The Electrical Engineer

The cameras on the Lumia's are what made me switch from an iPhone, and has been a great pocket companion for the last couple years but as with any phone it started to show it's age.  The new 950 seemed like it was a reasonable replacement, but with fewer pixels and a smaller sensor I was curious if it would be too much of a compromise. So it seemed appropriate to go over the specs and see exactly how much of a change to expect. At first it seems that the 1020 still has an advantage. It has a larger sensor, with a higher resolution. But generally the rule is for all things being equal total light gathered is most important. So how much light do both of these cameras gather? The 950 has a larger aperture ratio and a lower base ISO. Allowing about half a stops more light to each pixel, but with less the half the total pixels. So if we assume the same final resulting size the 1020 still has half a stop advantage. But the 950 should allow t...

Last October I was photographing San Francisco from Twin peaks as the city lights came on. During this time I had both my phones with me which I used to preview the scene. I happened upon the photos recently and realized there was an informal demonstration to be had. They where all taken within a few minutes of each other from the same location, but since exposure settings don't match this is hardly an accurate test and more of an interesting demonstration. iPhone 5s - f2.2 - 1/15th - ISO 1600 - Area 17.5mm^2 -7:17pm Lumia 1020 - f2.2 - 1/5th - ISO 800 - Area 58mm^2 - 7:15pm RZ 67 - Provia 100 - f 4 - Area 3752mm^2 - ~4sec *Because I can just hear the outrage over the difference in ISO (4 stops) a quick flickr search (of images that I felt looked nice) gives an idea that 800  or  1600  wouldn't have drastically made a difference for the 6x7, or that the phone shot at 160 would be drastically better.

The comparison between the Lumia and a similar spec'd DSLR drew a bit more attention then I would ever expected. It is nice to see so much interest in such a great pock-able camera. While I stand by the original test I thought I might revisit it once more for a moment. Addendum   There is so much more to making great images then cameras, and there is so much more to great cameras then megapixels. It's a fairly established morsel of common photographic knowledge that quality is often preferred to quantity when speaking about the pixel. So then why even compare such machines, since they are so wholly different. It's because it's hard not to be curious what 38mp on a phone looks like compared to a SLR with a similarly impressive marketing number. After shooting with 36mp I've come to learn that pixel perfect sharpness provides more elusive and such a camera is prone to bringing out weaknesses in both lens and photographer patience. In reality most ph...

I will be the first to admit that the choice of title is a bit absurd. The D800 sits near the top of DSLRs with astounding dynamic range, interchangeable lens, and a sensor that's nearly 15 times the size of the 1020. So why even consider comparing such different machines? One word: Resolution The Lumia 1020 sports a 41 mega pixel "Pureview" sensor and optical image stabilization (OIS). In 4:3 this gives a working resolution of 38 mpix, and at 16:9 a working resolution of 34 mpix. This puts it 2 mpix on either side of the D800’s very impressive 36 mpix sensor. These two cameras which are worlds apart share nearly identical pixel counts.  While not all megapixels are created equal, we can’t help but wonder in a practical sense, how does a 36mpix image on a phone stack up when compared to the likes of a dedicated SLR of similar resolution? But exactly what would be fair wasn't easy. The Nikon is a very versatile machine producing images no smart phone cou...