good light
Let's start right at the 'easy' end - a photo of a brightly coloured scene in mid morning sunlight. Click the photo below to enlarge it or to download the full 12 megapixel original:
It's an unambitious photo, but still worth analysing. The N8, unsurprisingly, nails this photo perfectly, from the light and shade to the details and colours, even to the colour of the sky.
One thing that intrigued many people, including me, was whether the photo quality would suffer at all in the move to 12mp from the 8mp in the N86. Given identical lens and sensor sizes, I'd say that was likely, but the N8's sensor is 30% or so bigger than that in the N86, which should nicely compensate for the increase in megapixels - and keep the pixel density similar.
To check results, in line with my chosen detail-centric methodology(!), I took the same scene on the N86 and then blew up a central detail (the side of the truck) by a factor of about 10, so that we can see differences with the naked eye:
The N86's version is on the left, the N8's on the right. Aside from the differences in scale and angle, look at the extra consistency and detail in the N8 image: the sunken bolts to the left of the guard on the left side of the crop show the difference most clearly - on the N86 version, they're almost smudges - on the N8 version, you can make out exactly what they are. In addition, look at the mirror-ball hemispherical trim on the right - the N86 version is over-gaudy and way over-sharpened, while the N8 version shows the trim more or less as the naked eye sees it, up close.
In short, very impressive. Remember that I'm not just comparing the N8's stills camera to any old 5 megapixel HTC or budget Nokia unit - I just compared its results to the previous imaging pinnacle in the Symbian world - and the N8 bested it with ease.
Let's take something more challenging - same light conditions, but wide range in subject distance and masses of greenery - traditionally a big failing of Nokia's JPG encoding algorithms. Here's the raw photo from the N8 - again, click to enlarge or download:
Let's pick out a detail that's interesting - say, the ducks standing on the beam. As with the example above, I took the same scene on the N86 and then blew up this detail (the left hand duck), so that we can see differences more easily:
Again, the N86's version is on the left, the N8's on the right. Aside from the differences in scale and angle, the N86's edge enhancement is very evident - almost every camera in every phone does this, to create images which look like they have more detail than is actually there in real life. The N8 photo, on the other hand, shows no sharpening at all. At first glance the N8 version looks worse as a result, but look again and you should be able to appreciate that you're seeing the detail that's actually there rather than what has been put in camera algorithms.
And again I'll emphasise both that I'm using extreme blow-ups here to make my point and that the N86 was previously top dog in the Symbian camera phone world, not some no-hoper drafted in to make the N8 look good.
Talking of extreme close-ups, let's zoom in on a smaller detail in the image - the bench beyond the pond - this is a tiny portion of the photo and will expose the raw pixels:
The difference in detail between the N86 image (admittedly this device has a wider angle lens than the N8, but even so.....) and the N8 image is striking. On the left, you can just about make out that the object is a bench. On the right, you can clearly see the individual slats that make up the bench's back.
Let's start right at the 'easy' end - a photo of a brightly coloured scene in mid morning sunlight. Click the photo below to enlarge it or to download the full 12 megapixel original:
It's an unambitious photo, but still worth analysing. The N8, unsurprisingly, nails this photo perfectly, from the light and shade to the details and colours, even to the colour of the sky.
One thing that intrigued many people, including me, was whether the photo quality would suffer at all in the move to 12mp from the 8mp in the N86. Given identical lens and sensor sizes, I'd say that was likely, but the N8's sensor is 30% or so bigger than that in the N86, which should nicely compensate for the increase in megapixels - and keep the pixel density similar.
To check results, in line with my chosen detail-centric methodology(!), I took the same scene on the N86 and then blew up a central detail (the side of the truck) by a factor of about 10, so that we can see differences with the naked eye:
The N86's version is on the left, the N8's on the right. Aside from the differences in scale and angle, look at the extra consistency and detail in the N8 image: the sunken bolts to the left of the guard on the left side of the crop show the difference most clearly - on the N86 version, they're almost smudges - on the N8 version, you can make out exactly what they are. In addition, look at the mirror-ball hemispherical trim on the right - the N86 version is over-gaudy and way over-sharpened, while the N8 version shows the trim more or less as the naked eye sees it, up close.
In short, very impressive. Remember that I'm not just comparing the N8's stills camera to any old 5 megapixel HTC or budget Nokia unit - I just compared its results to the previous imaging pinnacle in the Symbian world - and the N8 bested it with ease.
Let's take something more challenging - same light conditions, but wide range in subject distance and masses of greenery - traditionally a big failing of Nokia's JPG encoding algorithms. Here's the raw photo from the N8 - again, click to enlarge or download:
Let's pick out a detail that's interesting - say, the ducks standing on the beam. As with the example above, I took the same scene on the N86 and then blew up this detail (the left hand duck), so that we can see differences more easily:
Again, the N86's version is on the left, the N8's on the right. Aside from the differences in scale and angle, the N86's edge enhancement is very evident - almost every camera in every phone does this, to create images which look like they have more detail than is actually there in real life. The N8 photo, on the other hand, shows no sharpening at all. At first glance the N8 version looks worse as a result, but look again and you should be able to appreciate that you're seeing the detail that's actually there rather than what has been put in camera algorithms.
And again I'll emphasise both that I'm using extreme blow-ups here to make my point and that the N86 was previously top dog in the Symbian camera phone world, not some no-hoper drafted in to make the N8 look good.
Talking of extreme close-ups, let's zoom in on a smaller detail in the image - the bench beyond the pond - this is a tiny portion of the photo and will expose the raw pixels:
The difference in detail between the N86 image (admittedly this device has a wider angle lens than the N8, but even so.....) and the N8 image is striking. On the left, you can just about make out that the object is a bench. On the right, you can clearly see the individual slats that make up the bench's back.
