Cameras have always had a special place in Nokia phones. Even though they weren't the first ones to come out with a camera phone (Sony Ericsson beat them to it) they heavily advertised the cameras in their phone, as if they were the only ones to have it in their phones. Their first camera phone was the Nokia 7650, which incidentally was also their first Symbian smartphone. It was a simple VGA camera and all you could do with it was point and shoot, not too different from what you could do with the first iPhone, even though it came out five years later.
With the 3650, Nokia brought video recording to mobile phone cameras and this time they were the first ones to do so. It could record videos in QCIF resolution for full 15 seconds because anything more and it would not fit into a 100MB MMS, a feature Nokia was advertising a lot those days.
Several models later, Nokia's first shot at a proper camera phone came with the Nokia 7610. It was the first phone to have a 1 megapixel camera, 11 megapixels less than the camera we are reviewing today. That was in 2004, the same year Nokia announced the 6630, which had an amazing 1.3 megapixel camera.
Meanwhile, Sony Ericsson continued to churn out good camera phones but they hit gold with the K750i, which was widely acclaimed as the best camera phone ever. Not to be outdone, Nokia announced the N90, their first phone to have a 2 megapixel sensor and autofocus mechanism. It was also the first phone to have a Carl Zeiss lens, a renowned name in optics. It had a very interesting folding design and a lot of camera-centric features. Unfortunately, when it came to actual image quality, Sony Ericsson still had a lead over Nokia and they held on to it for a while.
And then one day Nokia dropped a bomb called N95. It was the first phone to have a 5 megapixel camera. The specifications of the phone itself were mind blowing. Sony Ericsson had no answer to that; no one did. The N95 obliterated the competition with its superior image quality. Eventually Sony Ericsson launched the K850 but once again it was beaten by Nokia with its N82, which was their first phone with a xenon flash.
Last year Nokia launched the N86, which was their first 8 megapixel phone. Nokia took a long time to come up with an 8 megapixel phone of its own, but when they did, they did it with style. The N86 had a lot of new features that were new to mobile phone cameras. It had a 28mm wide angle lens, a mechanical shutter and variable aperture, not to mention Carl Zeiss optics. Till today it is regarded as one of the best camera phones, known especially for its low-light shots.
So, why the long history lesson? It's because we feel it is important for the reader to understand that the Nokia N8 has a rich heritage of devices that came before it, which at their time, were some of the best camera phones that money could buy. This isn't the first time that a Nokia handset is vying for the crown of the best camera phone in the market. But is the N8 really good? Can it replicate the success of the N95 or the N82? Don't forget, not all the phones mentioned above were successful. After spending more than a week with it and a few hundred pictures later, we think we know the answer.
About the camera
Let's get the numbers out of the way first. The N8 has a 12 megapixel camera; that's twelve million pixels in every image, 4000 across and 3000 tall. The N8 is Nokia's first 12 megapixel camera phone but by no means is it the first 12 megapixels camera phone. There have been few before, most notably the Samsung Pixon 12 and the Sony Ericsson Satio.
A lot has been talked about the image sensor on the N8. At 1/1.83-inch, it is the biggest image sensor used on any mobile phone so far. But it's not just a large sensor. Nokia has also used larger sized individual pixels on the sensor, 1.75 micron compared to 1.4 micron on other camera phone sensors. A larger individual pixel size on the sensors allows it to capture more light, thereby improving the quality of images in low light and reducing the amount of noise.
The N86 introduced two important features to mobile phone cameras, mechanical shutter and variable aperture. The former allows reduced image distortion when shooting moving images, as it happens in cameras with rolling shutter, found in almost every other mobile phone camera. The latter allows the camera to control the size of the aperture depending upon the ambient light. So when shooting in bright conditions the aperture gets smaller to reduce overexposure of images and in low light the aperture is at its widest to allow more light to come in.
The N8's camera incorporates only the former and misses out on a variable aperture because of the size restrictions. But to make up for it, Nokia has used a fixed aperture, which is almost as wide as the one on the N86 at its widest setting (f/2.8 on the N8 compared to f/2.4 on the N86 at its widest setting). Also, to prevent overexposure in bright conditions, a neutral density filter is used.
The N8 uses Carl Zeiss optics with extremely low levels of distortion, which Nokia claims is in the region of 0.1 percent. Like the N86, the N8 too has a 28mm wide angle lens compared to the 35mm on most camera phones. Practically, a wide angle lens is usually better as it allows you to have a lot more on the screen at a time without having to back up. However, it may not be suitable for close-ups.
If you look at the N8's camera the first thing you notice is that the camera lacks a lens cover. Nokia had to choose between a fully protected lens at the cost of increased thickness of the device, and a partially protected lens but a slimmer device. It's clear they chose to go with the latter. I personally wouldn't mind sacrificing device thickness for a completely protected lens, but most people don't think that way. These days when people compare devices spec for spec without thinking about that they are gaining or losing in return, we think Nokia made the right choice.
Besides, the glass cover on the N8's lens is completely scratch resistant and we're assuming it is made from the same Gorilla glass used on the phone's display. So even though scratches are out of the picture, the lens does pick up a lot of fingerprints due to its position and that's something you have to remember before taking pictures. After spending more than a week with the device, it has become second nature for me to clean the lens after I launch the camera application to take a picture. This could have been prevented by a lens cover, but I guess you can't have it all.
The N82 was the first Nokia phone to have a xenon flash, but since then Nokia has not put in xenon flash on any of their phones. However, the N8 comes with a xenon flash that is 30 percent smaller than the phone used on the N82 but emits about the same amount of light. It also has a red focus assist lamp beside the xenon that also functions as privacy light to alert people when they are being photographed.
As you'd expect from any high-end smartphone these days, the N8 too can record video in HD. The N8 can record videos in 1280 x 720 resolution at 25FPS with stereo audio. The videos are recorded in MP4 format with H264 video codec and 128kbps AAC audio in stereo. The N8 makes use of two microphones, one placed directly below the lens and one on the right/bottom edge of the phone - used during voice calls. The microphones are extremely sensitive and tuned to work well even in situations with high ambient sounds, such as in clubs.
Performance
I had some other things to write about before getting on with the performance of the camera, but I'm sure a lot of you are dying to see the quality of images taken by the N8, so let's cut to the chase. Let me tell you right now that the N8 has without a doubt the best camera that I have seen on a mobile phone. I've seen and used a lot of camera phones but the images taken by the N8 simply blew my mind. Let us talk about it in a bit more detail.
Speaking of details, the N8 produce some of the most detailed images I've seen and I'm not just talking about camera phones here. The 12 megapixel sensor might seem like overkill to some, but it sure knows how to make its presence felt. It's true that a higher megapixel count doesn't necessarily mean a better image but when combined with the quality of sensor and lens that the N8 has it gives it an unfair advantage over the competition.
You have to see some of the pictures at 100 percent zoom level to appreciate the crazy level of detail there. But what I liked more about the N8's camera is that what you are seeing in the images is actually raw detail that isn't in any way sharpened to look better as in the case of other mobile phone cameras. Whatever sharpening is there is very little and almost negligible. Thanks to the high resolution, there isn't any need to sharpen the images anyway.
Another advantage of the large sensor is the low noise levels, and on the N8 noise is very well controlled. It's not that there is no noise at all; you can see it in the darker areas of the image. The noise reduction algorithm on the N8 is very lenient compared to the one on the N82 and N86. On those phones Nokia compromised bit on details to reduce the noise levels but the large sensor on the N8 allows relatively lenient noise reduction while preserving the details in the image.
The amount of noise in the N8 images was actually less than what you would find in most digital cameras. At the same time, it also manages to get similar and at times superior amount of details out of the subject. That speaks volumes about the kind of sensor that Nokia has used on the N8.
The colors on the N8 have been tuned to appear natural, which gives you room to alter them later on in an image editing application. Many mobile phone cameras these days boost the colors and contrast in the image to produce impressive looking photos. A good example of this is the iPhone 4. But the problem with that approach is that when it works well it looks really good but when it goes wrong it can go horribly wrong.
In comparison you always get predictable results with the N8's camera because you know how they are going to look and there are no nasty surprises later on. Also, you can make the N8's images look like the iPhone 4's with an image editor but you cannot make the iPhone 4's images look like the N8's.
Surprisingly, even though the colors are tuned to look natural, the white balance has been tuned to give more pleasing results. So images taken in dull light have a slight punch to them when taken with auto white balance, which works out nicely as the images look attractive without looking unnatural. You can revert to manual white balance modes if you want more accuracy in your images.
The dynamic range of the camera is pretty impressive. The N8's camera manages to capture a good amount of detail in the shadows while keeping the bright areas from over exposing. The lens on the N8 is also of very high quality. We did not detect any kind of distortion in the images and even chromatic aberration was all but absent.
The speed of the camera is also one of its highlights. The camera takes about three seconds to start. Focusing times are the fastest I've seen on any camera phone and in many cases near instantaneous, matching those of digital cameras. Shot to shot time is about 2 seconds, which is decent considering the fact that it is dealing with 12 megapixel images, which are usually about 1.5MB each.
One thing I did not like about the camera is that it cannot get closer than 10cm in macro mode. Many mobile phones allow you to get as close as a couple of centimeters to the subject. Digital cameras can get as close as 1cm or even less. As such, the 10cm restriction seems too high. The N8's camera can pick up excellent details even from 10cm away but I can't even imagine how amazing the pics would have looked had Nokia reduced the macro focus distance.
Another problem I noticed was that if the subject is very thin then the camera refuses to focus on it, even if it is in the focusing distance. I tried photographing a plant with very thin leaves but the camera would keep ignoring the leaves and focus on the background. The same happened when I tried photographing a spider's web.
Nokia has also set the focus and exposure area towards the center of the viewfinder. This means objects closer to the center will be in perfect focus and the exposure will also be locked accordingly, but those towards the edges would have a softer focus. This works great when shooting something like a flower but not when you are shooting objects such as buildings from a distance.
Low light photography without flash was a bit unimpressive. I was expecting much more from the N8's camera in this aspect but it failed to deliver. Make no mistake though, it was still better than most other mobile phone cameras and on par with some of the digital cameras out there, but overall, the images weren't all that great. If I had to show off the N8's camera skills then I would choose not to show the low light images. Also, low light images are susceptible to camera shake. I would advise to use the on-screen shutter button instead of the mechanical shutter button, which would result in less camera movement thus reducing blur in low light.
But once the xenon flash is enabled things improve dramatically. When shooting objects within range, the xenon flash provided some excellent results. The best results were obtained for objects within three feet of the lens as they were perfectly illuminated with excellent details. I do have a couple of complaints with the xenon flash though. First of all the images taken with flash are a bit too cold. Secondly, the flash tends to illuminate the center of the image spectacularly but the corners are often dark and they only get worse as you move away from the subject. And lastly, as far as intensity is concerned, the flash on the N8 cannot match the ones used on a digital camera, even when the flash on the digital camera is set at its lowest intensity. I would have really liked a brighter flash on the N8 but then that would have required a bigger flash unit, which in turn would have made the phone thicker, not to mention consume more battery. A digital camera has just photos to take; the N8 has a lot more to do.
Now coming to the HD video recording, the N8 captured some of the best quality video that I've seen on a camera phone. Unfortunately, it still suffers from the jelly-motion effect, thanks to the rolling shutter used for video, but still the video is very smooth with no visible jerkiness. Also absent are the usual compression artifacts and pixelation that you can find on most other phones. Unfortunately, the N8 lacks continuous autofocus for video recording, or any kind of autofocus for that matter. The N8 uses an Active Hyperfocal Distance System, which fixes the distance at a certain point, which is about four feet in the N8's case, so everything that is half the distance away from the hyperfocal point from the lens (which should be two feet in this case) all the way up to infinity would be in focus.
This is done to get maximum depth of focus. Focusing just on the subject would blur the background but in the N8's case you can have the subject as well as the background in focus, provided the subject is at least two feet away from the lens. This also means that objects closer to the lens will simply be out of focus. The 'Active' in the 'Active Hyperfocal Distance System' in the N8 is responsible for constantly checking the position of the lens and correct it if required to maintain the hyperfocal distance.
Some people have also pointed the lack of an LED lamp for recording video, but always found it rather useless. The LED lamp has a very limited range and anything beyond will be dark anyway. If you are shooting from a closer distance - someone like a person, then you will find that they will be squinting in the light of the LED, which tends to be too bright to look directly at. Besides, even if it is not a person, it will be out of focus, thanks to the lack of autofocus while recording.
Surprisingly, the digital zoom on the N8 is highly usable for video. In still image, the zoom is restricted to 2x and till that point the quality is the same as on any other camera, but once you move beyond 2x and between 2x and 3x, the image suddenly gets sharper with surprising amount of detail. So if you are going to use digital zoom, it's best to zoom in all the way.
Verdict
Well, there is no doubt in my mind that the N8 is the best camera phone that you can buy today. The camera itself is a good enough reason to buy the phone, regardless of everything else. Forget other camera phones, the N8 can match digital cameras in terms of image quality and in some cases even beats them.
It's not perfect though. Low light performance could have been better and although the xenon flash is excellent by mobile phone standards it cannot compete with the one on even the most basic digital cameras. The macro mode is restricted to just 10cm, which I found a bit annoying.
The camera software is also frustrating. It cannot remember the settings that you change and resets back to default every time you start the camera application. I also found the accelerometer a bit bothersome, as it would sometimes save images in portrait orientation even though you shot them in landscape.
Still, in the final tally the N8's camera gets a great score. It's a major leap for mobile phone cameras and Nokia's efforts at making it the best camera phone in the market are obvious. They have played their card well and now it is up to the competition to come up with an answer to the N8. The future of camera phones is surely looking bright. If I was a digital camera, I would be very scared right now.
my personal rating – 9/10
