Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Prosumer Camera Phone from Nokia


Until now, cameras on phones have been treated as secondary citizens (at best) in the camera world. They generally come with sensors roughly about 1/2.5" or smaller and LED flash which is only effective if your subject is about 3 inches away from the phone.

Here is a list of sensor sizes on camera phones:

- Sony Ericsson Satio 12MP – 1/2.5″
- Samsung Pixon12 12 MP– 1/2.5″
- Nokia N86 8MP – 1/2.5″
- Sony Ericsson Vivaz 8MP – 1/3.2″

source: GSM Arena

Here comes the Nokia N8, an advanced shooter with phone functionality running on the Symbian OS. Here are some of the impressive camera specs on the phone:

- 1/1.83" Sensor. This is almost as big as advanced prosumer cameras such as the 1/1.7" Canon G11/S90, Ricoh GRIII/GXR-S10 and the 1/1.63" Panasonic LX3.
- Xenon Flash
- 28mm f2.8 Carl Zeiss Lens
- ISO 1200 (max)
- 10cm close up
- Improved Symbian OS for faster Autofocus, Noise Reduction and shot-to-shot speed
- ARM 11 680MHz Processor with HW 3D accelerator (this is probably more powerful than most camera processors)
- Dimension: 113.5 x 59.1 x 12.9 mm, 86 cc, 135g

From a phone perspective, the N8 comes with all the bells and whistles of a smart phone.

- Quad Band
- 3.5G HSDPA, 10.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 2.0 Mbps
- Wifi b/g/n
- 360x640 3.5" AMOLED Screen 16m colors (This means 230k pixel screen)
- 16GB Built in memory
- 3.5mm Jack
- 720p 25fps video with LED
- HDMI TV Output
- A-GPS support; Ovi Maps 3.0

Monday, May 10, 2010

NEX - Potentially the camera I have been waiting for

Why do I think it may be that camera I have been waiting for?

- AF speed seems to be very acceptable at 0.441 - 0.444 sec. (This is comparable to the Panny G series)
- Flange distance is only 18mm vs the 20mm of m4/3 and 25mm for Samsung NX series. This means that while the NX series will have problem mounting the Leica M mount lenses. The NEX series can mount most lenses with the appropriate adapters.
- It is even smaller than the EPL1, GF1 and EP1/EP2. Slimmer and shorter with a comparable length.
- It has very good high ISO noise performance. Very comparable to the 5000D and 500D and trumping them in several scenarios.
- It has an APS-C sensor which means there is no compromise on DRange and in some cases, the Bokeh.
- Continuous AF during video, this is not available on Samsung NX10
- There is a small flash unit that you can detach easily at GN 7

Sony's Wicked EVIL Camera







Photos from:
http://digital-photography-school.com/sony-nex-3-review
http://www.quesabesde.com/noticias/objetivos-sony-e-16mm-f2,8-18-55mm-f3,5-5,6-18-200mm-f3,5-6,3,1_6330