Better photography in low light is an area Nokia hopes to incorporate into future smartphones.
Last month Nokia unveiled a camera phone incorporating a ’41-million-pixel’, 1/1.2?-size, imaging sensor. The Nokia 808 PureView also boasts an f/2.4 Carl Zeiss lens.
Speaking to Amateur Photographer, Nokia?s lead program manager for capture devices Damian Dinning today said that tackling low light and camera shake will be key, as smartphones increasingly compete against traditional digital compact cameras.
?That is an area we want to improve,? said Dinning, adding that Nokia wants to use pixels in ?new and different ways?, following the release of the 808 PureView.
Though he declined to elaborate, Dinning claimed that a combination of imaging senor, software algorithms and pixels can be used to further improve image quality.
He added that it would be easy to incorporate features such as tilt-and-shift into smartphones, allowing users to be more creative.
Dinning stressed that Nokia wants to move away from an industry ?fixation? with megapixels, focusing instead on areas such a high-quality electronic zooms, and how a device’s pixels are used.
The PureView deploys technology known as ?oversampling?.
?Pixel oversampling combines many pixels to create a single (super) pixel?,? states a paper on PureView technology, co-written by Dinning.
?When this happens, you keep virtually all the detail, but filter away visual noise from the image.
?The speckled, grainy look you tend to get in low-lighting conditions is greatly reduced. And in good light, visual noise is virtually non-existent.?
The 808 PureView is scheduled to go on sale in the second quarter of this year.
Dinning said that initial user feedback suggests that photographers will use the device as a ‘second camera’.
Though a UK price is yet to be confirmed, the 808 PureView is expected to cost around Euros 450, excluding VAT.
The phone?s software has yet to be finalised, according to Dinning.
