Nokia Phone Camera Comparison 720,920,808 &N97

So as I have been loaned a Lumia 720 Windows Phone from Nokia Connects and as I like both Nokia phones and their cameras and take quite a lot of photos, i thought I would compare the photos four of their cameras can produce. The Nokia N97 is really only there to both balance up the numbers (2 Symbian & 2 WP handsets) and also to give what I consider by modern standards( the N97 is four years old) 'average' results as a comparison with the others. This is not a competition, it is a comparison and I think all the participants do pretty well !

As I say, the N97 is quite old, the Lumia 720 however is one of the latest Nokia Windows Phone products and is actually a mid range handset, so you wouldn't expect it to do as well as the others, however , I think it does really well in holding its own and surprisingly well in some situations, the wide aperture in the camera being particularly noticeable in the low light shots, something the Lumia 920 also excels with , due to the help of OIS (Optical Image Stabilisation)

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Almost all the photos were in auto mode except the low light ones where I used Night Mode in all the phones and the close ups later on where I set the phones to close up. In the case of the Nokia 808, which for now is the best phone camera on the market, despite running a dead operating system, I know that it could have produced better photos in some situations, but as I usually do when I try to compare cameras I try to use the camera as basically as possible, in effect taking 'snapshots' not adjusting ISO or exposure, as I don't believe Joe Public does this and overall I think the Lumia Range is better suited to get very good results in most situations for the vast majority of situations and is certainly easier to use, particularly in a close up situation and using touch to focus and to take the photo as it tends to keep the phone more stable I find as opposed to pressing the dedicated camera key.

The first thing I thought about when deciding to do this was a low light comparison, so I decided to wander to my local park and take a couple of shots of the local Cenotaph in early evening sunlight and then try to return after dark and repeat them , so we could not simply compare the phones against each other but also against themselves from day to night ,if you get what I mean :-)

After messing about in the dark last night, I was hoping for some nice bright weather to do a few comparison shots between the phones, but I live in Northern England and the weather gods weren't playing nicely :( I woke up to a dull day with a bit of rain so I guess all the photos all ended up "low light" however some I think are quite good or at least reasonable for comparison purposes !

Well it isn't a conclusion really, only that I think Nokia make great phones and stick the best camera they can in them within the cost of the phone. I hope people have at least found this interesting and not suffered photo overload, would love to know peoples opinion, even if it is that I should stop posting photos !

Thank You for reading and viewing this, it took a good while to put together, but I also enjoyed it and believe it or not I have quite a few shots that never made it, also excuse the 'editing' it ain't exactly my forte

All shots I took are HERE on Flickr in full res

Stephen Quin

02/07/2013