I was wondering when someone will come along totally unwilling to accept N8 camera is not perfect.
Okay, Lets be rational now. I am not a fanboy of any brand nor I am saying N8 is the best you can get because I have it. Lets think together and decide.
First of all, I never said N8 camera is perfect
. Of course it is not, nothing is. And as for your Symbian doesn't have much developer support and Android and WP7 have better support comment, I agree completely. But if you are taking that in defence to say HD2 is good, I still disagree. Just as an example, I hope you can see the annoying pink cast in HD2 videos above. It is much more pronounced in the middle. And if you are saying some developers have made HD2 cam better, so it is for N8, you can make it much better.
I agree that N8 loses details due to compression and it should have compressed the photos less for even better quality. But as a matter of fact, even by compressing so much, it produces better images than all the current phones.
Lets start by looking at the real world performance you need. I will give just one example and you can check the rest of the photos yourself.
Look at the originals found in the links below. I have just cropped the image have written the camera names, nothing else and if you have any doubt, you can crop it yourself and check.
http://www.gsmarena....eview-523p6.php
http://www.gsmarena....eview-597p9.php
Now here is the 100% crop from both phones.
So do you think that GS2 is resolving more details? Check other Real World photos from the link above.
Now lets see the crops of photos you have shared in the post. Again I have just cropped them and have added names, nothing else.
1. N8 ISO High vs GS2 ISO 400
Exif data :
N8 - Shutter 1/67s ISO 799 ; GS2 - Shutter 1/58s ISO 400
Do you still think that GS2 is resolving more details? Just look at the remote controls, thats enough. And N8 is giving such a great output at ISO 800 while GS2 is struggling at 400!
Now lets move onto the other photos and
I will explain you what is the problem and why am I looking at Shutter speed and ISO.
2. N8 ISO 100 vs GS2 ISO
N8 - Shutter 1/15s ISO 100 ; GS2 - Shutter 1/19s ISO 100
3. N8 ISO Auto vs GS2 ISO Auto
N8 - Shutter 1/17s ISO 174 ; GS2 - Shutter 1/17s ISO 125
Now suddenly GS2 looks better in 2 and 3 right? Actually, No! Read below.
We all know that higher ISO means more noise because it is digital munipulation, not by the hardware. GS2 photos agree too. But wait, N8 is taking worse photos at ISO 100 and 125 than at ISO 799! Something smells fishy right? Yes, there is a problem, its not the camera, but us. This is where shutter speed comes into picture.
As you might be knowing, N8 has dedicated Camera Button, while GS2 doesn't.
Now, when shutter speeds become slower than 1/20s, our hadshake will be blurring the photo a bit. Now, since N8 has Two way camera button, if you try taking photo with shutter speeds less than 1/20, there will be inevitable blur in the photo, because your hands wont be stand still when you try to press the button (and sadly it is a bit stiff). You have to master it.
Now, GS2 doesn't have this problem because you take photo by touching the screen and not by pressing a button. Capacitive screens are so sensitive that you dont need to press anything and you wont shake the phone by touching its screen.
So please dont pass judgement by just looking at two photos, consider how they were taken and why a way better specified camera is behaving like this.
If you want to be sure, fix both cameras to a tripod, and take the photos else keep self timer at 2s and hold the camera steady in your hand. If then GS2 takes better photos than N8, I will apologise for spreading the wrong information.
I know this because even I had faced this problem while low light shooting in the beginning and I practised. Now I dont face any of the problems the above user had while shooting at low shutter speeds. You have to practice not to shake your hands while clicking N8's camera button when shutter speed is below 1/30s. If you master, there is nothing like it. And if you are in no mood to forgive N8 for its camera button during low shutter speed photography, you may consider this as a con.
So its not N8's sensor or hardware limitation or high JPEG compression, its user's problem. We have to know how to use it during low light condition. A simple workaround which the awesome sensor of N8 gives you is cranking up ISO. As you can see in
1, even at ISO 800, it is retaining so much detail and giving such a good photo with low chroma noise which even many of the mid range point and shoot digital cameras fail to give.
You can check the web for more shootouts and if anybody with N8 has complained about bad output at low light condition, tell them to crank up ISO or use a tripod or use self timer and dont shake the phone. Here are some shootout links for your reference which I could find by googling.
http://recombu.com/n...son_M15276.html
http://sgs2vsn8camer...-n8-camera.html
http://symbianbriefs...s-ii-vs-n8.html
http://nokiabuff.com...y-s2-cam-fight/
http://www.allabouts...meras_pitch.php
As for the XDA thread, I am not saying N8 doesnt have any problem at all. Some cameras will have unit specific issues and you can find such posts complaining about GS2 camera too.
As for your Engadget comment, they are a blog trying to get more clicks and hence more money by advertising. You can always see a bias in their blog nowadays so that more users come and raise their voice and complain. You can check the post below and clearly see that nobody could take such bad photos from N8. When comments started pouring in (even I had posted a comment), they just updated that their N8 camera had an issue. Couldn't they see it clearly before posting? It is all business.
http://www.engadget....-ii-nokia-n8-a/
AOL, parent company of Engadget brought some insane rules to increase web clicks and because of that many of the good Engadget Editors left it and have started a site called
http://www.theverge.com/ It is very good. Check it.
No doubt, GS2 camera is on of the great 8MP cameras out there but its definitely not better than N8. And of course, N8 is not perfect, its camera interface is bad, Shutter button is con for slow shutter speeds, its JPEG copmression could have been better. But even with those cons, it beats all the phones hands down. And I am talking about most of the scenarios here. There will be some conditions where other phones will take better photos. But definitely not overall.
If anybody still finds that GS2 camera is better than N8's, I rest my case.
@rtkomar
Shripad is a senior member with vast knowledge so you should respect his opinions.
And Shripad owns the phones he is taking about. I can't beat that with my experiences of few hours/days with friend's
Of course he is a senior member and I respect his opinions. I agreed about clunky symbian and bad developer support and bad camera interface of N8.
But that doesnt mean everything he is saying is right. I too own the phone and I can assure you, the problem people are finding during low light photography is just because of the stiff camera button and slow shutter speeds. It gets blurred. So better crank up the ISO and take photos at high shutter speed.
I forgot to add the 4th image of N8 ISO Medium vs GS2 ISO 200 Image. Here shutter speed is faster than 1/30s and you can see that GS2 is trying to increase the brightness and losing details. N8 looks much more natural and it resolves much more details.
4. N8 ISO Medium vs GS2 ISO 200
N8 - Shutter 1/36s ISO 398 ; GS2 - Shutter 1/28s ISO 200
