IrishCarBomb

Has anyone else seen one or played with one in stores. I just saw the commerical tonight. The only thing I kept thinking was it's a bit of an over-kill.

Anyone have an opinion on this?

TheStigSC

The only opinion I have (just my $0.02), this is a huge marketing ploy. Full frame sensor DSLRs are usually not much higher than 26MP if even that high. That's plenty. Then they go and drop 41MP in a PHONE!?!? My buddy said it best: "I doubt anyone is going out and taking pictures for their billboard with their phone." Even so, I'd still take a full frame sensor with only 26MP for a billboard picture. Bottom line, imo, its a numbers game. People look and see iPhone with 8MP, S4 with 13MP, and this with 41MP and spend their money without a second thought.

jaor.s2k

IrishCarBomb

I agree with that 100%. Still being a windows phone though I don't think it will have much success. I actually found a random blog saying this is going to be the start of the downfall for DSLR cameras ... right.


Still can't wrap my mind around 41mp though... just why...

jaor.s2k

yeah, not even for dslr's, being able to have full control of how you want pictures taken and having ultimate quality isn't comparable to phone cameras. now the downfall for compact digital cameras, i would definitely say so.

and like it was previously said, just a sales gimmick. i remember when phones only had 2mp cameras, there were a few phones that were "centered" around their cameras with 15mp

TheStigSC

Yea, I think it definitely could be the end of point and shoot. Or at least the beginning of the end. I know Canon has some nicer point and shoots with lenses. Didn't realize it was Windows either. Now I understand what they were compensating for

UnkieTrunkie

It's all marketing - the 920 is a great camera/phone, but in no small part because of the quality of the optics. My gf* has the 920, LOVES it to the point where she's delayed buying a digital yet again,** but the second she saw the 1020's spec sheet, she just laughed: all the firepower, and not a good lens to be had.

I don't think point-and-shoot will ever entirely die; but could morph into something a lot smarter than it is now.

Oh, and the only thing holding the Windows phone back is the fact that you need to port apps to it. Otherwise, it's as intuitive and easy to use as anything else out there. I love the GUI - I'd be jealous, but they haven't ported herp derp app to it. . . yet.

*MFA Photography
**her main bailiwick is traditional processes - we've got nearly 20 cameras in the house, and only four of them are digital. Of those four, I own two.

jaor.s2k

i actually really enjoy my windows 8 phone other than the lack of apps, but that's exactly how androids were when they were coming out. so it's just a matter of time, i guess

IrishCarBomb

I'm wondering if Apple and Android are going to jump on the band wagon as well

atang055

From what I understand, it's a little more than just marketing. We all agree that having 41MP in a phone doesn't make sense, IF the images are produced and stored at 41MP. But their point is not to have higher resolution images, but producing better images using a different approach. Nokia uses pixel oversampling to produce better images, using a 41MP sensor to produce 5MP images – which is the default image size on the phone.

There are 2 main advantages in doing that. One, digital zooming produces far better quality images. Conventional digital zoom basically takes a 5MP image (as an example) and scale up the pixels 3 times (in a 3x zoom), then using some software algorithm and noise filters to reduce noise and sharpen the image. But at the end of the day, the image is not the true image you had on the sensor. With oversampling, you’re basically selecting an area on the huge 41MP sensor to do the zoom. There’s no loss of details in the image. Two, when you’re not zooming, you are getting the most out of oversampling. It employs many pixels to create a single super pixel. It greatly filters out noise and produces a sharper image, which should be most noticeable in low light condition.

There are other advantages of oversampling such as being able to shoot at a higher shutter speed because of the larger sensor, lower ISO, etc.

Having this technology on iOS or Android would be nice in the future. Since most people are not choosing their phones based on image taking quality only, I am not sure how far this will take off. But I bet Windows and Nokia is trying to level the playing fields a little bit with this proprietary technology since they’re falling behind in other areas.

Cheers,
Adrian