3 January 2008

Nokia N82 -:- User Review

Probably the most talked about feature of this device is of course the xenon flash, and I have to say that this was an extremely smart move from Nokia. The picture quality from the 5 mega pixel camera, and the xenon flash is just simply amazing compared to the Nokia N95. Don’t get me wrong, the Nokia N95 takes some great photos, it actually has the exact same Carl Zeiss CMOS 5mp optic sensor same as the Nokia N82, but the difference being the LED flash on the Nokia N95 just doesn’t cut it during poor or very low light conditions, making the final image result looking very white or over exposed due to the intense white from the LED diode, where as the N82 simple takes amazing photos in the low or poor light. this is even more visable on close up macro shots.

The xenon flash makes a huge massive difference in the final picture taken from the Nokia N82, as i will show you and try to explain a little more in depth into the xenon flash technology here on this section of the review.

Here is just 2 image sample's which i have just taken on both the Nokia N82 and Nokia N95 the same image, same subject, all the same settings on both devices. Light conditions were very poor. I think the images speak for them selfs.

here is just a sample of a macro shot, the left N82 and right N95. Both devices same settings, really poor light conditions
Nokia N82 sample. Click for original, or "save target as"	Nokia N95 sample. Click for original, or "save target as"

As you can see from these two image comparisons, the Nokia N95 image is overpowered with the intense white flash from the LED diode, making final image lose natural colour which is being replaced with a horrible white colour. And the final result on N82 is a much clearer more vibrant colour photograph. This is all due to the xenon flash which is able to emulate a natrual light source much better than the Nokia N95 which has the crappy LED flash, which emits a much more intense white bright light which is not the best ideal flash for any camera. The Nokia N82 has the very impressive and well known in many camera models, the xenon flash.

Animated Image of a Xenon flash lamp being fired. Click to Enlarge

The xenon flash is actually a very facinating subject, xenon is actually a form of gas that was discovered in england by William Ramsay and Morris travers in 1898. They found it left in the residue of evaporating components of liquid air. It wasent untill the 1930's that an engineer named Harold Edgerton began exploring strobe light technology for high-speed photography.

This led him to the invention of the xenon flash lamp, in which light is generated by sending a brief electrical current through a tube filled with xenon gas. In 1934, Edgerton was able to generate flashes as brief as one microsecond with this method. A xenon flash lamp is an electric glow discharge lamp designed to produce extremely intense, incoherent, full-spectrum white light for very short durations. Mostly all camera's today have electronic xenon flash lamps. An electronic flash contains a tube filled with xenon gas, where electricity of high voltage is discharged to generate an electrical arc that emits a short flash of light. A typical duration of the light impulse is 1/1000 second.

The LED is a semiconductor diode that emits incoherent narrow-spectrum light when triggered, the xenon flash emits a full-spectrum light, which is much better at emulating natural sunlight than a LED which emits narrow-spectrum light, and in my opinion, is just a much to intense white light from the LED, which really does make a huge difference in overall photo quality when taking pictures in poor and very low light conditions, as seen in the 2 comparison sample photos shown above. More samples will follow shortly.

Also, i belive the LED flash uses more power from the battery than the xenon flash, i did several tests using the Nokia energy profile application, and came up with some very intresting results. Here is some screenshots from the tests i did, note that both devices (Nokia N82 and Nokia N95 were the test devices) was both on offline mode and all settings were all exactly the same, and i even disabled the auto rotate function on the N82 as to make it a more fair test. I know the Nokia N82 has the better battery so its not going to be a fair test anyway, but i was trying to find out how much power the LED and xenon flash took and compare. Also, the both devices were taken the exact same time, i held one device in each of my hand and done both image (just took 1 photo on each phone) at exact same time, both tests were the exact same lenth in time from start to finish.

N82 results. Click for original size	N95 results. Click for original size

You may notice in the top right corner of these screenshots there is a number. 4:09 on the left image (Nokia N82) and 2:18 on the right image (Nokia N95) this number refers to how long a fully charged battery would last in hours and minutes according to the average power consumption. And as you see, the N82 4hours and 09minutes and the N95 just 2hours and 18minutes. Now i know this means nothing as the Nokia N82 has the better battery (Nokia N82 has a 1050mAh battery and the Nokia N95 has the terrible 950mAh) but still, this is almost a 2 hour difference in photo taking time which is quite substantial, allmost double time in fact. Also you notice the horizontal gray line through the center of both screenshots, this gray line is the average power consumption, and as shown in the images, the N95 is using the more power than the N82 used to take the 1 photo with flash. Also the N95 was running on v20 firmware version so both devices have the ODP (on demand paging) which also has benifits of saving power.

Im not actually the expert in this field of battery and power consumption, but from the small tests i took here, it does seem that the LED flash is using the more power than the xenon flash of the Nokia N82. And also makes me wonder from the leaked images of the Nokia n96 we recently saw, Nokia have not only taken away the great xenon flash which the N82 has, but instead added a second LED flash, thats right, 2 LED diodes instead of a xenon. Very extremly dissapointed with this Nokia, it is just complety crazy, i thought the great xenon would now become the standard in all upcoming n-series devices after the N82, what happend? its the 1 step forward with the N82, and then 2 steps backward with n96

Nokia N82 AF-assist feature Click to enlarge image

Another really great feature of the Nokia N82 camera, is of course the AF-Assist lamp which it has and uses really great for low light condition photos for help with auto focus. A short brief press on the camera shutter key shoots out the red AF-Assist light at the subject in low light conditions.

The AF-assist lamp is a great addition to the Nokia N82, how it works is very quite clever, and found in most high end digital camera makes and models, some will project a crossed laser pattern at the image subject, and others may project a white light at the subject. Like the Nokia N95 uses the white LED for AF-assist, but the N82 is much better and i found locks onto target much quicker.

The Nokia N82 projects a bright red beam which illuminates the subject you are focusing on when shooting in low light conditions. This lamp assists the camera's focusing system where other cameras autofocus will likely have failed. These lamps usually only work over a relatively short range, up to about 4 meters. Some lamps use infrared light instead of visible light which is better for "candid" shots where you don't want to startle the subject. Notable higher end external flash systems feature their own focus assist lamps with far greater range.

AF-Assist Lamp On Nokia N82 Camera

It serves a double purpose. Firstly it fires a beam of red light in low light situations (doesnt use it in daylight conditions, or good light condition) which helps the auto focus system to get a lock.

Secondly, when the anti red eye are enabled in the flash settings, it remains lit for as long as you half-press the shutter release to reduce the size of the subject's pupils and reduce the chance of red eye. You will also notice the red AF-Assist lamp fire a few more times on this setting, (flash settings, red eye) just before it actually takes the image, thus reducing the chance of red eye even more.

• Camera:

  • Resolution: 2592 x 1944
  • Sensor: CMOS 5.0 Megapixels
  • Focal length 5.6 mm
  • F-Stop/Aperture f/2.8
  • Focus range 10 cm to infinity
  • Digital Zoom: 20 x
  • Image Format: JPEG/Exif
  • Feature: Auto Focus, Carl Zeiss Optics, Flash, Red-Eye Reduction, Self Timer
  • Video Resolution: 640 x 480
  • Video Frame Rate: 30 fps
  • Video Zoom: 10 x
  • Video Format: H.263, MPEG-

• Secondary Camera:

  • Resolution: 320 x 240
  • Focal length 43 mm
  • F-Stop/Aperture f/2.8
  • Focus range 10 cm to infinity
  • Digital Zoom: 2 x
  • Image Format: JPEG/Exif
  • Video Resolution: 176 x 144
  • Video Frame Rate: 15 fps
  • Video Zoom: 2 x
  • Video Format: H.263

.:[ Nokia N82 - Technical Specifications ]:.