Symbian in Motion

It’s been pretty sunny in London for the last few weeks, while this may have been idle conditions to go out and take some pictures with my N95, strangely I’ve done exactly that when it rained today! Looking at it now, it’s probably a better situation as it’s great to take pictures when things are wet, you can get some great reflections with the water and the light bouncing off objects.

As soon as it had stopped raining I went out around my garden to capture some shots with my trusty old war horse - the N95. Even now after 2 years this old dog can still take some decent pictures. It just goes to show again how good this handset is overall - something even Nokia struggle to beat now. The N95 is a true legend in my eyes and will go down in my history as a defining moment in mobile handset history.

Well enough with the sentimental yapping and on with the show. Below are some of the pictures taken with the N95 using the close-up mode and everything else left to default. The pictures are untouched. (Look out for the wannabe famous Bee that flew in)

I have long been of the opinion that “camera phones” can never and will never replace good quality good stand-alone digital cameras. I still maintain that opinion. The quality will never be as good, the available resolution will never be as high, and so on. The usefulness of the camera phone - for me - is capturing random places in time. Situations that creep up on you in your every day life. In doing so however, it’s nice to have a camera phone that is capable of capturing a good photograph as opposed to a blurry pixelated mess.

This past Monday I snapped a picture of something on my N95 8GB and emailed it to a friend. Her response upon opening the photo:

Woh, that picture was taken on a phone?!

Sure, the photo quality is nowhere near that of a solid dSLR or even a good lower-end digital camera like my Sony Cybershot H9. When you’re out and about however, there are few camera phones capable of capturing random places in time better than the N95. Had I taken said photo with a lesser camera phone, sure my memory of the situation would have been immortalized. Sure, I could have emailed it across to my friend. Sure, she would have seen it. Would she have had the same reaction when she saw the image though? Would she have been able to see the sharp lines and great detail that the N95’s macro mode is capable of capturing or would she have just looked briefly at a dull blur and then moved along?

Just one of the many points in time each day when I’m glad I have an N95 8GB in my pocket.

After my initial post on the Nokia N82 it has been a while since my promised update and my comparison of the camera capabilities of the N82 versus the N95. Apologies as I have been very busy with a few matters. I’m sure you’ve all read and have been keeping update with the crazy Stavros and his mission to create the greatest art ever. Now have you asked yourselves why he is doing it using the Nokia N82? I mean why not the N95? It also has a 5 Mega Pixel camera and as most of his journey is during daylight, the Xenon flash will not be a factor. So why the N82? Is it a Nokia PR stunt? Yes, it would seem at face value, it is to promote the N82’s capabilities and good reason too.

You have to realise on paper yes the only difference between the N95’s and the N82’s camera is the flash, but in reality and looking into it in more detail there are some other differences between the handsets that make the N82 ideal and on the whole a lot better than the N95. For one the GPS seems to lock on a lot quicker than the N95, the camera is quicker to respond and adjusts to light and the scene quicker than the N95, in lowlight the N95 obviously doesn’t compare against the N82, but there are also other issues to consider when taking a picture; colour, saturation, white balance and exposure, all these are not mentioned anywhere in the specs sheets. Hence this is why I always insist on hand testing a device before making judgement on it, obviously there are handsets which are just plainly not good enough and don’t deserve the time, but when comparing fine details like these it is essential. So the N82 does all these things better than the N95 but you wouldn’t know about it unless someone told you or you found out by trialling the devices themselves.

If you are still not sure what I’m on about or plain just don’t believe me I have taken a few comparison shots in different conditions to compare the differences between these two devices, my Casio Exilim also jumped in too, just to make it more fun (it is also a 5 Mega Pixel camera). So how do they all compare?

Bright sunlight, very good conditions, neither camera’s should have any problem capturing a good picture, which is what we get. But notice the difference in contrast and saturation the N82 has in comparison to the N95. The N82’s light sensor is much better at auto adjusting to bright light due to the support of the Xenon flash, which would be useless if the camera didn’t have the ability to adapt. Obviously the Casio Exilim wins due to the distinct sharpness of the picture but it IS a proper camera.

Casio Exilim

Nokia N82

Nokia N95

Moving on to some close up shots using the macro mode and flash, it is even more evident to see the N95’s lack of support for bright light and a weak flash. The N82’s does very well in this instance, almost even capturing a better picture than the Casio Exilim to a certain extent.

Casio Exilim

Nokia N82

Nokia N95

I’ll leave you with one more example on how the software behind the camera also is key to what it can achieve, it’s not necessarily the hardware itself. Pictures are both taken in night mode with no flash, and with just the lights from the chandelier. Notice how the N95 struggles to capture the light and any details in comparison to the N82.

Nokia N82

Nokia N95

I have created a set on Flickr with all the different comparison shots unedited to give an example on the differences between these two 5 Mega Pixel camera’s. Head on over to the set to compare and see for yourselves.

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Late in the evening this past Friday, Bit-side announced the latest upgrade to their innovative application Panoman. In case you missed my review way back in January Panoman is an app that allows you to capture full 360° panoramic images with your S60 3rd camera. Pretty cool actually!

Panoman 3.0 provides a host of new and unique features that really take this innovative app to the next level. Unfortunately upgrades aren’t free but the company does report that discounts are available for returning customers. Here’s a quick rundown of the highlights:

• Improved Panoramic Capturing/Stitching - Panoman can now capture and stitch up to 12 frames at full resolution. This means that images can consist of up to 32 combined megapixels!
• Exposure Correction - Automatic exposure repair for a more seamless image.
• Perspective Correction - Panoman 3.0 employs an updated stitching mechanism that corrects seams between frames when active. The result is a much more fluid image.
• Color Correction - Changes in light orientation can affect each frame of a panoramic image as you capture it. Panoman’s new color correction feature helps blend the frames better resulting in a more constant color from one frame to the next.

Without Color Correction:

With Color Correction:

Click through to read the full announcement.

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Nokia Beta Labs has just released a new beta app that has most definitely peaked my interest. With all of the problems that people have using ShoZu, we are certainly in need of a good alternative and Nokia looks to be aiming to give us one with Share Online 3.0.

This app has some great features and sports a pretty nice UI in certain sections but it seems to be in relatively early stages. That very fact however, is exactly why Nokia Beta Labs is a great concept (and one that many developers take advantage of). Users get an early peak at upcoming apps along with that warm fuzzy feeling of being one of the first people to use a new app. Nokia gets free development guidance and a better idea of what their potential users are looking for. Win/win!

Share Online 3.0 potentially allows you to share your media via a variety of services/blogs/etc. Initially the app supports sharing via Flickr, ikibis and Vox. As opposed to being a mere sharing facility, Share Online is more of a portal that allows you to interact with a sharing service. With Flickr for example you can view your photos along with photos posted by your contacts and even those flowing through the public stream. You can view details, view or add comments and even subscribe to new contacts.

Sharing is organized a bit better than the Share It portion of ShoZu in my opinion, and everything is done on one screen. Enter a title for your image along with a description and tags. You can then alter the visibility settings of your image if you choose, and initiate your upload.

There are two issues that I’ve already come across in this area of the app. The first is a bug - when preparing my first upload to Flickr from my N95-3 the app would not allow me to add any new tags (’Add New’ on the left soft key does nothing). Since your tag list starts off empty this means that you cannot tag your photos at all. (EDIT: tag issue solved with a reboot - see comments) The second issue is more of an annoyance. ShoZu affords you the luxury of marking one or several items for upload and then performing those uploads in the background even after you exit the app. I think that this is a necessity for apps of this nature but Share Online does not allow this in its current state.

This app is definitely worth playing with and certainly has the potential to replace ShoZu as it is refined and more services are supported. Since my use of ShoZu is limited to Flickr uploads and the occasional Vox post, I would uninstall ShoZu right now if tags were working for me and background uploads were supported. I should note that the only supported devices currently listed on the beta page are the N73 and the N95. If you have one of those devices you should definitely head over and check it out! Then try to help me figure out why the app is labeled as “Pub” instead of Share Online in your menu… ;) Ok, after another reboot the app is now properly listed in my menu as “Share online”. Why is this app messing with me? :)

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