Microsoft Lumia 950/950XL camera is jaw dropping impressive [56K Modem Warning - Super large images]

[GoodBytes]

** All images bellow have been shrinked by 25% for slow internet users. Click on them to see full size and from the original source (MS servers) **

I urge you to click and see the original size.

The Lumia team made a blog post 2 days ago, in the Microsoft Devices blog showcasing the camera in the Microsoft coming new phone the Lumia 950 XL (the 950 has the same camera). Nokia Lumia phones have always (well excluding the low end models) been known for their camera. And the treand continues by pushing the envelope with the Lumia team now part of Microsoft.

 

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While no full details is given yet, Lumia phone camera are good because they don't mind putting a large and really good sensor. That is why the Lumia 950 and 950XL have their camera protruding outside while not being a thin phone like the iPhone.

 

The camera features a 20-megapixel with advanced BSI sensor made by Sony, ISO12800, and features a F1.9 Zeiss optics, and triple-LED flash light to be able to adjust the color of the flash for natural white color, and avoids red eyes. The camera features an image stabilization system which the company calls 'fifth-generation optical image stabilization'. (The front camera is 5-megapixel wide-angle camera. What is showcased here is the back camera).

Moreover, the Lumia team have been really good at post processing the image, just to make the camera appear even better.

 

Noticed from the picture above on how the red is vivid and 'rich', while the skin tone of the person is natural with no noise or artifacts.

 

In addition to the colors, look at the fine details and texture. The image looks perfectly natural, almost like it’s a film. You won’t see any noise or artifacts.

You can also notice how nicely both bright and shadow areas are exposed in this photo. The native dynamic range of the camera is amazing–HDR is rarely needed.

 

How about up close images (micro). Lumia team shows that off as well, and under low light conditions:

 

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Notice the texture of the leafs, the richness of the color green which not being oversaturate image.

 

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Notice that despite being in a low light environment, the skin tone is perfect, you can even see the hair on the skin, and veins on the eyes, and even the texture of the skin.

 

But how about a truly low light environment, in an environment that is more realistic to most consumers usage?

The Lumia team is not afraid of showing this. No setups, no perfectly planned image, or anything like that.

Of course, that would mean a sever cut in niceness normally, and while we can see this, the camera is still shine.

 

Bellow picture shows a normal picture, of a co-worker of the Lumia team, in a restaurant in the evening.

We now start to see noise on the picture. But notice that it still retains the details of the skin of the person, colors, and continues to look 'life like'

 

(click for giant-o-vision)

 

The person that took the image (Juha Alakarhu, the author of the blog post), shows another image with what he says is a competing phone.

 

 

I took the photos below when I was having dinner with a colleague of mine, in a low light setting. The image on the left [the top one under spoiler tag] was captured by one of our competitor’s phones, which represents a typical smartphone camera quality in this kind of condition. As you can see the image looks pretty smashed.

The image on the right [first image of the person above] was captured by Lumia 950 XL. It looks natural and the noise is beautiful. I think there is something very pure in it. This is what leadership in imaging algorithms means.

 

 

 

When we started to design the camera on the Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL, one of our most important objectives was that everybody should be able to take good photos in all conditions. The camera has some very advanced technologies to achieve this.

 

Of course, more advanced photographers know how to manually adjust the ISO and exposure time for different situations. Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL are making those decisions for you, by analyzing how you hold the camera and what is happening in the scene. With these phones, everybody can shoot like a pro.

 

And it gets even more exciting when you use Rich Capture mode. It uses two exposure times for the same image: short for the moving object and long for the static part of the image. Capturing everyday moments, like moving children, is much easier with this feature.

 

The camera knows you. The camera is almost like a mind reader.

 

 

As mentioned, the camera has 3 LED flash on it. It uses red green and blue LED flash which automatically matches the ambient of the environment, which is what helps achieve these beautiful pictures under low light environment.

 

One feature that stands out is the new flash technology. The natural three LED (red, green, blue) flash automatically matches the colors of the ambient light. This means that if you’re taking a photo outside at twilight, the flash will produce a blue light to complement the bluish color of the scene, and if you’re taking a photo of a candlelit dinner, the flash will adjust to expose candlelight.

 

 

(once again, click for larger)

 

The camera takes 2 pictures every time you press the phone dedicated camera picture button. One with flash, and the other without, when using Rich Capture mode, and takes the best of both. They call this algorithm: Dynamic Flash.

 

In addition, in Rich Capture mode it is possible for you to change the amount of light in a photo after the image is taken. The camera takes two photos, one with flash and one without, and we use very clever algorithms to get the best of both. This is called Dynamic Flash.

It’s like magic. I think the Dynamic Flash function makes the RGB flash literally shine, and you capture the best flash photos you have ever seen.

There is also much more to the cameras on these phones, like 3^rd generation living images and one unified Windows 10 Camera and Photos experience. We’ll cover those in more detail in a follow up blog post soon.

Source: http://blogs.windows.com/devices/2015/10/15/camera-magic-on-microsoft-lumia-950-and-lumia-950-xl/

I don't know about you guys, but these are just jaw dropping to me, and to have the courage to show case the camera in a real world situation, under worst case (ok well worst case situation is probably pitch black room, but realistic worst case), showing the camera under it's worst situation, and it looks THAT good, and this is a smart phone, not a digital camera, that, to me, is just incredible.

[Aytex]

goodbytes please, i have bad internet, your killing me

 

EDIT: 3 hours later, damn nice looking photos

[QueenDemetria]

Until I see actual user taken pictures I won't comment.

[Deletive]

but but... windows phone. 

[PineappleHolidays]

I have to say I don't love my opt that much, and If I can sell it for a good deal then this is a good alternative, but pricing will probably follow along with the fact it's good or bad 

and the fact it's windows already makes it a hard sale

[flibberdipper]

Pretty. I need.

[Bogica]

Saw them earlier today. Jaw dropped. High end Lumia phones always kicked ass. Remember what a revolution the 920 was with OIS and amazing low light performance no phone and even some cameras couldn't match.

Right around that time HTC was bragging with the HTC One low light performance with the UltraPixel camera and the mid range Lumia 720 just destroyed it...

[GoodBytes]

goodbytes please, i have bad internet, your killing me

56K modem warning added to title, and now the images have been shrinked by 25% and hosted on my slow server. Click on the image for full image.

Sorry for this.

[ivan134]

hory shet!!!

[Vivilacqua1]

the camera on my phone is alright ish. (Nokia icon)

[Diederik_Gr]

Wasn't Nokia busted once for using a dslr as advertisement for their phone cameras? I'll wait till a reviewer gets their time with one.

 

Edit: nevermind that, just a rumor going around. I still won't fully trust these advertisements though.

[PlayStation 2]

I need it.

[Maslofski]

imna stay with my lumia 530 for now, 480p blur is enough

[iamdarkyoshi]

Yet teens will find a way to make it look terrible. IE instagram

[LAwLz]

Hey, remember when Nokia were caught lying in their Lumia 920 commercial? If you don't, here is a refresher.

Don't trust ad material. These photos might be real, and they might be complete bullshit. Even if they are real you should not use them to judge the camera quality. Wait for proper reviews before you make your mind up.

The photos looks very good but so do pretty much all the sample photos. They almost always have very good lighting, takes multiple shots and pick the best one and then tweaks the RAW until it's as good as it can get.

 

But with that being said, Nokia phones usually got very good cameras. It will be interesting to see how it stacks up against the competition which has put a lot of attention on their cameras for the past few generations.

 

 

 

Edit 1:

For those of you wondering, the EXIF says that the "competitor" is a Galaxy S 6. ISO was set to 1000 on both. The S6 had a shutter speed of 1/10 seconds and the Lumia had a shutter speed of 1/7 seconds (again, according to the EXIF).

I have to give them minus points for making the girl smile in the Lumia photo and look bored in the Galaxy's photo. That's like the oldest trick in the book.

 

 

Edit 2:

Wait a minute... The Galaxy S6 photo is 2988x3984. That's 12 megapixels. The maximum resolution of the S6 is 2988x5312 (16MP).

The 950 photo is 3744x4992. That's 18.7 megapixels. The maximum resolution of the 950 is 20 megapixels (don't know exact resolution).

My guess is that they took the photos and then cropped them so that the framing were as close as possible, but it's a bit dishonest. If that's what they did, did they intentionally compress the S6's image more as well? Because there is a huge difference in file size (3.8MB vs 7MB).

Not going to accuse them of anything, but you should definitely not trust this comparison. Wait for independent reviews.

[Bensemus]

At first I though the last picture of the team member at dinner was quite, then I saw the image in the spoiler and wow, the "competitor's" photo looks terrible in comparison. Pretty neat to see how much a professorial set affects the picture.

[Swndlr]

Just buy a camera, pussies

[GoodBytes]

Wait a minute... The Galaxy S6 photo is 2988x3984. That's 12 megapixels. The maximum resolution of the S6 is 2988x5312 (16MP).

The 950 photo is 3744x4992. That's 18.7 megapixels. The maximum resolution of the 950 is 20 megapixels (don't know exact resolution).

My guess is that they took the photos and then cropped them so that the framing were as close as possible, but it's a bit dishonest. If that's what they did, did they intentionally compress the S6's image more as well? Because there is a huge difference in file size (3.8MB vs 7MB).

Not going to accuse them of anything, but you should definitely not trust this comparison. Wait for independent reviews.

That is actually probably because on the side, the images where side-by-side (left and write), and tried to have both displayed correctly.

[pit5000]

 

Edit 2:

Wait a minute... The Galaxy S6 photo is 2988x3984. That's 12 megapixels. The maximum resolution of the S6 is 2988x5312 (16MP).

The 950 photo is 3744x4992. That's 18.7 megapixels. The maximum resolution of the 950 is 20 megapixels (don't know exact resolution).

My guess is that they took the photos and then cropped them so that the framing were as close as possible, but it's a bit dishonest. If that's what they did, did they intentionally compress the S6's image more as well? Because there is a huge difference in file size (3.8MB vs 7MB).

Not going to accuse them of anything, but you should definitely not trust this comparison. Wait for independent reviews.

 

the sensor may be 20mp but some cameras don't use the entire sensor for whatever reason.

 

 

 

The camera seems fine. It's small sensor size is no match for my old Samsung NX2000 camera for the mere fact that the NX has larger sensor, Image processing can only go so far.

[QueenDemetria]

Snip

One of the reasons why I bought a Lumia 925 is that it had "a great camera"(and this was for the day, two years ago roughly). Now that I own it I just have to say meh. It takes good pictures given the right scenario(and knowledge of photography, geez this thing needs a better auto), but its not any better than other competing phones at the time. I wouldn't buy a Lumia for the camera ever again(unless if its a hybrid like the Galaxy zoom or whatever).

[Trik'Stari]

Holy mother of......I might just be getting a new Windows Phone since mine is now essentially dead because the charging port no longer works.

 

Edit: Oh wait, it's not available on Verizon. Fucking idiotic Microsoft.

[Nowak]

Edit: Oh wait, it's not available on Verizon. Fucking idiotic Microsoft.

Actually that might be more of Verizon's fault than Microsoft's.

[Lauen]

Saw them earlier today. Jaw dropped. High end Lumia phones always kicked ass. Remember what a revolution the 920 was with OIS and amazing low light performance no phone and even some cameras couldn't match.

Right around that time HTC was bragging with the HTC One low light performance with the UltraPixel camera and the mid range Lumia 720 just destroyed it...

when I got my 920, I went for a walk, at 11 pm, september I think. I took a picture in full auto mode, and the result ended up brighter than what I saw. 

[iHardware Shelden]

This is why I bought my Icon, also to try out Windows Phone, great operating system just no apps for it  :wacko:

[Trik'Stari]

Actually that might be more of Verizon's fault than Microsoft's.

Either way, it's fucking stupid.