Some commentators have reported that the camera photo quality on a Nokia N95 that's been updated to v20 firmware is worse than on one that still runs v12 firmware - I disagree, and here's why: the N95's camera is now capturing an image that's closer to real life and not presenting an artificially sharpened view of the world. Read on...
Read on in the full article.
Hi Steve,
Could you compare of V12 and V20 on a picture with lots of details, like a grassfield, or a leaved or pine(d) tree? I was wondering if they did improve the horrible compression factor? If you take a picture of a grassy field due to the compression lots of details disappear. Sometimes this is right out disturbing especially when printing on paper A4, A5 and even sometimes on A6 format. in I really wished I'd get a raw picture storage mode or at least let me tweak the compression setting.
Tested the DVSF on videorecording for the N95 classic. It adds another 15 minutes (21%) to my video recording time . Not to shabby 😉
Good stuff Steve. The one thing to add is that the less DSP manipuation the camera does, the more scope is available to the photographer once the pic is downloaded onto photo software.
I mean, all the sharpening can be done by the photographer on Photoshop (for example) to suit the situation rather than pre-set by the camera at origination..
" If you take a picture of a grassy field due to the compression lots of details disappear."
It's not compression it's the p.o.s. mobile optics resolution limit.
Done, one grass comparison added above 8-) Comments?
Call me stupid if you like, but I really can't see any difference in any of those comparison pictures... 😞
Well, we know you're not stupid, Krisse! 99.9% of users won't notice a difference - or indeed care - but this feature is for obsessives like me 8-)
I've noticed since upgrading to fw20 that the exposure on indoor shots seems to be a little slower.
Most of the pics I take are indoors and of fast moving objects (my kids!) and they always seem a little more blurred now. Then again, at least I can now usually take the shot before the subject has run out of the room!
Blurriness aside, fw20 is fantastic and has given my N95 a new lease of life.
nice article! i was hoping that some good soul takes the time to compare V12 and V20 picture wise 😊
i do however disagree with the notion that a phone camera should stick to the most balanced and natural processing prossible. when using a phone-cam, i do expect to create pictures, that do not, and will not need to be post-processed and optimized afterwards, and that appeal and stand out "at the first look" for most "normal" people. if i want a technically most natural and unaltered pic, i take a SLR wirh me, and photoshop the hell out of it afterwards if needed...
so, i DO actually expect some appealing enhancements in a camera-phone, exactly because it's not a "professional" camera, but rather a gadget that's there to bring maximum fun to the average user.
Hi Steve.
That grass shot, can we get it in full size too instead of the zoomed?
As shown by the popularity of Fuji Velvia film in the pre-digital days, western eyes also like unnaturally saturated colours.
Email me if you want the full grass shots.... I think we're veering into geek territory!
If theres one word I describe the n95s image processing, then it would excess.
Excess image noise reduction. Nothing wrong with a little grain.
Excess edge sharpening but theres always been a sharpness setting in the camera so it wasn't a problem if manually changed.
Excess colors that are too vivid. Taking a picture of a building with the sun shining on it is no go.
Too much compression? Can't say as no conclusive proof either way.
Hi Steve,
Thanks for the grass image. But you actually took a great picture not having the issues I was talking about. Jpeg compression is designed to throw away image information that is mostly invisible to the human vision. One of the things jpeg does is reduce the color resolution compared to the intensity resolution as the human eye works. I took the picture below with the v11 software. You can see some interesting effects in it caused by overzealous jpeg compression:
http://a0.vox.com/6a00d41431a1786a4700d41431abf06a47-pi
- Just above the fence. Near the 'no admittance' shield. The yellow grass has lost all details. Part of the trees are blurry too. Some are detailed some are not.
- The shadow of the fence has lost its details. More that actually is lost in some other dark parts where there are more contrasts present. The codec is stupidly assuming we cannot see the darker differences.
These are typical also in the older converted youtube video's. Darkening dark areas to reduce video bandwidth. The blurriness is definitely not homogenous over the image. In fact looking at this image of a liquor factory 😉
http://a4.vox.com/6a00d41431a1786a4700d4142d8d2c685e-pi
You can definitely see that the brick wall has patches of unsharp bricks.
Clearly the jpeg algorithm is aggressively trying to achieve a low jpeg file size where it should opt to maintain a certain image quality and go for a larger file size. This means whenever some object of interest is darker that a bright and detailed background object you in deep compost. Sometimes a grassy hill is left looking partly like a pool table. Allowing one to see the DCT blocks. Terrible a good compression algorithm should do this much smoother.
A high quality jpeg setting or a raw-mode would make life a lot sweeter. A good picture may take 5 seconds to store. If it's perfect. And let's be honest. Who does not own a 2GB memory card or bigger in his N95? So image files can be easily monstrous huge.
Do you think you can research this difference between the two firmware versions?
P.S. Great work in general. Send me teh gras pictures if possible to snoyt (a) hot mail dot com.
Hi there Unregistered post #14.
You're forgetting focus. Plus you should see what each of the 3 sharpness camera settings does to objects that are out of focus.
There ought to be a RAW option. We have huge memory cards to store large image files. I dont see why its not an option.
"So, for example, those in the Far East prefer (almost unnaturally) vivid colours whereas in Europe we prefer something sharper but 'cooler'. Manufacturers know this and tweak their algorithms accordingly."
So, from this statement, should we understand that if you take your N95 (for instance) and change the product code to any Asia-Pacific one before performing a firmware upgrade, probably that firmware will be tweaked to different settings concerning, in this case, color temperature, bright, etc. ? Anyone around here has ever had the opportunity to confirm it?? Interesting however.......
I already suspected that people in Asia prefer brighter and more saturated color tones, looking at photos taken by themselves, but I had never thought that even the own manufacturer could consider a direct tweaking of the camera settings to better fit a specific region........
What one of you other unregistered people said about "excess" applies to pretty much every single digital camera that fits in your pocket. DSLR is the only way to go to avoid all the excess "blah blah". That's just how it is.
Can I make a general plea for people to bother to sign in before commenting? It would make a world of difference to have clear usernames or nicknames to refer to rather than having to keep talking about 'what Unregistered said' etc.
8-)
Steve, thanks for the pictures. I can report that it seems there is little difference in the jpeg compression between the firmwares. It does tend to do a too heavy compression in the shady parts. It is tricky to get the codec to ignore sensor noise and keep image details preserved. Still the ability to tweak the compression settings to a decent quality should be present in any decent camera.
Concerning the spam question. 1+1 is actually 10. Signing in really anoys me. I am dying in logins... I like Darla's solution best.
Dear Steve
With all the respect to you, this was the most terrible post you ever posted, you are talking about the n95 camera performance as if it was a professional 10mp digi cam, the n95 camera with its "Carl Zeiss" lens is no where near an average "low class" 5mp standalone digital camera specially in low light conditions, it is certainly the best camera phone exist, how ever i upgraded from my N95 to N95 8GB i still keep both of them waiting to sell the old one, i did alot of comparisons between them, i ended up with the conclusion that the N95 8gb really sucks and stopped using it taking random pictures because most of the pictures im interested in snapping are on low light condition, i really hope nokia will consider it and give us back a good camera performance with all the crap of "sharpness and unnatural" photo performance cause at least it makes the picture quality somehow acceptable for a mobile camera in all conditions, even though it becomes slower in snap shots.
It's a lot easier to sharp an unprocessed image than 'unsharp' a processed one. I'm rather glad they have ditched the mandatory processing. Would be nice if they made it optional tho, to keep those who like the artificial edges happy.
Why didn't you mention the focus phase
With v12 It took weeks to focus and a 60% chance the picture to be out of focus... With v20 the aoutofocus works great fast and focueses almost 100%
Regards
Hmm.... auto-focus seems about the same on my two units. I hadn't noticed a change. Probably some other explanation for your slow focussing speed previously? Ditto for focus. Although it's possible that they tweaked the focal length algorithms in terms of where the camera starts to 'hunt' for each scene mode.
Are you sure you didn't just have some dirt on the lens before? 8-)
I took delivery of my N95 v1 with great expectations on Friday, but it's going back Monday. Camera is seriously sub-standard - plus the WiFi is clunky and the keyboard is tiny and difficult to use, but that's for another thread.
I come from an audio-visual background so I'm sensitive to these things, and I commend your article for it's depth, but image-wise, you didn't mention the video, which is equally bad.
At 5MP I've been judging the N95 up against my old 3.2MP Sony E and it's way beneath - the colours are washed out and the blacks grey-ish, you can particularly see that on natural shades, wood, leaves etc; and that is not just edges, it's colour fidelity. Sony Ericsson is Euro/Japan technology - I think this shows, because I certainly get good results in nature photos from the SE.
The firmware upgrade might well improve the photography but I sense that is not all we are dealing with. My Sony 3.2 plants 800-900k files on my 1GB card - the Nokia saves only 600-700k files, even at highest resolution, so the N95 compression is over-cooked. Like the previous guy said, with all that disk space, give us the option for raw. The focus is also temperamental. Sad, really, because I was totally ready to jump ship and return to Symbian - a missed opportunity, there, Mr Nokia.
Check out Flickr for comparison photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/deekster/
thx for interesting article
I was hoping that my N95 could replace my Sony DSC T100 when I cycle in the mountains - so I can carry less things.
But the camera's photos on auto are so colourless!!!! Deep blue skies seem dull, etc.
Very disappointing
Are there any settings that might help
Firmware 12.0.013 (the latest version allowed by my service provider)
many thanks
I made the fatal mistake of updating the firmware, i now realise it was a fatal mistake.
they should no longer advertise 5 megapixel!
as far as i am concerned squeezing 14.4 megs of data into ridiculous 600k file just doesnt cut it, this is not good enough!!
The old firmware v11 took much better photos (1.5 to 2 megs), i could read book titles off a picture taken against a wall of books, plus, sharp images was default.
now i get a white foggy effect and file size is less than half!
might as well chuck it..
I was looking forward to getting a N96, but now, i will look seriously at photo filesize before i decide anything, if its not at least 2 megs on max quality photos, then forget it..
youre not getting what u paid for!
As another commenter noted, the overly aggressive JPG compression is ruining details in photos in both the N95 and N82. It's ridiculous because 1) the camera is from a hardware point of perfectly capable of capturing said detail (it takes more work by the processor to blur things out and compress it so much) and 2) all we need is a really simple software update that controls the level of compression.
The N95 and N82 are getting really close to being able to replace your day-to-day point-and-shoot indoor-taking-pictures-with-friends cameras, but the quality isn't there if they are going to compress so highly and blur out everything. What's the point of 5MP then?
I hope that the delay in the N82 firmware has more to do with adding this feature than with engineers being moved to work on the N96.