Hands-on with the Nokia Lumia 1020 PureView 41MP camera

The Nokia Lumia 1020 was announced in India today, but we got a brief hands on time with its show-stopping feature - the PureView 41MP camera a couple of days back. It features a 1/1.5-inch sensor which is slightly smaller than the original PureView 808’s 1/1.2-inch sensor. The black-coloured circular camera section behind the 1020 also houses a Xenon flash LED as well as a focus-assist bulb. It does protrude out a bit from the plane of the 1020’s body, but it isn’t as pronounced as the PureView 808.

While the sensor is 41MP, it captures two images at 34MP (high res) and the shareable 5MP (low res). It sports a fast F2.2 Carl Zeiss lens and gives an equivalent focal length of 26mm. Here’s a look at the Lumia 1020 in action:

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We really liked that Nokia has stuck with having a physical button on the phone body. Unfortunately, for zooming in and out you still have to use the pinch-zoom gesture. Wouldn’t it be great if the volume rocker could function as a zoom controller in the camera mode?

(Please note that all sample images used below were shot using the Nokia Lumia 1020. These are 5MP samples as you cannot share 34MP samples. Images in this story have been resized. To check out the full res images head to our Flickr page, which will be updated with more samples once we get the device for review.)

The phone feels sturdy in the hand and is built very well. The normal camera mode is pretty much like the other Lumia phones, but Nokia has added in the Nokia Pro Cam app which allows you to change certain settings with the simple action of moving the particular setting button along the circumference of the concentric circles - each representing a different function. You can adjust the exposure, ISO, shutter speed, white-balance and focus. The Lumia 1020 also allows exposure bracketing allowing you to capture 3 or 5 photographs with EV ranging from -0.5 to 0.5; -1 to 1 and -2 to 2EV.

The best part of the Nokia Pro Cam app is that it takes a series of 10 pictures, and in the preview mode you get options such as Best Shot, Action shot, Motion focus and Change faces. The camera selects the best shot based on the exposure but you have the option to override it. The Action shot allows you to show the path of action within a single frame. Motion focus simulates the effect of a panning shot where the subject is in focus and background appears as if its in speedy motion. You can also change the position of your subject which is quite intelligent. Finally Change Faces is the option that works best with large group pictures. It allows you to select the best faces from any of the 10 images that are clicked and then save it in one image. You can also remove unwanted people from the images using the Remove Objects option.

While the images coming out of the 1020s camera appeared great on the phone, we did not have the chance to see them in all their glory on a monitor. But on zooming in to the images, the details were quite good. The colours are vivid and we did not notice any unwanted artifacts or colour fringing. We like the various settings offered and it gives the cellphone photographer more control over his or her photographs.

However, there were some downers too. The exposure bracketing for instance will click three or five pictures with a considerable time between consecutive shots. This may work well for landscape shots, but while shooting with people moving in and out of scenes it is a pain. Sure you can use the remove objects feature and get rid of unwanted people, but that’s again time consuming.

After having shot the bracketed scenes, they need to be transferred to your system for stitching/merging. The Nokia representatives told us that if the stitching were to happen via an app there would be image compression, which would defeat the purpose. Fair enough if you are dealing with high res 34MP images, but there should have been an option to make an HDR shot with the 5MP images at least. If you want to share your HDR landscape images immediately, then you are in for disappointment. We felt that this option should be given to the user at least at the 5MP resolution because the whole point of mobile photography is being able to share images as soon as you have shot them. Let us know if you feel the same way.

Also, it would have been great to see the Panorama mode integrated within the Pro Cam app, as that would save you the time of getting out of the Pro Cam app and opening the Panorama app. It may not seem much, but when you are in the thick of photographing, you want things to be speedy.

Since the hands-on happened in the afternoon, we had no chance of testing the 1020 PureView camera’s low light prowess. But keep checking our site for an in-depth review of the 1020’s camera soon.