I have gotten more and more into photography recently, and though I’m just a beginner I’m trying to learn all I can. One thing that I’m not sure about is the difference between crop sensor and full frame cameras. I mean, I get that full frame cameras have bigger sensors, but why is that a big deal? More to the point, why does that make them more expensive than other cameras???

A related question I have is where’s a good place to buy a beginner camera? I’ve used my phone up to this point, but I’m thinking a “real” camera would be a good upgrade because I really do want to learn the fundamentals of photography, and I don’t know that my phone is the best tool for doing that. I bought a computer from Adorama a while back and it was a good experience, and I’ve read a number of good reviews on them (like https://www.photographytalk.com/adorama-review), but I know there’s lots of other options out there. I’d really appreciate any input. Thanks!

It’s relatively easy to see how ambitious the development of the original Nokia 808 PureView was.
A super-large 41mp sensor, in a phone!? Reportedly so mad in fact that tech bloggers didn’t run with leaks they received apparently, because they considered such rumours of a 41mp phone as so far beyond belief it was a story without any form of credibility!

I fondly remember some of the initial reactions. Perhaps my favourite being that of a CEO of a well-known far-east based company who visited the Nokia booth immediately after the announcement at MWC. After taking a few minutes to carefully study the performance he then slammed the device down on the counter, uttered an expletive term (I won’t mention here on Marc’s site) and then promptly stormed off with his entourage trailing behind him!

When it came to considering development of its follower, the team were certainly not short of ambition either. They knew it would need to be thinner given the trend for thinness [at times, a somewhat ridiculous infatuation] in the industry, but also knew that there would be a natural expectation for it to also be ‘better’

In summary, the team would need to deliver a slimmer product with the design language that has become a Lumia trademark, which would therefore dictate a smaller camera module, yet one which would meet or exceed the cumulative expectations set by both the Lumia 920 and 808 PureView – so no small task!

Despite my departure from Nokia I’ve had a number of people asking for my view on the Lumia 1020, especially compared to the previous benchmark, the 808 PureView.

Regardless of the improvements OIS brings to still image quality as well as extending the range of situations you can record in where others are simply unable to record an image e.g. low light, its addition to video can easily be underestimated! When I’ve previously used the Lumia 920 and now the 1020, it blows me away how smooth video can be. Panning can look as if you’re using a Steadicam, it’s that good!

I’ve read a lot of commentary around the 1020’s still image quality. Whilst the majority would seem to be extremely positive, I’m very much aware that there have been a number of negative comments. Those seem to be centred on noise, sharpening and colour saturation or as a summary some may say, ‘over-processed’. Especially when making comparisons with the 808 which made a reputation for itself based on its unprocessed images, something no other competing device today can emulate.

Before Nokia introduced the 808 we had learnt that there were a growing group of people who appreciated vibrant and sharp images viewed full-screen.

The 808 was equipped with both saturation and sharpness settings in its creative mode.

Having worked for a few years at Kodak, I had been exposed (pardon the poor pun) to a lot research and insight in to subjective preferences relating to colour reproduction.

Colour is perhaps the hardest aspect of digital imaging to get right in the first place across a wide range of scenarios and colours, but it becomes significantly more complex as you throw in subjective preferences.

Kodak typically provided more vivid and vibrant colour whilst Fuji was better known for its more natural reproduction.

Kodak’s colour science was to effectively attempt to reproduce colour as your ‘mind’s eye’ remembered it.

Nokia benchmark image/video quality by capturing images/videos in a variety of conditions with a range of devices which all reproduce colour (as well as other image attributes) slightly differently. These images are then evaluated in fixed controlled and repeatable conditions

When Apple introduced their first real effort at a camera in an iPhone with the iPhone 4, the colours were often commented on as being over saturated.

I am of the belief that there are two core user groups which need to be considered here. The first I would summarise as the more involved photographer, especially those that spend time using applications such as Adobe’s Photoshop. Typically preferring images to be as untouched or free of enhancements from the manufacturer as possible, so they are left free to optimise the images according to their own specific preferences. These individuals are important because they can potentially influence many others.

The second group is far greater in size but less influential. Typically the preferences here are towards vivid colour (as long as it looks right, according to the ‘mind’s eye’). In terms of subjective image quality they can be influenced by relatively high levels of sharpening as they tend not to be ‘pixel peepers’ and so never look at images at such high magnification to see sharpening artefacts. High levels of sharpening can create the perception of far more detail in an image when viewed at full screen on a laptop or tablet for example.

Apple appears to do very well against this second group, whilst traditionally Nokia, especially with products such as the N8 and 808 are highly appreciated amongst the former group.

Referring to our two groups again, for full screen viewing I would argue Nokia have it close to bang on in terms of noise, sharpness and detail.

However, for the pixel peepers amongst you, based on multiple forums and comments provoked by reviews, it’s clearly considered to be noisy and over sharpened when comparing against DSLR’s or even Nokia’s own 808.

The first question you’ll have about Nokia’s new Lumia 1020 is how the photos look. And yes, they’re so very sharp.

It’s not just light, it’s decidedly not unbearably ugly. That is a big deal, actually, because there was a chance it would be so impossibly misshapen that all the Finnish designers in the land couldn’t hide it. It’s not the most beautiful phone, but it’s just not-ugly enough to own.

And then the camera. It’s great, as you’d expect. Pushing in on areas of the screen for zoom is impressive, and the images are incredibly sharp for a phone. I’d believe that they were taken with a pretty good point and shoot if no one told me otherwise. And the screen’s color performance makes the images look great (maybe a little oversaturated, but that’s sort of the norm for good cameraphones now).

Zoom in video mode, stabilized only by the OIS, actually looks shockingly steady. Zoomed all the way in and walking around, the video looked perfectly acceptable, which is impressive.

Speaking of which: The Nokia Pro Camera might actually be just as much of a big deal as the camera itself. The dial controls are magnificent, and actually great UX. You just drag the shutter button to the left (you can thumb it) and it gives you all of the controls as dials. Exposure, focus, ISO, white balance, all of them. And then if you want to default back to auto, you just slide the shutter button to the left again.

You can also pop out individual settings by tapping on them at the top of the screen. It’s very, very fluid in practical use, and honest to god, it’s better than the crud companies like Nikon and Canon use on their touchscreens. Hey guys, this is how you do this.

At first blush, it’s impressive. The 1020 is handsome and sleek, rounded and not quite so boxy and large as some of the other Lumia phones we’ve seen. It’s not small, though: the 41-megapixel lens coming out the back is large enough that it props the phone up off a table when it’s laid down flat, and the 1020 certainly doesn’t match the sleekness of the 920. The device comes in black, yellow, and white – the yellow is as awesomely ostentatious as always, but we’re smitten with the sleeker black model too.

Evleaks Twitter account, which has previously been leaked in advance to the public a number of Nokia phones in particular, said Tuesday that the so-called EOS Nokia phone model number is coming in 1020.

Top Camera may be the kind of attraction that brings the device at least a considerable amount of attention.

Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kaikki_uutiset/superkameralumian+nimi+paljastettiin/a911736?s=r&wtm=tietoviikko/-27062013&

We gotta say, originally we weren’t very confident in the above alleged spy shots of the rumored Nokia EOS smartphone, but after talking to the leakster from Sina Weibo, we think we got this figured out. First of all, there are two parts here: the paint-less camera cover plate that now says “41 MEGA PIXEL” — the same camera resolution featured on the 808 PureView — instead of “XX MEGA PIXEL,” and a metallic chassis of the EOS phone.

Judging by his background and track record so far (he claims he also leaked the red EOS factory photos), we have reason to believe that this leakster does have a good source on the factory floor. Hence our two assumptions: either this chassis is an early engineering sample, or that this is a metallic variant of the plastic EOS.

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