[chetan_merchant]

It's been more then two weeks after I purchased my Lumia 920. With all the excitement I started taking photos with the so called best camera in a smart phone. The low light photos were mind blowing...believe me no other smartphone can even come close to Lumia 920.

Next day i was flaunting my phone camera in front my colleagues who own SG3, iPhone 5 & Note 2. We decided to compare photos
with our respective devices.

In broad daylight I found that the photos with Lumia 920 had adequate saturation, clarity but they were not crisp as SG3 or Note 2. All devices had good acceptable photos but Lumia 920 lacked those details which would make it stand out.

Anyone else experiencing same issue??

(BTW I have Portico update pre-installed)

[Napocensis]

I wish I could tell you that you got a defective phone, unfortunately I can't!

[chetan_merchant]

It was the same with Lumia 800, the specs were comparable to other devices but images were weaker in quality. Now the story repeats in Lumia 920. I don't know the details but its something to do with the software algorithm concerned with daylight images. Nokia has yet to get it right.

[James8561]

are you trying to zoom in on the photo on the phone? that always produces blurriness since WP zooming is broken. try viewing on a decent monitor

[Napocensis]

I don't know the details but its something to do with the software algorithm concerned with daylight images. Nokia has yet to get it right.

It makes me think that it's something to do with their telemetering or whatever they use for focusing at a distance, as the daylight close-ups are very good.

[RyanR47]

i have the same issue, day light photos are soft and average quality.

[TK2011]

Lumia 920 has a wider angle lens than others. So if you take shots from the same distance, objects will appear smaller on L920 than on those other phones. Hence, if you are comparing two phones, you will have to zoom in more on 920 to get a particular object sized the same. But when you do that, objects on L920 will be a bit less sharp because it's using less pixels. It's not a fair comparison. But people do that all the time not realizing the implication. Just FYI.

All in all L920 is not advertised to blow your socks off with daylight. It's about the same as other top phones. It's the low light performance that kills the competition as you saw. Test them again in low light and your friends will hate their phones from that point on.

[chetan_merchant]

No i am not trying to zoom in. Have even tried playing around with settings, used daylight instead of auto, this removes the reddish or yellowish hue from the image but doesn't change the sharpness.

[TK2011]

No i am not trying to zoom in. Have even tried playing around with settings, used daylight instead of auto, this removes the reddish or yellowish hue from the image but doesn't change the sharpness.

Without zooming I doubt you can tell sharpness difference. What kind of display(s) are you using to compare? And I am sure you are not confusing DOF and bokeh with softness? (I've seen one dude here who thought there's something wrong with picture when it was just heavy bokeh.)

[zyran]

Compare it on a computer screen rather than on the screen of the phone.

[CaptDjob]

are you trying to zoom in on the photo on the phone? that always produces blurriness since WP zooming is broken. try viewing on a decent monitor

Is this verified? Because I have also wondered that can this really be true, than when zooming in on screen, the pic get instantly blurry? I didn't check this on computer (and now I am not able as my phone is in repair for second time in a row as its rebooting).

If true, this would be "good news" as it can be fixed with software patch.

[Techno-Freak]

What does the firmware revision number on your phone say: .1249 or .1242?
The softness issue was fixed in update .1249.

Nokia improves Lumia 920 camera. We do a before and after comparison. | Windows Phone Central
Report: Camera fix for the Lumia 920 coming from Nokia this month | Windows Phone Central

You would get better response if you would have posted this in Nokia Lumia 920 section:
http://forums.wpcentral.com/nokia-lumia-920/

[chetan_merchant]

Its not Bokeh...I do use a Canon 550d and purchased a 1.8 prime lens after reading a lot about Bokeh.

My firmware version is 1249.
I have already mentioned earlier that low light performance is awesome...no comparison required.
My point is, a camera which can give this amazing low light performance can and should give equally impressive daylight performance. I am not asking for performance which can kill other devices but at least compares to other devices.
Haven't compared the pics on computer will do so and comment. Have always tried zooming in on my phone and comparing..

[chetan_merchant]

Yes I realized after posting that did post in a wrong forum. Should i re-post this in Lumia 920, I am kinda new to forums and postings..

[Dratwister]

Its not Bokeh...I do use a Canon 550d and purchased a 1.8 prime lens after reading a lot about Bokeh.

My firmware version is 1249.
I have already mentioned earlier that low light performance is awesome...no comparison required.
My point is, a camera which can give this amazing low light performance can and should give equally impressive daylight performance. I am not asking for performance which can kill other devices but at least compares to other devices.
Haven't compared the pics on computer will do so and comment. Have always tried zooming in on my phone and comparing..

I think there're 2 things about this:
1) The zooming feature in WP8 really doesn't tell the truth about the picture, so you should really view it on computer (and pray for microsoft to fix it)
2) The camera of 920 has a fixed f/2.0 on every focus distances so there might be a chance your pictures have elements which're out of focus. I don't know if the Portico update can fix this (I didn't receive it yet)...

[TK2011]

Its not Bokeh...I do use a Canon 550d and purchased a 1.8 prime lens after reading a lot about Bokeh.

My firmware version is 1249.
I have already mentioned earlier that low light performance is awesome...no comparison required.
My point is, a camera which can give this amazing low light performance can and should give equally impressive daylight performance. I am not asking for performance which can kill other devices but at least compares to other devices.
Haven't compared the pics on computer will do so and comment. Have always tried zooming in on my phone and comparing..

YOu said you didn't have to zoom to find softness. Now you say you always zoom. What is it? Outperformance in low light doesn't mean it should outperform also in daylight. Not sure what you mean by equally impressive.. Without sample pictures we don't have much to go by. Also, you really should compare them on one common hw and sw setup, not separately on each phone. FWIW, I've seen lots of comparison photos here and elsewhere. Daylight shots are pretty much similar except for minor differences here and there. Any small difference in sharpness would be totally obscured in low resolution displays like on phones.

[Ignotum666]

can anybody tell me if the last firmware avaliable is 1249.1001?

Thanks!

[jiayit]

can anybody tell me if the last firmware avaliable is 1249.1001?

Thanks!

You should be looking under OS version.
10211.204

[Ignotum666]

indeed, but the firmware is the last or 1249.1002 for example?

[Napocensis]

Lumia 920 has a wider angle lens than others. So if you take shots from the same distance, objects will appear smaller on L920 than on those other phones. Hence, if you are comparing two phones, you will have to zoom in more on 920 to get a particular object sized the same. But when you do that, objects on L920 will be a bit less sharp because it's using less pixels. It's not a fair comparison. But people do that all the time not realizing the implication. Just FYI.

Although the arithmetics seem to support your stance on the number of pixels used to capture an object, I do not buy into it. Note 2, i5 and SG3 have 8MP, while L920 has a 8.7MP, so the extra pixels should compensate for the wider lens.
Also, if your theory was true, L920 should kill my 5MP Torch in daylight, unfortunately is the other way around.

[TK2011]

Although the arithmetics seem to support your stance on the number of pixels used to capture an object, I do not buy into it. Note 2, i5 and SG3 have 8MP, while L920 has a 8.7MP, so the extra pixels should compensate for the wider lens.

L920 has 8.7MP sensor but a different subset of it is used to get 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratio shots. They use this clever approach to get the most bang out of the available pixels. You are getting 8.0MP for 4:3 and 7.1MP for 16:9. See the illustration in this whitepaper from Nokia: http://i.nokia.com/blob/view/-/18242...review-820.pdf

Also, if your theory was true, L920 should kill my 5MP Torch in daylight, unfortunately is the other way around.

It's not a theory. Not saying there is nothing else in play here but what I said is a fact. A 5MP picture sharpened for certain display resolution can always look "sharper" than 8MP. People who upgraded from Nikon D90 to D7000 got higher resolution but complained that it's not as sharp because they were pixel peeping at 100%. It depends on many things: lens focal length, how jpeg engine processes it and what resolution you view your image, etc. The OP didn't even compare them on the same screen.

[Napocensis]

Thanks for the link, TK. Although I did not read it thoroughly yet, I see they talk quite a bit about the low light shots. I will have to return to it later.

It’s just from an end user perspective, one should not need to understand and research all these whitepapers and web resources. Buying the flagship handset of Nokia late 2012, one is entitled to expect progress and improvements in absolutely ALL aspects compared to a 2010 BB (which did not have the best hardware anyways). We are looking at more than two years, which is a very long time for technology.

When I say I am disappointed with the daylight shots of L920, I do not arrive to that conclusion by overanalyzing and zooming to 100% or beyond. I do not take the same shot with two cameras and then display them on two monitors side by side. Just by using the camera for almost three months I can easily tell I hate the daylight pictures.

L920 takes amazing pictures in low lights as well as close-ups. It’s hard for me to believe that it can’t get better in daylight. Portico definitely brought an improvement so it’s obvious Nokia did not get the algorithm right the first time. I hope they can further improve it, as I badly need a good camera for work and do not want to carry a P&S.

[TK2011]

Thanks for the link, TK. Although I did not read it thoroughly yet, I see they talk quite a bit about the low light shots. I will have to return to it later.

It’s just from an end user perspective, one should not need to understand and research all these whitepapers and web resources. Buying the flagship handset of Nokia late 2012, one is entitled to expect progress and improvements in absolutely ALL aspects compared to a 2010 BB (which did not have the best hardware anyways). We are looking at more than two years, which is a very long time for technology.

When I say I am disappointed with the daylight shots of L920, I do not arrive to that conclusion by overanalyzing and zooming to 100% or beyond. I do not take the same shot with two cameras and then display them on two monitors side by side. Just by using the camera for almost three months I can easily tell I hate the daylight pictures.

L920 takes amazing pictures in low lights as well as close-ups. It’s hard for me to believe that it can’t get better in daylight. Portico definitely brought an improvement so it’s obvious Nokia did not get the algorithm right the first time. I hope they can further improve it, as I badly need a good camera for work and do not want to carry a P&S.

Hmm..I've looked at BB Torch shots in Flickr and they don't look any sharper than L920 to me. In fact, I find them somewhat lower quality than L920.

In general, I think some people (not you) are perhaps expecting too much in daylight shots. Most DSLRs, cheap and very expensive, they all perform very similarly in daylight condition. It's hard to find difference in blind test. Go to Flickr and browse daylight shots from $400 14MP DSLR like Nikon D3100 and then $3000 36MP DSLR like Nikon D800. You will have trouble distinguishing difference in normal PC screen. Seriously. But it's a totally different story for low light shots though. It's the same pattern with L920 and competing phones. Once in daylight, you get pretty good pictures across the line (even 5MP ones from 1-2 yr ago as long as you are viewing them in low res like 720px) and differences if any are pretty minor. But again the big difference shows up only in low light. In this case, L920 blows them out.

[Raghu Gundlapalli]

I did a warranty replacement on my Lumia 920 2 weeks ago & my firmware is at 1232, looks like the firmware should be at 1249, how do i update my phone. Thanks in advance, i don't think this is the right place to post this but i searched the forums for this & i couldn't find any threads related to this.

[XboxHornet]

Hi, have you read this article http://www.wpcentral.com/creative-studios-nokia-fine-tuning-your-lumia-windows-phone-pictures

Softness of photos is pretty easy to fix with creative studio, not a perfect solution, but better than nothing