More on the N8's stills and video camera

Published by Rafe Blandford at 15:47 UTC, July 8th 2010

Damian Dinning, the architect of Nokia's N8 and other top camera phones, posting on Nokia Conversations, has shared some further insights into the development of the N8's stills camera. He explains Nokia's approach on the N8 and why this differs from earlier Nokia products and from other camera phones on the market. Rather than using every trick in the book to fool the eye into thinking it is a great image, the guiding principle behind the N8's camera is go for reproduction that is 'as natural as possible' in both visual and audio elements. Read on for a summary of the key points from the piece...

N8 Photo Sample

Full resolution here.

Key points from the Nokia Conversations piece

Decision to 'go for reproduction that was as natural as possible'. The guiding principle is to have images with 'incredible natural detail with relatively low noise but retain a punch to the images through the vibrant colour reproduction whilst still ensuring it remained natural and very close to the mind’s eye'.
This 'natural reproduction' covers both the visual and, in video, audio elements.
Edge enhancement has been throttled back. In videos shot in good lighting conditions it is disabled altogether. This is 'unheard of for such devices' and is testimony to 'the great optics and superior sensor'.
The camera team have thought carefully about how to reproduce colour in certain environments. Rather than aim for theoretically perfect white balance the N8 is tuned to 'how you remember it'. For example snow scenes are remembered as having a blue-ish tint (not in the UK! - Ed), and the camera reproduces this. This is in contrast to the colour saturation and contrast tweaks that are typically used in these situations.
The difference is in the details. In the post there are a number of examples that show the differences are only obvious if you 'zoom-in'. But the overall impact is important.
Overall, fewer artificial enhancements are used during processing. 'We wanted to strip the process back to the basics and deliver raw imaging power both in stills and video in a way that we felt hadn’t been done before.'
The points above primarily apply to shots taken in good lighting conditions. In low light conditions, the N8 is noted as having a superior flash range to the N82.