA (hello) cant do anything because the OS is locked somehow :(

(like notifications.. yes i know they are coming but.. come on.. really give update already.. )

 

The Nokia Pureview was AWESOME on the camera part.. not so great on the Symbian OS.. -_-'

However if these two things "the awesome camera" and "the Windows Phone OS" combined it should be an awesome device.

 

To bad nokia doesnt make Android devices, would love to see this camera somehow merged with an HTC ONE.. :)

[mgsstar]

Don't see the use of 41 mega pixel camera unless the person wants to create a huge poster for advertisement.

[carolkarine]

I just want to see phone cameras that do low-light well.

[Whiskers]

Don't see the use of 41 mega pixel camera unless the person wants to create a huge poster for advertisement.

It enables the user to have a much more versatile and capable camera. It enables a camera phone to actually have an adequate method of zooming in and should allow pictures to be crystal clear in comparison to those taken with other phones.

In short, it should make the pictures taken with the phone lightyears ahead of its competitors.

[mgsstar]

It enables the user to have a much more versatile and capable camera. It enables a camera phone to actually have an adequate method of zooming in and should allow pictures to be crystal clear in comparison to those taken with other phones.

In short, it should make the pictures taken with the phone lightyears ahead of its competitors.

Could be useful, but I barely zoom when I take pictures. The image file would be probably very large so you would need a large storage in order to save those pictures.

[Whiskers]

Images don't take up a ridiculous amount of space though, even high-resolution ones. And nowadays 16GB of storage is expected of consumer devices. I doubt the storage will be much of a problem.

Plus it will almost definitely allow you to save your images in different resolutions. If you really don't have the space available you could probably save your images as 3, 5, 8MP and so on.

[ajoy39]

I know professional photographers who don't have 41 MP cameras. Of course, megapixels aren't everything and those professional grade camera still take better pictures, but this is ridiculous haha

[pcman2000]

I wouldn't think that it's ridiculous.

 

It's a very amazing camera, and it enables a few cool things

 

• Manual control of focus, ISO and shutter speed
• Lots of zoom (in video too)
• Pixel oversampling for low noise
• Optical IS is wayyyyy better than the software image stabilization that we see in most phones
• Xenon and LED flash should give very bright light when using the flash

[Whiskers]

Xenon flash is really amazing. It is so superior to LED that it's insane.

[Hyydrah]

It enables the user to have a much more versatile and capable camera. It enables a camera phone to actually have an adequate method of zooming in and should allow pictures to be crystal clear in comparison to those taken with other phones.

In short, it should make the pictures taken with the phone lightyears ahead of its competitors.

Also, the phone is apparently capable of storing them as 5MP shots, so storage capacity is about as much of an issue as many current phones.

[Whiskers]

Also, the phone is apparently capable of storing them as 5MP shots, so storage capacity is about as much of an issue as many current phones.

Indeed.

I can't wait to see the quality of the video footage!

[neon]

It comes with 32GB as default and a 41MP snap is about 13MB, if we assume after you have added the OS, offline maps for the GPS function and some music takes it down to 18GB free space, that gives you enough space for over 1,300 photos, that's a lot of photos you can take before you need to take some off.

[JGxTech90]

I like the WP line and I'm comfy with it's OS. Very simple... I like simple so a better camera is the only thing I can ask for..

[pcman2000]

Xenon flash is really amazing. It is so superior to LED that it's insane.

 

Yup, and this device has both (LED for AF Assist and video)