Television camera: Nokia Strikes Again

One of the standout features of the Lumia 1520 is its rear-veneer 20-megapixel 'PureView' camera, which is planned to be a more reasonable, hump-inferior variant of the Lumia 1020's 41-megapixel television camera. Information technology's a 1/2.5" detector, which indicates 1.1 µm pixels, nonnegative an f/2.4 26mm-effective lens and optical image stabilization. It's opposite with a treble-LED trice, 1080p30 video recording and a 1.2-megapixel front facing camera.

Compared to the Lumia 1020 and other Lumia devices, the 1520 appears to be targeting lossless zoom along rather than low light capabilities. The pixel size is the same as the Lumia 1020 at 1.1 µm, but the f/2.4 lens is a quarter-stop less than the 1020's f/2.2 lens, significant IT will admit slightly less flimsy for those critical appraisal low-light images. The Lumia 925's f/2.0 lens system and 1.4 µm pixels means it can fascinate 75% more light than the 1520, again which will affect images in darkish conditions, although optical image stabilization (OIS) should compensate somewhat.

There are several shooting options for the Lumia 1520's camera. Like the 1020, it can either capture 5-megapixel images, or both a 5-megapixel and full-res image, with the 5 MP figure used for unselfish on social media and the corresponding. You can shoot in either 4:3 to produce 19-megapixel images (4992 x 3744) or 16:9 for 15-megapixel images (5376 x 3024); neither uses the full sensing element size.

The camera produces perfectly fantastic images, both in colorize quality and sharpness. When lighting conditions are ideal, the sensor captures light accurately and vibrantly, with some of the second-best high-power range I've seen in a smartphone camera. Pure balance is often accurate, although sometimes slay when photographing a close-up subject that features a good deal of green. However when the light-skinned balance is spot on, zero color appears particularly dominant: perfect for capturing lifelike images.

20 megapixels obviously affords rather a lot of space for zooming and resizing, but even 100% crops are very good quality for this sensor size, with reasonably sharp edges and only a small amount of post-processing artifacts approaching through at low-pitched ISOs. Reducing the images to 1080p is more than a 2x step-dow, so images are even sharper at this resolving power; the same sharpness comes through at the 5-megapixel sharable images.

Images taken indoors, where lighting isn't as strong, aren't quite as good As the optimal outdoor shots I managed on the Lumia 1520, but the phone is nonetheless still a strong contender. The use of high ISOs is more obvious in dimmer conditions, with more post-processing artifacts, but photos overall remain quite sharp, especially when downscaled. It's harder to get solid white balance in these conditions, but colors remain reinforced and vibrant, even if you wind up with a iridescent that's slightly underexposed.

Attractive photos at night once once more shows the forcefulness of Nokia's camera system. Optical image stabilisation does most of the work, allowing elongated shutter speeds (as long as 1/3s) to be used with reasonably in flood ISOs. Scenes that power appear very dark to begin with can come to life through the Lumia 1520's camera, so low light is No obstacle even considering the apparatus that's weaker than the Lumia 925. The dual-LED dash is also there for when it's impossible to see the subject, although you'll probably utilize it infrequently.

Of class the quality of photos arrogated at night time isn't as good arsenic those taken during the day, but the 1520 nevertheless produces impressive shots considering the circumstances.

Perhaps one of the best aspects of the Lumia 1520's camera setup is the Nokia Camera lotion, which allows fantastic extremity control. It's extremely easy to control the focus, Theodore Harold White poise, ISO, shutter speed and photo with the ring-style menu, and with a small amount of o.k. tuning you can achieve even better images than with automobile settings.

Smart Sequence extends on the standard shooting mode by taking a burst of images, allowing you to select a outdo image, create an natural action blastoff through stitching of images, produce motion focus images and more. RAW DNG images can also be taken thanks to the Nokia Black update, giving you lossless detail finished 20 MB inundated-size images, which is with child for those who demand the highest quality.

Nokia Camera follows the Windows Telephone set camera philosophical system by delegating extra shot modes to Lenses, which are ordained tv camera applications that behind be downloaded in the Windows Call Store. Nokia Cinemagraph (revived images) and Nokia Glam Me (selfies with filters) are enclosed out-of-the-box, but others give notice be downloaded such as Nokia Refocus and CamScanner.

Video transcription quality from the Lumia 1520 is quite a reasonable. The television camera can sole gaining control 1080p video at a maximum of 30 frames per second – phones much as the Galaxy Note 3 can do 1080p at 60 FPS and even 4K recording – but it does record at 20 Mbps H.264, which gives bully prime. Videos are pointed and just as color accurate as images, addition the optically stabilized sensor makes panning quite smooth.

The Lumia 1520 has hi-fi microphones that can record especially tawdry sounds, which is great for transcription euphony performances. In windy conditions I struggled to audibly record my phonation, As you mightiness notice in the sample video above, but when the conditions are right the quality is quite good.