N86 imaging supremo does controlled N82 comparisons

Impressive results from the N86 there. My digicam doesn't even perform like that in low light. If this is the current state of phone cameras, I think it's time to upgrade my digicam.

So, Nokia introduced a larger sensor and wider aperture camera on the N86, and then proceeds to try to convince us of it's merits. Of course this combination is going to have better low light performance than a smaller, previous generation sensor camera with a narrower aperture.

However, had they teamed the N86 with a Xenon flash, it's camera performance would have been spectacular, instead of just remarkable. As it stands now, action shots will come out blurred, simply because LED flash isn't fast enough to freeze the action.

The Xenon comment again... :tongue:

There should be someone from Nokia who should give a statement why is Nokia not willing to bring back xenon on their phones. It might stop all the complaining. Its really tiring to hear the same complaint again and again. When articles related to the n86 were posted on AAS, I believe there was someone from Nokia replying to the comment readers posted.

Come on Nokia guys, come back and put in a comment for the xenon part too!!

I'll keep mentioning Xenon until these manufacturers get it right. They need to realize that anyone fairly serious about photography - even on a cell phone - finds Xenon a necessity.

If Nokia, and Samsung too for that matter, included both Xenon and LED on their top of line camera-phones then end users wouldn't complain. Sony Ericsson did this; Nokia and Samsung can too.

Nobody is asking you to stop mentioning Xenon. My point is that since so many people are demanding it, Nokia (or any other company out there) should respond by either including Xenon or giving an explanation why they are not including it.

Its clearly what the customer wants. It is the responsibility of any company to provide an explanation.

And please, before anyone starts ranting about Nokia, let me add that many companies are like this. Apple did not add quite a few features on the iphone even though many people wanted them, the xenon is not on the great i8910 either, etc, etc.

There's a perfectly good couple of reasons why LED is used in Preference to xenon that has been repeated time and time again on here, but some people just refuse to acknowledge that and bleat on about how Xenon is so essential and completely ignore the advances made with LED in recent years.

I've had great results with video in low light conditions. Can a xenon phone boast that?

malerocks wrote:The Xenon comment again... :tongue:

There should be someone from Nokia who should give a statement why is Nokia not willing to bring back xenon on their phones. It might stop all the complaining. Its really tiring to hear the same complaint again and again. When articles related to the n86 were posted on AAS, I believe there was someone from Nokia replying to the comment readers posted.

Come on Nokia guys, come back and put in a comment for the xenon part too!!

You mean like the comments I made in this article?

http://conversations.nokia.com/2009/07/27/being-flash-isnt-always-the-answer/

Guilty on the other comments BTW 😊

br

Damian

If the Xenon flash were a feature that could be easily omitted, it'd have been removed from any of the current crop of pocket cameras as well. The fact it hasn't, shows it's a feature no one who's serious about photography wants to do without. As long as Nokia isn't producing new phones with both Xenon (for photography) and LED (for video recording) anymore, that's completely fine. But it also means I won't be buying their products anymore.

I suppose it's a case of what your preferences are. Still photography with a xenon is indeed easier. You could argue that Nokia should be building phones with optical zoom as well tbh. I think it's a case of wait and see, as there most likely will be a new xenon Nokia built in the future.

I'm sure I had a nightmare the other day about the Xenon flash debate... I was in a room full of people debating the merits back and forth....fortunately I think I've blocked most of the memory 😊

Joking aside it's still an emotive issue. I think we all know the arguments on both sides. I imagine the answer is 'driven by market demands' - yes there are people who want both / want xenon instead of LED, but whether they make up a big enough group to justify segmentation etc is much more open to debate.

Unregistered wrote:If Nokia, and Samsung too for that matter, included both Xenon and LED on their top of line camera-phones then end users wouldn't complain. Sony Ericsson did this; Nokia and Samsung can too.

I don't get why xenon is so prized when it distorts colors so badly - my take away is that the N86 has much better photographic fidelity; the colors look more like the "real" colors and the light is more "realistic" in a usable image....and isn't that the purpose of a photograph to capture reality.

Kudos for a controlled side by side comparison.

Unregistered wrote:There's a perfectly good couple of reasons why LED is used in Preference to xenon that has been repeated time and time again on here, but some people just refuse to acknowledge that and bleat on about how Xenon is so essential and completely ignore the advances made with LED in recent years.

Been dabbling with S60 but do not know enough to answer this question:

Is there a method for connecting a camera controller interface through USB so timing could be established that would activate both a xenon flash and the camera?

Optical zoom: want
Xenon flash: want
Bigger battery: want

I am perfectly willing to accept a larger device to accommodate those features.

Can we stop with the "if LED is so great why do cameras still use Xenon!!" argument? It's patently silly.

Cameras are cameras, and will of course make room for necessary fancy camera things (xenon, optical zoom lens, etc).
Cameraphones aren't cameras. They are phones with camera modules. For the sake of squeezing in all the other Phone stuff, compromises are made.

LED Flash is obviously a compromise. From these comparisons, we can tell that it's a fairly acceptable compromise, and that the photo quality is very good in the majority of situations despite Xenon's absence.

Now, I'm in Dr Tran's camp. I would love a Phone That Is Also A Camera. Make it an inch longer/wider (but not thicker!) to make room for everything if you have to, that's fine by me. I want a damn Batman Phone.

But until that happens, the N86 will do.

rvirga wrote:You're of course referring to the people working at Nikon, Olympus, Canon, etc. How short sighted of them to keep including xenon flashes with their compact digital cameras! They're clearly ignorant of all the recent advances made with LED! 😃

Yeah yeah, you know what I meant :tongue:

I guess there can be a Nokia N86 clone with Xenon flash in the works which will be possibly named as "N86 Xenon" or "N87" or whatever, that's Nokia's very well known marketing strategy guys...

It was said that "Xenon flash would have increased the thickness by 4mm" here and it's also worth to read this article to have some ideas about Nokia's approach to Xenon in mobile devices.

If you want a Xenon flash combined with a camera unit with similiar additional functions then get a Pixon 12.

You can find a photo test of it compared to other devices, including some S60 here.

GeceBekcisi wrote:It was said that "Xenon flash would have increased the thickness by 4mm" here and it's also worth to read this article to have some ideas about Nokia's approach to Xenon in mobile devices.

And again, before anyone rants "Xenon exists in the cheapest cameras" remember that your camera just takes snaps and does nothing else. The 'phone' does a lot more.

Check this one out for more details:

http://www.symbian-freak.com/reviews/n86/nokia_n86_review_part_2_by_mohamed_shafik.htm

lilblacktombo wrote:Can we stop with the "if LED is so great why do cameras still use Xenon!!" argument? It's patently silly.

[...]

Why is that silly? The rest of your message seems to confirm it's not....the point is not that LED would be a good compromise (which may be true considering the result of this test), but that Xenon, all other things being equal, is apparently still the better option for stills.

The benefit for video does make me wonder why leds aren't included in digital camera's nowadays, as they all do video as well.

GeceBekcisi wrote:
It was said that "Xenon flash would have increased the thickness by 4mm"

But this isn't about how Xenon has advanced. It's about LED.

Here is a different prospective... The fact of the matter is any article can skew results one way or another.

You can simply take the "best" shots from the N86 and never show pics how it really suffers in certain conditions.

http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_claims_n86_8mp_doesnt_need_any_xenon_world_chuckles-news-1048.php

People must use their heads and think why Nokia deliberately ommit certain specs or features because they always want you to upgrade to another NOKIA which again has something missing or leave you "wanting".

Take the N82 which is a great device but is crippled by the small screen and average battery life.

They can simply make a N82 with a larger screen and battery. Do they? No, because those users are unlikely to upgrade for a very long time. With the advancements the device won't even be that much bigger.

I can name every Nokia phone is crippled in some way. They dileberately do this... So many customers has asked for xenon but the refuse to listen. I thought you listen to your customers?

Nokia is taking the wrong approach because many are jumping ship to iPhone, RIM, HTC etc. Look at their year to year sales and see what a significant increase they are making. Nokia may have figures to support high smartphone sales but the were once the mighty kings with over 60% smartphone market share??

You can easily dress up these figures with sales of like the cheap 5800XM but how much do they make from such a device. I'm fairly sure they are hardly make a profit from them but as long as the figures look good... If you take out the 5800XM their smartphone sales is on a decline.

Please don't go on about N97 topping vodafone chart in the UK. Wow, one month, a new hyped handset, on one network, in one country...

Rant over. 😊

Why not a detachable xenon flash ?
Nothing new , I�ve seen it in the past with pop-port.

Crippled phones sold by Nokia?

What an absolutely terrible argument. If a manufacturer could fit everything in a device to please everyone then they wouldn't sell any phones as the device would be too expensive!!! Smartphones have to be affordable.

You could apply the same argument to the iphone, Blackberry, and HTC. Phones crippled by having poor cameras, and no xenon.

I note the Omnia HD is �200 MORE than the N86, and people are comparing both. Why?

Maybe Nokia should do the same as Sony Ericsson and concentrate on a real camera phone, rather than trying to mix in as many features into one? It's not done Sony Ericsson any harm has it..............?

It's the XENON FLASH stupid! make all the excuses you want. that is why i use the N82. put a xenon flash on the N97 and i'll buy it... widen the N82 and put a qwerty on it the world would buy MILLIONS!

Have been doing a little digging around.
The code base allows for several obvious camera functions to be accessed and two way communication via USB can sync a timing circuit to to milliseconds. A peripheral device would accommodate variable flash intensity options if the light sensor output can be accessed.

The sensor on the N86 is excellent, no question, but the Samsung i8510 and other like camera phones with xenon support would have to be right up there.

Perhaps a peripheral approach with a sleeve to support lenses would cross the divide between camera and camera phone allowing for effects such as stroboscopic photography when coupled with variable aperture management.

However, that goes beyond the great LED/Xenon user base wars present here and abouts.

Cramming everything into a small package is all well and good but the people arguing for serious camera functionality in a phone often leave out the serious approach that photographers take by adding peripherals.

If you give a mouse a cookie or a camera phone user a xenon flash...