Nokia 808 V Lumia 920 Camera Comparison

I am very lucky to have both versions of Nokia's revolutionary PureView camera technology. The Nokia 808 with the 41 Megapixel sensor running Symbian and the Nokia Lumia 920 using a 'Floating' camera unit which lets the phone to counteract camera shake and so allow for longer exposure for night scenes and also lets you take smoother video by reducing camera shake. They are different systems and both have unique and new technology for smart phone photography.

This comparison is simply that, I really wanted to do something more thorough, but both time constraints due to work and also the bad weather and light since I received the 920 mean I have decided to post this simple comparison of photos I captured the last couple of days, trying to replicate as well as I could each photo on each phone. If they weren't totally automatic I tried to set the settings on each phone the same, IE both were set to 'Closeup' for the coins, berries and shots of each other, I also used flash on both phones when I photographed the blue car.

Link for original photographs on my SkyDrive account is here for anyone who wants to do a side by side comparison , feel free to download any you want to compare :)

Original Photos

Part two here

All the photos are what I'd describe as 'quick snaps' and with time , knowledge and skill the 808 would match or beat the 920 in almost all circumstances, however there are massive caveats in this statement !! Time, you don't always have it, the macro/close up shots by the 920 were simple and straight forward, focusing and zooming on the 808 can take a while and a few attempts, by which time the subject or the moment, could be gone. In bad light or virtually no light, the settings on the 808 can be adjusted to increase the ISO and keep the shutter open longer to let in more light and provided you have a tripod the resulting photo can be as good or better than the 920, however people don't take tripods down to the pub, and friends don't always hang about being comical whilst you set your shutter speed ?

I haven't fully explored the camera properly on the 920 yet (or the whole of the OS yet for that matter) but I will say I am pretty impressed with it, I am struggling to find anything I dislike about the Lumia 920 and am thoroughly enjoying using it.

Thanks for reading.

Stephen Quin

11/11/2012