[PureView Test] Red tint issue with photos !

Hi there,

Today i wanted to share with you my impression about an important point that nobody seemed to care about, and i have been complaining about it several times on twitter and even Damian couldn't give me a feedback about it till know.

This issue really is bothering me a lot, because, my N8 for example don't have that, nor the much controverted iPhone 4s (sorry to say it, but it's one of the best camera device out there for many reasons that i can discuss in another post).

So what is all about? Simply a disturbing red/pink tint in some situations that gives the impression of an early 2005 camera issue seen on the N95 and N82 at some extents...

Let me clarify with an example :

Do you see the color rendering in the background (the wall)? Ok, do you see some pink hue as i do? Ok. Well, actually, the wall isn't "pink" but "white" !

For example, the N82 of 2005 has done this :

What do you see? Right !

Well, while it's true that the 808 is warmer, it doesn't mean that the color rendering is close to reality in this situation...

In my mind, the first thing i though, is that the 808 was fooled by the surrounding pink colors tones (the duck, drape etc)

But let's take another example :

Hum what's we've got here? The same pink hue, there's almost nothing pink (excluding the little knife on the top right) !

I did pratically the same shot with the iPhone 4s and i get this :

Exact, no pink hue and it's partially due to the under-exposition, but the result is fine with that...

I did some tweaking with RGB setting with the help of the default editor on the 808 and i've got this :

If i reduce "red" tone to -5% it'll look like this :

If i make it down to -10% it looks like this :

Almost perfect (but it tends to be blueish a little bit) the white looks "white" and not pink :) (even if another issue appears : overexposing)

So yeah, the solution is here, is to fix RGB management when flash is "on", if the iPhone can do it, you can do it, even better ! If the 2005 N82 can do it, the revolutionary 808 can do it ;)

I really hope to see this fixed as the issue doesn't appear on "normal" (daylight or when the flash is off) situation but mostly when the flash is fired on and on a "white" background...

EDIT : while i was reading the technical PR from Nokia i did find probably the answer of this issue :

...oversampling eliminates Bayer pattern problems. For example, conventional 8MPix sensors include only 4Mpix green, 2Mpix red and 2Mpix blue pixels, which are interpolated to 8Mpix R, G, B image. With pixel oversampling, all pixels become true R, G, and B pixels. What’s more, based on Nyqvist theorem, you actually need oversampling for good performance...

In other terms and if i understand tat corretly it's what's causing "more red" (and blue) which causes purple/red tint issue :)

Ps : the color and saturation setting on creative mode didn't do the magic as the inbuilt image editor and frankly i don't want to "play" with setting to get a "normal" rendering ! I want it to be ALL DONE OUT OF THE BOX :)

For the fun look at the top (by right) of the picture (well i cropped it for you), the xenon flash and speed are doing their magic !

Yep, a little fly ;)

[Head To Head] The N82 vs 808 PureView Camera shots!

Did you expect that? Personally what's important to me isn't to compare the 808 PureView to some real cameras or reflex or what ever, but rather compare it to past best camera devices to see the real value add to change the device and how it does in comparison with devices let's say from 2005 represented today by the lovely N82 !

An important point i verify always when i do a comparison is the color management in different scenarios, then the sharpness and compression, in the case of the 808 PureView it'd be unfair to compare sharpness as this is the All About PureView Pro technologie...but let's say you show your grandma two pictures of the exact same scene with the N82 and 808, what will she say?

As usual, those are random shots from every day life ;)

N82 followed by the 808

Ooops? Do you see what i see already?

Sorry 808, but this is white !! You should learn a little color management from your old brother N82 !

What's the **** is wrong with this pink tint/hue on the 808 on the background? (i talked about that in my N8 vs 808 too) as if the 808 was fooled by the overall pink drape and duck?

Again the most accurate result is the one with the N82 :/

Should i comment on this one? This is a macro shot...and that was the max distance for the 808 to be able to properly focus, ok we can use full zoom on the 808 but hey what about overexposure !?

Tired and confused about the fact that even the N82 is closest to the reality...this gold color not washed out gold as represented by the 808 !

While the 808 handles the exposure better, on the other side we have the same pink hue that i don't know which causes it...

Winner? No need to say it's the N82, right? (forget about pureview technology, just show that to your friends or grandma and let them judge...)

Im wondering if this is a PureView technologie or PurpleView technologie?

Nokia 808 PureView In the House : Initial Impressions !

Well, time is here where the wait is over, since February ! I've finally got my Nokia 808 PureView which for me, is the latest and the gratest True "old" Nokia, by that i mean it's probably the last iteration of what Nokia "was to be" and somewhat it's the Gap between that and what Nokia "will be" (New Nokia)...So the "old generation" Nokia Fan are gonna like it and probably have it, let me remind you just a few things :

The Nokia 808 PureView is a Nokia Belle Feature Pack 1 phone featuring few tweaks on UI with boosted performance running at 1.3Ghz CPU and 512 MB of RAM (for a Symbian this is Good, or even very good i'd say, anyway it's smooth "enough" on every operation and task).

- The phone features a 41 MP camera sensor with PureView Pro imaging technology with powerful Xenon flash, LED video light and 1080p Full HD video recording with 30Fps and up to 4x lossless zoom.  (Continuous Auto Focus and Touch Focus were been added to the menu too, it was time Nokia !)

- It is also the world’s first device to include Nokia Rich Recording, which combines a unique digital microphone technology and Nokia algorithms to record distortion-free stereo audio at levels of up to 140 dB.

- 4" AMOLED ClearBlack display and 2.5 D curved Corning® Gorilla® Glass

- Active Noise Cancellation 

- Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby Headphone for playback

- NFC for easy sharing and pairing (and Secure NFC)

- HDMI micro

- Bluetooth 3.0

- DLNA Certification and UPnP

- USB OTG 1.3

- FM Transmitter

Plus other classical features we find on every high end Nokia device since the N95...yeah even  and the Stereo FM RDS Radio

So you got it, it's the most feature rich Nokia to date ! Tell me about a Nokia user that won't like that ! Not me anyway...

Anyway while waiting to publish my Head To Head vs Apple iPhone 4s, Nokia N8, N82 and eventually the N9, lets look at this beautiful (but Big and Heavy "169g") structure :

I got the white one because for me the black is lifeless and the bezel around the optic doesn't match with the "All Black" concept...

-> What i didn't like tough, and i should mention that on a more detailed take is that :

- The gallery application was heavily dumped ! For eg you can't multiple mark/select pictures for share/delete ,Long press should give more options other than tag, such as delete, mark...

- There's no 2mm charger connector, anymore...and USB charger is taking more time, especially with the 1400mA battery...ah, also, there's no "led charging" indicator so i have to check regularly to see if the device is charged yet or not...

- The events notification LED isn't bright and visually designed as on the N8...

- What i didn't like also is there's no Micro HDMI adapter, so the N8's one (mini HDMI) won't be compatible...

- It feels really big and heavy, every device you hold after playing with the 808 for 2 minutes will look much "handy", "sexier" and "thin" !! (N9, iPhone or event the N8).

- Also, the camera user interface while including some more advanced settings, is very complicated, to illustrate this situation :

--> I take my iPhone 4s, fire the camera On, take the picture, done ! It does it all ! with a single touch ! (Autofocus in macro mode mainly) !

--> with the 808, good luck to even get a proper closeup shot ! (don't worry, as you know, i have an N8, N9 among others and i know what i'm talking about) I was really upset when this happened yesterday, it's true that there's an automatic mode, even better, a scene mode, even geeky and advanced creative mode, but seriously, couldn't we do it in an easier way?

An example of the stunning DoF on a Macro Mode (after 6 tries, grrr) in pureview mode :

And a (max)Zoomed example of initial shot in pureview mode :

And Guess what ! The N8 is ashamed when it comes to the level of the details, an example? Why Not but Stay tuned the time i play with the device a little more ! ;)


Ps : This Preview was done by the iPhone 4s ;)

Nokia 808 Pure View : Some more camera details !

What's the Nokia 808 Pure View camera is all about?

Folks over nokiabuff.com did give a nice overlook at it based on Nokia documentations about that, it's a :

• Carl Zeiss optics of focal length: 8.02mm
• 35mm equivalent focal length: 26mm, 16:9 | 28mm, 4:3
• F-number: f/2.4
• Focus range: 15cm – Infinity (throughout the zoom range)
• Construction:
· 5 elements, 1 group.All lens surfaces are aspherical
· One high-index, low-dispersion glass mould lens
· Mechanical shutter with neutral density filter
• Optical format: 1/1.2”
• Total number of pixels: 7728 x 5368
• Pixel Size: 1.4 microns

The sensor actually has 41 megapixels, meaning it is filled with 41 milion pixels with 7728 x 5368 pixels in horizontal and vertical respectively. It has a 4:3/16:9 hybrid sensor that manages to capture equivalent field of views on both the aspect ratios, just like the N9/Lumia 800. So, depending on the aspect ratio you choose, it will use 7728 x 4354 pixels for 16:9 images/videos, or 7152 x 5368 pixels for 4:3 images/videos. This image from the white paper explains it so clearly :

So, the sensor will provide a maximum 38 megapixel image on 4:3 aspect ratio at the resolution- 7152 x 5368 and a 34 megapixel image on 16:9 aspect ratio at the resolution- 7728 x 4354.

 “Pure View” is all about insane amounts of detail on a single photo. How do they do it? Let me explain as simple as possible.

The camera has two sensor modes: “Pure View” and “Full resolution”. The “full resolution” mode is what I explained above, there are two options for 4:3 and 16:9 with 38 and 34 MP respectively, while in the “Pure view” mode, these are the options-

There, you have three options, 5 megapixels being the default, and 8/3 megapixels being the only other two options. So, why does it have very low MP counts, you ask? Well, for enabling some insane amount of detail in a single pic, even after 100% zoom, they have used something called “Pixel oversampling”. Take for example, 5 megapixels, the resolution would be 3072 x 1728. Each pixel of that resolution is actually a “super” pixel, which has image data from 7 neighboring pixels. So, one pixel has image data of 8 pixels, making the ratio of Pixel Oversampling(O’sam.) for a single 5 megapixel image to be 8:1. Similarly, for an eight mpix image, the O’sam. ratio would be 5:1, meaning one super pixel contains image data from 5 pixels. Thus, processing several pixels at once, makes the image much more detailed, like insanely detailed, with virtually no grainy image noise, that you usually get from any other camera phone, even the N8 has fine grain noise on every picture.Not only that, thanks to the fricking huge 41 mpix sensor, we can use some lossless zoom on all the pure view modes.

For example, the 5 megapixel mode will have maximum O’sam. at minimum zoom, and when the zoom increases in steps, the O’sam. decreases until the zoom reaches the exact resolution at the center of the sensor at pure 3072×1728. At the center of the sensor at 5 mpix resolution, the O’sa. would be zero. So, until the full sensor crop is utilized, the image quality remains largely the same, and hence, lossless zoom without having to use optical zoom or interpolation techniques. Since the data processed during all this manipulation is huge, the CPU+GPU cannot handle everything, so, there is a dedicated scaling chip that takes care of the O’sam. range when the zoom is happening.

This graph might help you with what I told about O’sam. ratios and Zoom range-

 So, basically you can achieve nearly 4x lossless zoom at 3 Mpix setting and as you can see, at 1:1 O’sam. the zoom factor is highest. Ok, it may seem a bit intimidating if I explain more, let’s get to the next big thing in 808 pure view, the Video mode!

The 808 can take full HD videos at 1920×1080 resolution at 30 FPS, and I love the fact that they have used the same concept of Oversampling in video too, hence creating some stunning detail, and upto 4x lossless zoom. Words can’t really describe how awesome the low light performance, just watch this video in 1080p-



There are other frame rate options for 1080p like 24 and 15, while there are video modes for 720p which offers 6x lossless zoom and nHD(640×360) which offers 12x lossless zoom! Just like the crop video mode on the Canon EOS 550D, but I hope it did the 1080p crop like the 808 

And coming to other intricate details of the camera unit, the aperture at f2.4 is fixed, Nokia says it is an advantage when compared with DSLRs with optical zooms that reduce the maximum aperture at full zoom, like on the 18-55 kit lens, the max. aperture is f5.6 at 55mm. But since the 808 has no moving elements, there is no change in aperture and you get lossless zoom like optical zoom at same aperture throughout. Not really sure why Nokia has mentioned it in the whitepaper.And as a consequence of this, the flash range and shutter speed/ISO don’t get affected at  various zoom ranges. The maximum ISO for the 808 is 1600. And for brighter situations, the handy ND filter is present, just like the N8 

And the focal length at 8.04 mm coupled with a f/2.4 aperture gives you a shallower depth of field but a narrower view than the usual cameraphones which have 4 mm focal lengths. For comparisons sake, let’s take the 18mm focal length in a kit lens, it offers a very wide angle of view, while 50 mm offers a narrower view but a shallower depth of field. Likewise, the 8.04 mm focal length will provide a shallower DoF, which will in turn provide a nice Bokeh. Really looking forward to that!

Coming to pixel level details, the 808 has a 2.5 times larger sensor than the N8, with it’s size at 1/1.2″ while the N8 was 1/1.83″. Moreover, each pixel on the N8 was of 1.75 microns in length, while the 808′s pixels are even larger. Not really sure what’s the size though. And coming to audio-

In combination with the world’s first implementation of Nokia Rich Recording technology, Nokia 808 PureView records best in class stereo audio with every detail. Whilst most high end smartphones can only record without distortion to around 110db, the Nokia 808 can comfortably continue to around 140-145 db, which is 4 times louder than conventional mics can record. Apart from that Nokia Rich Recording can also record very low frequencies also without any distortion. The combination of all of these elements means the  Nokia 808 records audio with almost CD like quality. It has to be heard to be believed. In terms of both visual and audible performance, the Nokia 808 simply has no equal.



Are those words sufficient for convincing you how great it is? Concerts and noisy places will be handled much better than the N8, which was already too awesome!

Also, apart from these details about the sensor, there is a very much improved auto focus in all the video modes like touch to focus, conventional focus, and even the UI is vastly improved, with something really cool called “slide zoom” . You just slide your fingers over the screen and it lets you zoom selectively, the frame.

What else?

specifications over www.nokia.com