The Hard Talk – PureView Low Light Performance in Nokia Lumia 920 showing its worth against Samsung Galaxy SIII

Nokia’s PureView technology or a set of technologies has been in talks since before the launch of Nokia Lumia 920 when it was rumoured to arrive with 8 megapixels. And the big question was that how the PureView can be applied with 8 megapixels when the technology was supposed to do with pixel-binning to improve image quality as well as improved low light performance. But we also discussed the possibility of using PureView with 8 megapixels considering the recent statements by Nokia’s imaging head Damian Dinning. Now avoiding any more talk and questing the things about what just have happened, here we have the sample shots from Nokia Lumia 920 which were taken along with some other smartphone camera (as Nokia Conversations mentioned their post with the shots themselves). But we just saw the same shots in a video covered by Mobile Geeks in which the said shots were taken with Samsung Galaxy SIII. – check the official sample shots and our “The Hard Talk” section after the break – 

Video comparison Nokia Lumia 920 & Samsung Galaxy S III by Mobile Geeks.

Nokia Lumia 920 shots are on the left, while on the right side we have shots from unknown smartphone camera as said by Nokia Conversations but in the video (after the break) the same shots are being shown and are said to be from Samsung Galaxy SIII.

   

The Hard Talk

There is no Exif detail provided with the images so you are all alone to believe the shots. However the light maturity in the Lumia 920 shots are very rich to be from a mobile phone camera. Such a large aperture as f/2.0 is in fact there to get more light from those background in the shots but still we can’t say anything if there were some other light sources used for Lumia 920 shots for nearer objects. The thing to notice is that there are some difference in the shots from both devices. That’s the hard shadows. I am not making objections on the Nokia’s PurView technology used in someway to work with this 8 megapixels camera in Lumia 920 but the larger aperture f/2.0 is good enough with other elements to take that much light to produce such an image as shown in Lumia 920 shots above. See the back ground visibility and lightening? But what’s the objectionable part?

In first two shots the shadows are pretty much same to believe that the light sources used were could be same in both shots.

But the second two shots are showing completely different shadows on a specific object. There sure is a source light coming from the left (behind the tree) showing the shadow of it on the ground. And additional light source (a spot light specifically) from the front of the girl lightning up the face and and other body parts from her front while leaving the back side of the girl completely darkened. The difference can be easily spotted in the shot from other camera on the right. There is no light coming directly on the face of the girl when even the back side of the girl is having more light comparatively. So I’ll wait for the authenticity of the images to be true or more images on flickr show up sooner or later.

UPDATE: The second shots can be believed as true shots. I just watched the video(above) again and found that the shot on the left (Lumia 920) was “without flash” but the shot on the right (SGSIII) was shot “with flash”. A shot “without flash” from SGSIII can also be seen in the video where both the girl and the tree are hardly visible. So may be that’s why Nokia Conversation put the shot “with flash” (where something was visible) in their post and again didn’t remember to mention “with flash”? Go to 1:49 on the time line in video above to see the following shot.

Also check the PureView’s second phase in Nokia Lumia 920

[source Mobile Geeks, Nokia Conversations]