08 August 2006

Camera

What to say here!? How to start!? I’m stuck at this part for a few days but I have to finish review and write something about camera possibilities; you see, honestly, due to to the huge disappointment it is hard to find motivation for it. However,, considering that most of N93 freaks and possible owners are the most interested in the quality of the build in camera and its possibilities this should be the most important and the hugest part of this review.

Well lets start with the the facts, 3.2 megapixel CMOS sensor, Carl Zeiss optics, Vario Tessar lens, 3x optical zoom, auto focus range 10 cm ~ infinity, macro mode, mechanical shutter, great camera form the factor, dedicated imaging keys.

Looks pretty impressive and extremely promising on the paper isn’t it!? Great potential I have to admit but terrible realization and so disappointing photo quality in the practice. Yeah I know there are lot of people that will not agree with me but I just have to be honest and say that as the photo enthusiast I’m deeply disappointed with the camera part.

Why!?

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Well, N93 pretends to be flagship imaging phone, successor of the revolutionary Nokia N90, it supposed to be the best imaging phone ever, a phone offering the best mobile video as well as the exceptional camera features that enable high-quality photos and the best photography experience, but it simply is not, not at all.

After one week on hard using and testing I’m free to say that Nokia specifications are very close to the cheating at the poker table; you could walk away with more money in your pocket but I’m pretty sure that you will never feel good about sharing your work with your friend. You see with N93 I feel exactly the same, I could impress my friends with specifications and possibilities but I’ll newer fell good to share photos and show the final result.

*click to enlarge

Okay, maybe I have expected too much, but what to expect from the phone with such a huge camera part, and such specifications!? To be clear I didn’t expect that it could replace my Hasselblad; I didn’t even expect that it could replace my daily Canon PowerShot but it is hard to believe that it even can’t replace my oldie 2mpx N90 in most situations!? In addition, I was surprised that Nokia N73 runs better soft and produce much better photos, for example it allows you to change the ISO and gives you many other different choices!? Another weird thing is the the fact that proto photos showed on Mobile Review’s camera review (Camera battle N93 vs. K790i vs. N80; sample 1, sample 2, sample 3, sample 4) are much, much better than the photos from the final product and I’m really curious how it can be possible!?

I’m still trying to figure out what’s wrong with the N93 but I’m afraid that still I haven’t right answer jet. First of all you have to know that resolution is not the only the factor in image quality. In order to make outstanding images, we need a good lens, good CMOS or even better CCD sensor, good software, good compression algorithms, good focus, burst rate, sensitivity options among all other minor camera features.

*click to enlarge

So where is the problem!?

1. First of all Carl Zeiss optic just cannot fail, it is the very good and very well know brand and I’m pretty sure that nothing is wrong with their Vario Tessar lens, it is a very good choice and the N73 is the very good prove for it, but the question is what else could be wrong!?
   
2. Well, it seems that optical zoom does not cause better photos, at least not in Nokia case. As you mighty know optical zoom means more moving elements, one lens for zooming and another for focusing and it seems that Nokia just didn’t found right way to control lens and the moving mechanism, it is more than obvious in practice, auto focus is very bad and it fails most of the times, sometime even when it shows that object is focused result is blurry or I’ll rather say terrible. Sometime I have to take up to 10 photos of the same object to get the photo that worth storing and it is the pretty annoying and disappointing the fact for phone in this price range and these specifications.
   
3. CMOS sensor; could be, I truly believe that resolution is not interpolated and that sensor really features 3.2 megapixle but also I’m very close to say that Nokia chose the bad one, it produces a lot of noise and it is not as sensitive as it should be, especially in lower lighting conditions. Actually, I’m not satisfied with the noise level even on the very good lighting conditions.
   
4. Camera soft; as I already said, soft isn’t as powerful as the soft that comes with N73. The N93 lacks some really important feature that such a phone has to have, it even has no option to setup ISO level, could you believe it!? In my personal opinion soft is one the most important reasons of the bad photos, maybe I’m wrong but it hasn’t all necessary features, it has very bad focusing algorithm and to be short it just can’t control to get the maximum control of the hardware on the best possible way.
   
5. And last but not least, buggy phone with faulty camera part.

In conclusion, some of the mentioned hardware issues definitely cannot be fixed, but some of the software issues should be fixed in the upcoming firmware releases. However,, I’m not so optimistic about improving photo quality and I ‘m afraid that it will be fixed only with their successor somewhere in the summer of the next year and I’m so sad about it.

I guess it is more than enough in theory and you want some real user experience in using N93 as the camera or video recorder, so lets do it.

.:[ Nokia N93 - Technical Specifications ]:.