The Nokia N95 and 'not missing the moment'

[slitchfield]

In a return to an original theme from earlier this year, and with the onset of our summer vacations, I've been musing on the best hardware to take with me in order to make sure of getting the best snaps. It's really not an easy decision.... But is there a workaround?

Read on in the full article.

[mst_dev]

I'm the user of "Is it normal for E61i to be slow?". I posted a reply of detailed performance measurements of my applications. Please, I want to know your opinion about it, in order to know is that normal, or I have to contact my Nokia dealer.

Thank you.

[krisse]

You wonder if there should be a "quick snap" mode on advanced cameraphones, to reduce the waiting time at the expense of quality.

[mudstuff]

Indeed, I have used the landscape mode for a few things as it is quicker and does not favour certain areas/objects within a picture.

As mentioned the other day about smartphones having a simple switchable interface for people to use them to just make a phone call etc, it would be good to have a "point and shoot" mode, several presets like the N95 has and a fully manual mode.

Is there a way to change the default settings to the "quick snap" setting you describe above? Also, what about designing two or three "personal modes" of camera settings? Maybe one for quick pics, one for "posed pics" [intemediate settings], and one for all-out [slow] landscapes? Any ideas?

Couldn't agree more, my old N70 took just as good pictures in typical party/night out situations and was ready so quickly I always got the shot.

Also having to hold the N95 sideways and use both hands for picture taking is stupid, i couldn't believe it when I first tried to press the centre button to take a shot and it just changed to video mode (can this be changed?)


Overall the N95 is actually a backward step for the pictures I take.

yeah steve you got that one spot-on. depite all the hype of the carl zeiss lens and 5 mp camera, its really not that great. one thing you forgot to mention is the long time it take to change to video and back - it takes about 10 seconds to change from camera to video! whatever you wanted to video will be long gone :-( also it takes ages to save videos. all in all even a basic standalone camera would be a far better job!

[krisse]

"one thing you forgot to mention is the long time it take to change to video and back - it takes about 10 seconds to change from camera to video!"

To be fair though, the video is DVD quality wheres most phones have less than a quarter of the resolution.

Like I said above, what's needed is some easy-to-access button that turns expensive cameraphones into point-and-shoot cameraphones, for those moments when you need the photo taken NOW.



"all in all even a basic standalone camera would be a far better job!"

Standalone cameras will always do a far better job than cameraphones, even expensive cameraphones. Lower quality is the price you pay for convergence.

My 150 euro camera has a 6mp sensor, while the 700 euro N95 only manages 5mp, for example.

[Sergey Zak]

But I have three minor notes about it -

a) the digital algorithm needs to be improved to get rid of the color noise (if possible)
b) the lens protective shutters should be stronger (made of metal, not plastic)
c) the snapshot button should bring you to the Camera application, if the protective shutter is already open.

See more on cubeover.blogspot.com

[viipottaja]

Do you guys think this could work from technonology/programming perspective to reduce the time to display a picture after the shot is taken? Instead of fully processing the picture, the screen would show a slightly lower quality version with a small note "Processing" or "Draft" blinking so that the user would realise that its not the final quality. The user could either wait for the final quality picture to be shown, or use "Delete" option right away or jump to taking the next picture. If he/she did not delete the pic, it would be processed to its final quality in the background. Would e.g. the N95 have enough processing powere to do this and not slow things down even more?

[malerocks]

I agree with this article. 8 months ago, I bought the n93 with the idea of always been able to carry a camera along and shoot spontaneous moments. But i have been rather disappointed by the static that its images have, especially indoors. The landscape images on the other hand are fantastic. I just wish that the 'carl zeiss' lens had appropriate hardware and software to save good images.

What alarms me is that a friend of mine has a samsung DH900 which also a 3mp camera and the images in his phone are just about 400 Kb while mine are around 1 MB. And the visual quality on both are quite similar...

[mjbr]

about camera on the E61i...
after a few weeks with my E61i I started to notice a delay from the time I press the camera button to the time the pic is actually taken... anyone with the same problem? any solution to that? I clearly remember this problem wasnt there in the beginning...

Krisse:
"To be fair though, the video is DVD quality"

) Are you serious? Have you ever seen DVD movie? I mean real DVD movie not the low-qulity porn you are hiding on your HDD.

[tawalker]

My tuppence-worth (before inflation ):

Even though I find the N95's camera almost on a par with my dedicated digicam (a Canon IXUS 500 I bought in 2004), I still wouldn't dump the latter for the former. Quite a few reasons why:

- The battery life of the IXUS is much longer than the N95, and I also try to make sure I carry a charged spare battery for the IXUS on me (much easier to swap the batteries over with the IXUS, too);
- the IXUS has an optical zoom, where the N95 has only digital;
- they both have the same resolution (5mp), but the IXUS has the edge in the picture quality stakes (though if the N95 is set up right, there's not that much between them);
- the IXUS is quicker to 'boot' and takes/is ready to take pictures faster

There are probably more points I could think up, but you get the picture (pun unintentional). On the other hand, the IXUS 500

- doesn't have GPS (and can't geotag images);
- is far inferior to the N95 as a video camera (though newer IXUS models are more on a par);
- can't upload images straight to Flickr without a PC;
- can't make phone calls ...

As I see it, the IXUS and N95 are different machines with different remits - the Canon is a 3-year-old dedicated digicam, whilst the Nokia is a state-of-the-art 2007 communications device which, amongst its plethora of features, happens to take pretty good still photos and video clips.

It's "horses for courses" - if I can take both devices to a place where I know I will want to take good still photos, I will, and use the IXUS (especially as the Canon's battery is unlikely to give out after an hour or two - important if I'm "in the field" and can't get to a charging point). If I can't take both phone and camera there for some reason, I'll use the N95, and it will usually "do".

It's just nice to know that I can "fall back" on the N95 as a secondary digicam if I have to, and get acceptable results; however, if I really want decent photos, I still prefer the IXUS. That's not to criticise the N95 - just to acknowledge that they have different strengths and purposes.

Phew

Thanks for the tips, Steve! I've missed the short window of opportunity for a picture so many times, I'll definitely use those settings and see if it helps.

Does saving to the phone memory vs a memory card make a difference in the latency as well?

I've pointed my readers at taptu dot com slash blog to your post as well (sorry for the odd format, it appears I'm not allowed to post a url until I've done ten posts on here... A few more to go, then!

Cheers,
Vero