There’s an old saying in the world of photography that the best camera is the one you have with you. Usually, this refers to photographers who would carry around a pocket-sized compact instead of their bulky professional gear when off their job. The concept is simple: when an unexpected photo opportunity arises, who cares if you have an expensive SLR body with super sharp Zeiss primes in a Pelican case at home? A pocket-sized camera can be always on you, and sometimes, you have to sacrifice image quality for that convenience.
Phone cameras are awesome, in that regard. While the quality of your images usually takes a significant hit in dynamic range, field of view and resolution compared to most compacts, more and more photographers are using something along the lines of an iPhone 4S as their “walk around camera”. Nokia is looking to change that, with its new PureView 808 Smartphone, running the Symbian Belle platform. The device has all the makings of a high-end smartphone, including an AMOLED display with Gorilla glass, 1.3 Ghz CPU, 16 GB internal memory (and card slot for expansion), and a 41 megapixel camera.
Yes, I said 41 megapixels.
That’s not only significantly more megapixels than any other cell phone, its actually more than just about any compact camera and even more than a majority of DSLRs at the time of this writing. But any decent photographer knows that megapixels don’t make a better picture. That’s why photographers would be happy to know that the Nokia is sporting a larger-than-average 1/1.2″ sensor, almost the same size as the ones found in Nikon’s interchangeable 1 series or the new Sony RX100.
A comparison of modern sensor sizes (courtesy of DPReview)
The iPhone sensor at 1/3.2″ is the smallest size shown.
The larger sensor, along with the Carl Zeiss sourced optics, makes for a camera that may actually compete with some of the best outside of DSLRs.
The fact that photography sites like DPReview and prosumer video blog EOSHD are praising a cell phone for its dynamic range and optical performance speaks volumes for the exciting times we’re living in.
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