Nokia Lumia nine hundred thirty – Camera

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Nokia Lumia 930: Camera

Nokia has been making a big thrust with smartphone camera technology since introducing its ‘PureView’ camera technology. It very first turned up in the Symbian-running Nokia eight hundred eight before making its way into smartphones like the Lumia 1020, and as a flagship phone it’s no surprise that it’s included in the Lumia 930.

On paper the Lumia nine hundred thirty matches the Lumia 1520’s camera. It has the same 20-megapixel resolution, half that of the 41-megapixel Lumia 1020, an f/Two.Four aperture lens, 1/Two.5-inch pic sensor and a dual LED flash. While the Lumia nine hundred twenty five had a broader maximum aperture (f/Two.0), the 930’s sensor is larger and the nine hundred twenty five only shot at 8.7-megapixels. This should help when taking advantage of PureView’s detail enhancing trickery.

Like the LG G3, there’s also optical photo stabilization to reduce blur and keep things constant, unlike the S5 which relies on digital pic stabilization and is not as effective at ironing out those shaky moments. There’s no HDR mode, however, which is a serious omission given how useful a feature it can be.

Optical stabilization is also in tow for the 1080p Total HD movie

recording, while up front is a 1.2-megapixel camera capable of shooting a

maximum 720p HD, which is more than suitable for Skype movie calls.

Unlike the Lumia 1020, there’s just one camera app you need to worry about for taking pictures. It’s relatively straightforward to use until you want to delve into the generous manual settings.

In the top left forearm corner is the camera roll and over on the right are three circular icons letting you switch inbetween camera, movie recording and the brainy mode, which unlike the one thousand twenty is now built into the main camera app. Here is where you can shoot in burst mode to shoot ten frames in quick succession and adjust those pictures with blur effects, for example, albeit you’ll usually see in a drop in photo quality in this mode.

You are going to shoot most of your photos with the main camera mode and you have the option to press the screen or the dedicated camera button to take a shot. Above the main camera options are settings to apply a timer, add framing grids, capture high and low resolution copies of the photo and turn on the Living Photos feature. This essentially gives photos in your camera roll a HTC Zoe-style effect that’s not all that useful.

There’s also some nice tutorials to explain some of the key camera features and demonstrate the influence adjusting elements like shutter speed or the refocus on pics.

If you don’t want to tinker around too much, it’s still possible to take good quality photos, however getting those good shots doesn’t always happen on the very first go. The 20-megapixel camera actually takes two pics, a 5-megapixel and 16-megapixel photo, providing you something that’s Facebook or Twitter-friendly and the other that should give you more detailed photos you can access when you are connected to PC.

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The problem with this is that, like the Lumia 1020, the extra processing time means the camera is a little sluggish. It means you can one moment shoot fantastic shots and others produce blurry or over exposed photos at times — the kind of practice we’d sooner avoid on an expensive flagship smartphone.

The camera indeed excels for close-ups and portrait shots, delivering acute, detailed photos. It even produces a slight bokeh (blurred background) effect in this shot. The colours are very accurate, too.

But scenic shots from a distance are more of a challenge. As the

photo below shot in automatic mode shows, colours aren’t all that punchy

and the lack of an HDR mode truly shows here. The sky above the

stadium is totally overexposed — a decent HDR mode would truly help

tech is geared towards, but it’s a mixed bag of results. In managed

close-up environments, as the pic and comparison with other leading

smartphones above shows, it maintains fine detail. It’s not as bright and accurate as the 1020, but it’s much better than the LG G3 and very similar to the Galaxy S5.

But the moment there’s maneuverability in the scene it truly fights, which is frustrating if you’re attempting to take a photo when on a night out. This is the kind of area where the HTC One M8 excels.

As for movie, we shot footage in well lit conditions and optical stabilization takes some time to adjust. Reviewing the footage on a computer doesn’t produce fantastically acute Total HD footage, either. What does impress is the sound pick up. Nokia includes four directional microphones that truly give you sense of where the noises and voices are picked up from in the scene.

We also played around with the fresh VideoTuner app Microsoft recently introduced to edit footage and basically have a bit more joy with your footage. You can trim footage, slow down the movie and add music. Most of the adjusting involves swiping up and down on a bar and switches can be reset. Once you are done, you can save in petite, medium, large movie formats. Additionally, you can save in a Vine and Instagram-friendly format, tho’ you still have to go into those apps to upload it.

Battery Life, Call Quality, Sound Quality and Verdict

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