Over at All About Symbian.com, a very interesting read is the Camera Gritty Nitty series wherein Steve tackled several aspects regarding camera phones. Do unprotected lens' scratches really affect the output quality of pictures taken? What are the pros and cons of Led / Dual-Led / Xenon flashes in camera phones? Is it true that a camera isn't better just because it has more megapixels? Is there really difference between branded and regular camera optics? Head over to the articles to find out...
In the last part of the series, Steve investigated which among today's camera phone beasts really is the best? With the following devices, he made several comparisons and gave points in terms of effectiveness/colouration and detail captured: (Nokia N82, Nokia N95, Nokia N93, Samsung G810, and Samsung i8510). Here are the final scores:
Hmmm.. It's sad that the N82 did not win. But it's hard to accept that even the N95 triumphed over our dear N82 which leaves it at third place! The N95 indeed is a great phone, proven and tested that both phones capture outdoor shots with a very slight difference in picture quality. But with regards to indoor and night shots, the N82's xenon flash easily leaves the N95 far behind. So I think, as far as camera is concerned, the N82 is still ahead.
Samsung did a great job with the colors of i8510's images:
..though looks artificial, it's really pleasing in the eye. I wish Nokia will grant this to us as well (as an additional setting/option) on future firmware updates. And pray to God (O_o), that they grant us that long awaited fix on the N82's too much image compression. We have large capacity cards now, and Nokia needs not to be too concerned about us having 3-5mb for every pictures we take. It's what we really wanted, there are settings available anyway, in case users want to reduce image file size.
A couple of concerns I'd like to mention about the comparisons made, wherein the N82 could have won the series, (or at least against the N95??)
the toy car as the subject for macro mode i think is not that ideal for comparison. even a very minor difference on how the phones were held, or on the distance from the subject, while taking their attempt could have affected their performance on proper focusing, also add the fact that it's hard to get an ideal focus from such a subject like that car .. Or at least another subject for macro mode could have been added to have a fairer comparison. a textured wall, or cloth? or patterned stuffs? The n82 really does great job on macro mode...why was there no 1:1 comparison on the pic where the girls were jumping? The n82 sure would have garnered more points and a bigger advantage on that aspect.. hehe;)
I believe the N82 is still the best camera phone today. What do you think? It does great quality outdoor shots, perfect even for large print-outs, and its Xenon Flash is a very huge advantage, especially in a battle against dedicated digicams.. Samsung i8510 and the N95, both having typical led illumination, won't even stand a chance on night shots, rendering them almost useless at night.
Don't get me wrong, like any other posts by Steve, i really enjoyed that article. I think it really boils down to the user as to how he wants his camera phone to be. And this 5-part series.., sure another helpful guide for those in search of that camera phone they really wanted.. ^^
As for me, the n82 is the real winner! ;-) Thoughts and comments welcome!
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Has The Best Camera Phone Been Overthroned? Is The N82 Still The Best Camera Phone To Date??
Friday, September 26, 2008
Going To Las Vegas This Weekend With Friends And My N82
Hey everyone. Just letting you know I'll be partying it up in Las Vegas this weekend, and I'm taking my Nokia N82 along to capture all the moments. I've never been to Vegas and stayed more than 1 night - This weekend I'll be gone 3 nights, thanks to a great deal I got at the Hooters Hotel. I'm leaving tonight (Friday) and should be back Monday morning. Main reason we are going is because our favorite hockey team the LA Kings are playing a annual preseason game against the Colorado Avalanche at the MGM Grand called Frozen Fury. It should be a blast.
I'll be uploading photos and video to my Las Vegas Ovi Channel to share with friends and family here at home who couldn't make the trip. All of you are more than welcome to follow the channel. My tool of choice for photo sharing from my N82 is Shozu, mostly because it's so easy and runs great in the background.
The slideshow below will show all the pictures and video that I add to the channel over the weekend, so keep checking back if you wanna see some great moments... (May not be viewable in some RSS readers)
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Make The N82 To Stand By Itself - Great For Self Portraits & Timer Mode
Being a camera centric device, I was really disappointed when I learned that the N82 can’t stand by itself. You know, there are times when I need to snap a scene and I want to be in it! I want to be in the picture! I want to take a shot or record a video of myself, both hands occupied. This is easy with a tripod (which i don't have) and such but isn't it way easier to just place my phone on a safe and flat surface, set the timer, then prepare to put a beaming smile on my face. I can do this by far using most mobile phones like the N95 but with the N82, a big cross on the face.
That's what i thought, but fortunately, there’s a trick. Most of you guys might already know about this a looooong time ago, or even before the N82’s birth. But I just thought it’s nice to bring this out for all our readers. Mustis73's video on how to do this, after the jump..
Nice isn’t it? It’s a bit inconvenient but it works for me. I do this most of the time. What do you think? Do you use this trick often as well or do you know other tips to make your N82 remain still? Share with us! ^^
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
An Artistic Painter Finds Creative Ways To Use The N82 To Make Job Easier
I got an email the other day from a N82 user and professional artist Marc Dalessio showing off ways he uses his N82 to help him record his work. I love getting emails like this especially when I see how much the N82 draws in the extra creative people of the world. Using geotagging and time lapse photography (as talked about earlier at this blog), Marc is able to keep track of where he paints and show off his painting process in a short video.
Marc said,As a landscape painter I need to remember where I go painting, and can also pass the locations onto other painters, so I set up a flickr page with the best spots around Tuscany. Find link here.
I've also started doing time lapse movies of my portrait commissions, as before I had to remember to take the picture, now the n82 does it all for me. Here is the first attempt:
I'm extremely impressed at how Marc decided to "think out of the box" and come up with these ideas to enhance his painting experiences. Thanks for sharing Marc!
If you want to learn more about geotagging with the Nokia N82 click here.
If you want to learn more about time-lapse photography, click here.
To see more artwork by Marc Dalessio and check out his blog, click here.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Sharing: My N82 Hanging Out With An Old Man Who Likes To Get High
No no, I didn't smoke out my Nokia N82, but this has to be one of the funniest videos I've seen captured by my Nokia N82. I was hanging out at this great karaoke bar (like WOM World likes to say, "Rick Roll") by my house on Saturday night and low and behold this drunk old man gets on the stage and starts singing the "cuz I got high" song, and he did a damn good job. You don't have to watch the whole video cuz it's pretty long, just watching even 20 seconds of it will give you the point of how funny this guy was.
Check out the video... (uses flash, some rss readers might not be able to see it.)
This bar is literally walking distance from my house I had never knew it was there until the other night. Glad I discovered it.
And a few pictures from the bar...
The girls...
Me and my girlfriend...
And a pretty intense "thumbs up"...
As you can see the pictures taken by the Nokia N82 in the dark bar came out great. This is why I love this phone. If I would've taken a N95 in there these pictures would have came out grainy and lacking detail because of the LED flash compared to Xenon flash. One thing I regret is the video not having a LED light, it came out a little grainy. The N95 would have won that battle in video, but not photos. Too bad my battery died on me because I went in there with it only having 2 bars left. I could've taken lots more video when my girlfriend and her friend went up to sing Journey "Don't Stop Believing". That was a site to see.
Do you have any funny videos captured by your N82? If so put them up on Ovi and share them with us here.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Video: The Roller Coaster In Action
What a day we I yesterday. If you haven't already been there you gotta go check out Knott's Berry Farm in Anaheim, California. I've been there probably 30 times in my life and never stop having fun. Yesterday I shared the photo of this ride called Accelerator which is one of my favorites. Check out the video below to see out it works...
Awesome time if you go on it make sure you sit in the very front seat, it makes the whole experience 10 times better.
I really wanted to share the video with you from my Nokia N82 when I was there but my battery ended dying on me during the upload. Oh well my girlfriend was happy to see me finally put my phone away.
There's been so much to tell you guys about the S60 Nokia community right now. I'll be sharing some good links to check out from the past few weeks and giving you guys a few application reviews. I have my hands on a very good piece of new software that's not available yet (exclusive). You guys will love it so stay tuned.
Hope you all had a great weekend.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Nokia N82 Showcased On BBC News As A Tool For The "Supermarket Of The Future"
Now I've seen it all. A German grocery store has developed an application that allows you to scan barcodes of products your purchasing with the camera of your Nokia N82. This will completely automate the process of checking out at the grocery store. Once your done shopping and scanning your products you place your N82 under a scanner and the machine tells you how much you owe. Pretty nuts right? Check out the video link below...
Nokia N82 in the Supermarket Of The Future
Thanks to the reader Stefan for sending me the email with this link, which I originally read at Atmasphere.net.
This opens the door to so many new technologies that the N82 can take advantage of. What else can you see this being used for?
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Follow-Up: Time Lapse Photography & Give's Growth Part 2
Remember the time lapse photography video I showed you all a few months ago of the plant growing from just a seed? Well Ming Dao has created a new video showing the next phase of growth of his plant. Just like before, he used the Nokia N82 and took thousands of pictures over 5 days to show how much growth occurred. The music choice this time is Rachmaninoff's same piano concerto (no.2 in C minor) to go with the fast and twirling movement of the baby plant. See below for the video.
Click here to see the article by Ming Dao and check out his blog.
I still haven't got around to making one of these videos but if any of you have please share the link so we can see it.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
N82 vs. Samsung U900 Photo Fight! Who Wins?
If you haven't heard Samsung released a 5mp cameraphone with a LED flash. Before the release of the Samsung competitor the Nokia N82 was known as the imaging champion of all cameraphones. Does it still stand as king? Keep reading for a direct photo comparison of the Nokia N82 and the Samsung U900.
I recieved an email the other day from Hamidi from Mobile-Review Forums informing me of this photo quality comparison he's doing. He calls it the 5mp Stand Off. So far it looks like the N82 is really kicking ass in almost all departments, check out the images below...
Samsung U900 left or top, N82 right or bottom (depending on your browser). You can click the images for the original size.
As you can see in those images the Samsung on the left is too bright and is letting in too much light. The term for that is over-exposure correct? Here's another example of this...
Here is a macro shot...
In my opinion this is where the N82 faltered a little. The Samsung U900 gives a little more detail and sharpness.
And should we even try to compare night shots? LED vs Xenon...come on thats not even a fair game. Ehh, why not?
As you can see the LED flash of the U900 looks atrocious, while the N82's xenon flash gives off a nice warm natural light.
So who takes the win? Needless to same the N82 comes out on top with a stellar performance. Still the reigning king of photo quality on a cameraphone. Nokia N82 takes all the glory.
Ok enough gloating. Hamidi gets a huge thanks for this comparison. But don't stop reading here. You can find even more comparison photos over at his post at Mobile Review Forums where he even throws in some Nokia N95 photos for an even closer look at the competition. Click here for more head to head photos and voice your opinion.
This makes me remember why I'm a proud N82 owner.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Time Lapse Photography With The N82: Watch A Plant Grow
This has got to be one of the coolest N82 related emails I've gotten, not to mention one of the most creative things I've seen done with the Nokia N82. Time Lapse Photography is never something I've thought of to try with my N82 or any Nseries device for that matter.
Ming Dao Ting emailed me the other day sharing a video he made of a seed germinating into a plant. He was inspired by an article over at the Finest Fones blog and also Rachmaninoff's piano concerto no.2 in C minor, 2nd movement.
Before I say more, I'm going to hand off the rest of the post to him. If you have any questions for Ming he will be answering them in the comments after the article.
The Creation of Give Growth By Ming Dao Ting
Time lapse videography has always fascinated me; I mean, 3D animation is pretty cool, but messing with the 4th dimension (time) is way cooler. Watching nature at unnatural speeds is like witnessing pure magic. And thanks to the Nokia N82 (and any S60 device with a camera), it’s now completely within our reach. So let’s make some magic.
Inspired by an article by Finest Phones and the 2nd movement of Rachmaninoff’s piano concerto in C minor (long story), I decided to put my N82 to the test and create a time lapse video of a seed germinating. This was the result:
Time lapse videos can be made by taking a very long video and speeding it up, or (more commonly) by taking photos at regular intervals and making a video out of them. Here’s how I made mine.
1. Preparing the camera: The key is to set your camera to sequence mode, and pick a defined time interval in between photos. As my video was of a seed germinating over 10 days, I used 10 min intervals, but you might use 10sec or 30 sec intervals if you were filming something ‘quicker’ like a sunset, for example. Because I wasn’t planning to make a crazily high res video, I reduced my image capture quality to 3M (2M is fine too), making sure I had enough memory for tons of photos. Flash was turned off, and I left colour balance at auto.
2. Preparing the set-up: The key here is to make sure your phone doesn’t move over the recording period. You can use any suitable tripod, or be cheap innovative like me and chuck your phone in a crystal case and sticky tape it firmly to a surface. Whatever works, really. I also anchored every other element in the video to prevent any unnecessary moving/shaking. I then positioned the camera in front of the seed, taking into account where it would end up once grown. Because I expected the recording phase to span over a week, I had the phone charger plugged in for the entire duration.
3. Capturing the footage: Hit the capture button on the phone, and be patient (it’s the hardest part). I set the camera’s shutter sound to “on” so that I could hear whenever a photo was taken. If you wanna check on the progress, tapping the capture button lightly will bring up the last picture taken, with a little countdown timer at the bottom of the screen indicating when the next picture will be shot.
4. Creating the video: When I had gathered enough footage, I imported all the photos (1400 of them, over 10 days) into my computer, and inserted them into my video editing software of choice, Adobe Premiere Elements. I then created a 25 frame/sec video with each photo having a 1 frame time length, threw in backing music, and voila, a timelapse video was born! If you’d like a freeware option, MakeAVI is a simple application that converts images into AVI (video) files and will basically do the same job. I prefer Premiere Elements it gives me more options to tweak contrast and speed and stuff like that. And put in fancy titles.
And that’s pretty much all there is to it. The hardest part by far is the waiting, especially because it meant I had to go for 10 days without my N82 :( However the sacrifice was well worth it, and I must say I’ve come to appreciate plants a lot more now. Of course timelapse videography doesn’t always need to span weeks; here are some ideas (off the top of my head) that you could try capturing:
- Weather (sunrise, sunset, clouds rolling, storm brewing)
- Nature (flowers blooming, fruit rotting, fingernails growing - maybe not that last one)
- Traffic (busy intersections, peak hour, attaching the camera to your dashboard on a long trip)
- Events (setting up concert venues, crowds filling in seats, your 21st celebration)
- In general, anything slow that would look cool sped up (like a candle burning, ice melting, your pet snail, painting an artwork, or even cleaning the house)
So what are you waiting for? Grab your N82 and go make magic!
Thanks Ming. Be sure to check out his website at mingdao.blogspot.com
Monday, May 19, 2008
The N82 Captures A Jazz Band At The Bar
Saturday night I took the Nokia N82 black out to the Blue Dog Tavern in Long Beach, CA to see the popular jazz/blues band "Billy Watson". I didn't get as many photos as I wanted but I got some decent video from one of the songs. I am extremely happy with the audio quality I got in the video but this is one of those times I wish the N82 had a LED light for video shooting in the dark.
Check out the video below...
note: Some RSS readers may not show this video and the gallery below. View the full website to see this media.
I had a great time that night, the Blue Moon beer was delicious and the food was satisfying. The crowd was great and as you can see the music was solid. Props to Alan West and his great drumming. The guitarist kicked ass as well with some awesome solos and leads. The N82 black got many looks from people thinking it was a camera then realizing it's a phone. It put all the LG Voyagers and iPhones in the room to shame, especially when they couldn't get reception because of the thick ceiling in the bar. The N82 was one of the only phones working.
Below are a few pictures I took. These great pictures wouldn't look better with any other cameraphone. The xenon flash shows it's true power, leaving all others in the dust. If you don't have flash enabled in your browser, click here to see these pictures hosted at Ovi.
Have you taken your N82 out for a night on the town? Are you pleased with the photo quality in poor light conditions?
How To Silence The Camera Sound On Your N82
For whatever reason you need to turn off the camera's sound here's a small tip that will let you do this. I've found this useful when taking pictures of some text in a book I was reading at the library. You don't want the shutter sound going off in a quiet room do you?
Follow these steps.
Go to Tools > Profiles > Whatever Profile You Want > Personalise > Warning Tones "Off".
Holding down the # button will also put your phone in the Silent Mode profile which already has warning tones disabled.
Simple as that. All warning tones will be disabled including the Nokia sound that happens at startup every time you restart your phone.
Note: Keep in mind this solution will not work on North American N82 models because of some apparent privacy laws in the United States. There is a way around this but it involves changing your phones product code which is a risky procedure. Check out this article at Eric's Corner where he shows you the step by step instructions to changing the Nokia N82's product code.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Take Panoramic Photos With PanoMan
Photo enthusiasts rejoice! For those wanting to take Panoramic photos with your N82 look no further than Panoman. I know some Nokia N82's came with this application already, but most models don't have it. This is one of those commericial applications that is worth every penny if it works properly. Right now it can be purchased for 9.90 Euros. I've played with it a little and will be using it more extensively over the next few days. I was fortunate enough to get a test copy from the developer to try out and review for you guys.
There is a handful of new features in version 3.0:
- Exposure correction: PanoMan can automatically correct possible exposure differences between frames and so create smoother panoramas.
- White balance: you can adjust the colour tone of your panorama depending on current light conditions. This assures that white regions remain white in your final panorama.
- Sound: play a sound with every frame captured.
- Storage: store images on the phone or memory card.
Devin from The Nokia Guide has already wrote up his opinions of Panoman 3.0, click here to have a look.
I'll be adding a more detailed review with my thoughts on this extremely useful camera application. Have you tried it yet on your Nokia N82?
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Congrats! Nokia N82 Wins The Best Mobile Imaging Device Award
We all knew the N82 is great at taking photos. No other mobile device out there can be it with its 5 megapixels and xenon flash. Not to mention the Carl Zeiss lens. The software powering the camera application is also some of the fastest. But has the rest of the world acknowledged this?
Now they have. The Nokia N82 has just won "The Best Mobile Imaging Device In Europe" for 2008. This award is givin out by TIPA (Technical Image Press Association) - Europe's largest photo and imaging press association. Sounds like a pretty good feat if you ask me. Hopefully Nokia sees the success of this and starts installing xenon flash on more of their Nseries products.
Here is the official press release by Nokia:
NOKIA PRESS RELEASE April 23, 2008
Nokia N82 wins renowned TIPA "Best Mobile Imaging Device in Europe" Award 2008
Largest European photo and imaging press association awards Nokia Nseries handset for camera capabilities
Espoo, Finland - Nokia today announced that the Nokia N82 multimedia computer has been awarded the 'Best Mobile Imaging Device in Europe 2008' by TIPA (Technical Image Press Association) - Europe's largest photo and imaging press association.
"The Nokia N82 is a compact multimedia computer that integrates GPS, web, video and music functions around a 5 Megapixel camera with a high-speed, f/2.8 autofocus lens," the TIPA jurors said. "This Carl Zeiss Tessar focuses from 10cm to infinity and produces sharp prints up to and beyond A4 size. Several scene modes are also available to optimize the Nokia N82 for great images, whether shooting portraits or night shots," TIPA continued. Other Nokia N82 features highlighted by the jurors are the Xenon flash and 20X digital zoom.
"We are very excited to hear that the Nokia N82 has been recognized for its excellent imaging features," says Juha Kokkonen, Director for Nokia Nseries devices. "The Nokia N82 is an excellent example of how converged devices entirely change the way people contribute to and share on the internet by combining strong camera capabilities with built-in A-GPS and an array of connectivity features."
Taking advantage of its integrated A-GPS functionality and high resolution camera, the Nokia N82 automatically geotags images with capture location metadata, making it possible to view the capture location on a map either on the Internet or on the device itself. When it comes to sharing, people can upload their pictures or videos directly from their Nokia N82 to services like Share on Ovi, Flickr or YouTube.
The features of the Nokia N82 include:
- 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and Xenon flash
- Geotagging
- Possibility to capture print quality photos and DVD-like quality video clips
- Wireless LAN connectivity and HSDPA offering high download speeds
- Integrated A-GPS and access to maps for more than 150 countries
The Nokia N82 supports microSD memory cards of up to 8GB which allow the device to hold up to 3600 high-resolution pictures, 5 hours of high quality video capture, up to 6000 songs or all of the available regions for the Nokia Maps application.
TIPA was founded in 1991 as an independent, non-profit association of European photo and imaging magazines. At present, TIPA includes 31 member magazines from twelve countries.
What do you think? Have you had a better experience with a mobile camera?
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
We Have Built In Geotagging. Now What?
If you've picked up a Nokia N82 black or upgrade your original N82 to the latest firmware then you now have geotagging built in. What this does exactly is imprint the exact gps location onto your jpeg file. There are certain programs that can read this data and lay them out on a map for you or categorize your photos based on the location they were taken. A few include Flickr, Google Maps and Google Earth. I also came across a few PC based programs that have even more detailed maps that you can overlay your photos on.
In this older post from a few weeks back I talked about uploading photos to Google Maps and embedding them anywhere on the web. You can look back read that article if you want an example of embedding into Google Maps.
Before you start your own geotagged maps though you need to make sure of a few things. Go into your camera settings and enable record location. Then if your using Flickr to create the geofeed (the most common way) you gotta first go into the Flickr privacy settings and turn on the following...
When your logged into your Flickr, go to this page...
http://www.flickr.com/account/?tab=privacy
Scroll down to the area where it says "Defaults for new uploads" and you will see an option that says "import exif location data?". Click edit then click yes. Now any geotagged photo you upload Flickr will read the location data and allow you to put it on a map or give you the geofeed for embedding on other programs. Your geotagged photos that you have already uploaded won't show the location data, only newly uploaded photos.
Now when you go to your photo page you will see on the right side a "Taken In" line. Click the link "map" and you'll get just that - a map with your photo embedded. At the top of your Flickr page you can click Organize > Your Map. There you can find a full screen map of all your geotagged photos.
If you have a bunch of your photos from one even tagged you can view that tagged page and click "geofeed" at the bottom of the page. You will be given a link so that you can embed those photos into your Google Map or whatever map service that allows geofeeds.
Don't forget one thing though. These locations can be seen by anyone. If you want to erase the location data on a certain file look a few articles back here at the blog and read the guide. I got a few emails asking about this so that article should help.
For more information on geotagging with your N82 head over to this Howard Forums post where people are showing off their maps and giving eachother tips.
Have you mapped out your photos? If you have any you'd like to share, leave a comment below with a link to your map.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Freeware: Erase The GPS Location Embedded On Your Photos With Photo Detagger
With the release of the Nokia N82 black and the latest firmware update for the N82 titanium color our phones now have the possibility of geotagging all your photos. What this does is embed the exact GPS coordinates in each file so that you can later easily add them to a map for showing off your photos, just like I showed you last month in this post.
Well with this new feature comes a privacy issue. Don't forget if you leave this geotagging setting on every photo you upload to the internet can be downloaded by anyone. They can then view the exif data on the file and see when and where the file was taken. For certain pictures this can be a problem for various personal reasons. Maybe you don't want people to know where you live or where you were when the photo was taken.
One solution is to use a freeware java application called Photo Detagger made by Tea Vui Huang. I learned of this application today when I was reading a very informative post by Ricky at Symbian-Guru about taking your Nseries camera to the next level. What it does is strip down your file's exif data to the bare minimum.
Essentially what it does is converts your jpeg file to a raw format. Here's the exact descrption from the developers website...
With Tea Vui Huang's Photo Detagger on your mobile phone, you can now detag and wipe out all these tags from your photos before sending them out or posting it on the Internet! Previously, the only other way to do this on the phone was to use the phone's photo editor to alter and resave the file, reducing the quality of the photo in the process. Photo Detagger removes the tags without damaging the photos and in the process even reduces the size of the JPEG photos by about 3-5 KBytes as well.
The detagged photos will be saved to the "Images" folder of the microSD card with a "-001" suffix. You can then send out the detagged photos via MMS or upload it as per normal to your preferred photo-sharing websites or blog.
I've tried this out and it works exactly like it says. Only hassle is it can't dig into sub folders so you have to use a file manager on your phone or pc to move the image to the root images folder before Photo Detagger can see the file and do its work. Hopefully they will fix this in a future update to make the process a little easier.
Click here to download Photo Detagger for the Nokia N82.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Using Your Nseries Camera To It's Full Potential
It's truly amazing what these multimedia powerhouse phones like the Nokia N82 brings us as far as capturing beautiful photos. There is so much potential for this phone to make stunning images.
Most of the time though I find myself only using the automatic scene modes instead of customizing the camera settings to get the best possible picture. Don't get me wrong the automatic scene settings work great to get some awesome photos, but Devin from The Nokia Guide has showed us what a little tweaking can do to boost the clarity and quality of the photo you are taking.
Little things like keeping the flash on during the day (sounds crazy right) really helps give more light to parts of the picture that are in the shadows. It's common for someone to think since its daytime and theres sufficient light you wouldn't need the flash. I decided to try it out in the photos below and you can really see the difference.
Warning: These photos were taken with the Nokia N95 that I am trialing from Wom World for two weeks. The second picture would look even better with the N82.
The first photo was just taking by starting up the camera and firing away.
Here it is with the flash on.
Now you have more detail in the label and can see what the label says without blowing up the picture.
Devin also talks about other little things like autofocus and digital zoom. Click here to head over and read the very informative article.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Squirrels & Lizards Captured In Darkness With The N82
Hopefully Ravindra from Symbian Life Blog didn't blind these poor little fellas haha. I'm sure there fine. He got a chance to try out the N82 and shows off the xenon flash capalities - in pitch black darkness.
Looking at all the pictures on his article you would think there was a light on in the room. I had a discussion with Devin from The Nokia Guide today and we agreed how hard it would be to give up xenon flash. I was telling him that myself, living in the USA we don't get to take advantage of the N82's 3g speeds. I could opt to go for the N95-4, but there is no way in hell I can get good use out of the N95's camera in low light conditions. I take a lot of night photos so this is definetly a problem.
Click here to head over and check out the article by Symbian Life. It's very interesting as are the photos he took.
What do you think? Would you be Europeans be able to give up your 3g speeds to keep xenon flash? Or would you switch to a N95 with 3g and no xenon? I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.
I'm actually going to find out this question for myself soon. I will be trialing a N95-4 (N95 8gb with North American 3g) for a few weeks thanks to Nokia. I'll check back here with my initial thoughts in a few days.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Photo Sharing: Point Ferman Lighthouse, Sunken City, & The Korean Bell In San Pedro, CA With The N82
Today my sister, girlfriend and myself headed out to San Pedro, CA. to visit Point Ferman Park where you can find a lighthouse and something even cooler called Sunken City right below the park. San Pedro is located on California's coast. We also visited the Korean Bell of Friendship that was given to America as a gift from South Korea over 30 years ago.
As we all know "Storytelling Rediscovered" is the catch phrase that Nokia uses to promote NOkia N82. In this post I'll share the story of my day by showing off the photos I took. Ever since I got the N82 I find myself taking a lot more pictures than I ever have and then sharing them later with friends and family. Storytelling with photos has been discovered for me.
The map below has a handful of the photos I took laid out in the exact GPS location they were shot. Using Location Tagger the N82 automatically tags all my photos with the GPS location. Location Tagger is a free application still in beta that you can try out on your phone. With the next firmware update and the release of the black N82 this will be built into the phone.
navigate and zoom using the controls on the top left to see more pictures
View Larger Map
Using the new Share Online 3.o the photos are tagged and uploaded to Flickr with one touch upload where I can then grab the feed and embed the photos into the Google map that you see below. I can go in and add titles and descriptions to each photo to explain the story of the photo. The map is live so if I go back there tomorrow and take some more shots I can upload them to Flickr and tag them accordingly. The pictures will show up on the map automatically so I can share them with friends and family. I find this great for recording trips and vacations to go back a look at them later.
Technology that the Nokia N82 brings changes the way we view our media. My parents keep photo albums that they pull out of a closet to show off when people visit. Of course this will never go away. But now we have more options. I don't keep a physical photo album myself. Instead I'll pull up a map on the internet just like the one above and show off all the pictures that way. For long distant friends or relatives I can email the map to them instead of waiting years to see them and show off my stories.
I was going to write up a tutorial to show you guys exactly how to do this but remembered that Mark Guim from The Nokia Blog wrote a good article a while back ago. Click here to learn how to embed your N82 photos on a map then onto your website, myspace, email, etc.
In the slideshow are photos from the Sunken City, Point Ferman Lighthouse, and the Korean Friendship Bell. Sunken City is a chunk of a park and road that simply fell apart and into the ocean. The land is on a cliff overlooking the ocean and just gave way over 50 years ago. I don't really know much history behind it but it was an amazing experience walking around all the rumble that is still there. Of course its all been vandalized as you can see. Some of the photos of the bunker with the locked door is a place where the US military had cannons that they could shoot into the water since Japanese subs were thought to be creeping up on the West Coast. Not sure if they ever did get that close, but it's nice to know thatour forces were there to protect us during World War II. The bunker now just sits there for everyone to check out.
Making this slideshow was easy using Ovi, Nokia's new online photo sharing service which is also integrated with Share Online 3.0. There are also ways to do this with Flickr but I prefer Ovi because of the simplicity. To make the slideshow you just go to the Ovi Channel you want to share and off to the right click the link "embed this channel". You are then taken to a page that looks like this where you can grab the code provided and embed it into your website, myspace, etc. I couldn't use Ovi for the maps because they don't currently support geofeeds like Flickr does. I've contacted Ovi about this and they said they are working on it and it will be available in the future. Hopefully that means soon so I can do away with Flickr and their $25 a year once and for all.
If you have any photos of places or events that you would like to share here at the blog via a slideshow in Ovi don't hesitate to contact me so that I can make a feature article.
Friday, March 28, 2008
A Quick Comparison - N82 vs. N95 Camera Different Besides The Flash?
But how about normal lighting without flash? What about photos in a dimly lit room with no flash. Is there a difference?
Here is a chandelier with the light on in a dark room. Both photos are taken in night mode with no flash. Photos taken by Zach from Symbian In Motion.
As you can see there is a huge difference. The N82's picture lets in the perfect amount of light so that it's able to grab the details of the chandelier. The N95 failed miserably. As Zach points out in his post, this has to do with the imaging software in the N82 being better than the N95's. What else would explain this? They have the same megapixels and same lens right? Nokia N95 owners should be happy about this because more than likely since is software this can be fixed with future updates.
Click here to check out the rest of the post at Symbian In Motion. You'd find more N82 vs. N95 comparison photos and he even throws the Casio Exilim into the mix as well. Makes you happy and proud you picked up a Nokia N82.
