Lumia 930 V Lumia 1520 Cameras

I recently posted my thoughts on the Nokia Lumia 930 Windows Phone that I have been lucky enough to trial for two weeks via @Connects . You can read my conclusions HERE if you really want, basically it's a great handset, but I already have it covered with my current phones the Lumia 1020 and 1520 and the Lumia 1520 actually has the same camera unit, I did however mention that I would like to compare the two phones on the latest Cyan software update if I was able to update my Lumia 1520 before the trial ended.

Well, lo and behold the other day I checked and Cyan was available for my 1520 :) Unfortunately I had been using the Preview For Developers version of Windows Phone 8.1 and to get the Nokia Produced Cyan update I had to use The Nokia Software Recovery Tool to 'Downgrade' my phone to WP 8.0 so that the latest update would install over the air, it all took a couple of hours or so, but no real stress as I enjoy playing with phones (wouldn't have used the Dev Preview if I didn't) and as I backup my settings and apps on my Lumias everything happened automatically and I just had to wait for the phone to finish doing its stuff and there I was two Lumias on Cyan :)

Lumia 1520 Camera Specifications

• Primary camera sensor size: 20 MP, PureView
• Camera Focus Type: Auto focus with two-stage capture key
• ZEISS optics: Yes
• Sensor size: 1/2.5 inch
• Main camera f-number/aperture: f/2.4
• Camera focal length: 26 mm
• Camera minimum focus range: 10 cm
• Camera image formats: JPEG/Exif
• Camera Flash Type: Dual LED flash
• Flash operating range: 3.0 m
• Flash modes: Off, Automatic, On

Lumia 930 Camera Specifications

• Primary camera sensor size: 20 MP, PureView
• Camera Focus Type: Auto focus with two-stage capture key
• Camera digital zoom: 2 x
• ZEISS optics: Yes
• Sensor size: 1/2.5 inch
• Main camera f-number/aperture: f/2.4
• Camera focal length: 26 mm
• Camera minimum focus range: 10 cm
• Camera image formats: JPEG/Exif
• Camera Flash Type: Dual LED flash
• Flash operating range: 3.0 m
• Flash modes: Off, Automatic, On

I work A LOT !! and only get one day a week off so time is precious and I can't always find time to do stuff like this (I can hear some people breathing a sigh of relief LOL) but as I work in retail I finish early on a Sunday and as the weather wasn't bad, I went down to a local Marina on the Leeds Liverpool Canal and tried to do comparison of the two phones running the same software, I tried to replicate the pics as closely as I could, but it isn't always easy and basically I think is shows the two phones produce just about the same results, although viewing on the 930 itself actually looks a bit better, due to AMOLED screens being a little more saturated than LCD the results on a browser are virtually identical.

I am not a professional photographer and useless with software, but I have tried to do a couple of comparative splices of crops on Paint on my PC and also used the Reframe feature in the Pro Camera app on the Lumias to try show close up detail and also used an app called 'SoZoom' to show the bits of photo I chopped out of a couple of the snaps.

Next few sections are photos to show close up results using ReFrame feature on the two phones

So because of my lack of software experience and skill I have used the apps on the phones to demonstrate , hopefully, what I'm trying to show , if you know what I mean :-D

Well thanks for taking a look at the photos, hope it was fairly interesting, personally I'm really glad I got the chance to do it as I am now convinced that photographically I wouldn't benefit from buying the Lumia 930 to add to my current Arsenal , however I am also convinced that both the 20 megapixel PureView handsets do produce great photos without needing any particular skill and also the available apps and features on the phones make it easy to create something quite nice actually on the handset.

Cheers

Steve Quin

27/07/2014