[Review] Nokia Refocus – Post-Capture focusing on Nokia Lumia 1020

Taking pictures could be an awesome job for someone who actually love to take them but once taken, they can only view them or at most can perform post-editing in some software on the PC. Another element in a photograph is the view-point where a photographer is usually focused on. That point can not be changed or edited once the picture has been taken. Well, to bring that possibility for consumers to refocus after once the picture has been taken Nokia introduced Nokia Refocus that let you adjust focus point later after taking the picture.

Review Nokia Refocus

If you are one of those who has been familiar with Lytro, a light field camera that was introduced last year which actually does the same job for $399, is a camera at all that let you refocus later by touching on the screen. After that a various other software based similar job performers have been introduced such as “Focus Twist” and “Tada SLR” on iOS but of course with limited or unequal results however the first one is better.

On other hand, Nokia Refocus also being a software based version of refocusing later terminology works almost similar way of the Focus Twist – but in our opinion, in a greatly improved way. Nokia Refocus, after pressing the camera key or touching on the screen, analyzes through all the focus range to determine various focus points and creates a depth map. The process is officially called as “focus sweep”. It captures 2 to 8 images in a row depending on the analysis performed by “focus sweep”.

Review Nokia RefocusReview Nokia Refocus

The process takes not more than a 1 to 2 seconds, however depends on the light conditions. Once the picture is taken, it’s provided with the options e.g. save the image, delete it or share it over your social networks. On the same screen, the image is interactive where you can touch at various points and refocus accordingly. Another function is “colour pop” which is discussed later below.

Review Nokia Refocus

The picture will be available in your photos under “Camera Roll” album where you can directly share the photo (static photo) to various social networks and other sharing options as you do with regular photos. But sharing from “Nokia Refocus” app will first upload the full interactive version of the picture to their servers and then provides you that interactive link to share with your desired options. Interactive versions of our test Nokia Refocus pictures are provided after the break under Refocus Simulartor

As Nokia Refocus works with retouching a part of a picture, Nokia also used the feature to detect the color where on a part of the picture user has touched. Well you just need to touch the picture anywhere the color under your tap will be popped up in the picture while every other thing will go to black & white shade. The following picture is an example of that.

Click here for full resolution of the picture.

Another thing with color pop function is that sharing the picture via “Nokia Refocus” app will also upload it to Nokia’s Refocus repository where the refocusing simulator works the same way after you try to interact with it. When loaded the picture will show up in the same state as above but once touched a part of it, the Refocus Simulator will initiate the focusing function.

In our test, the color pop function worked great on Nokia Lumia 1020.

Refocus Simulator

Following are the test pictures we have taken with Nokia Refocus to try how it works. You click on a part of the picture to refocus that area.

Nokia Refocus’s Color Pop:

Download & Install Instructions

Nokia Refocus is not available for all the Windows Phone devices or all Nokia Lumia devices. Officially Nokia Refocus was released for PureView labeled Nokia Lumia devices which are currently Nokia Lumia 920, Lumia 925, Lumia 928 and Lumia 1020 which we are using in the review. Other latest addition to Lumia family is Lumia 1520 that also is supported.

Second requirement for the Nokia Refocus is to have Nokia Amber update on your device installed already. You can download Nokia Refocus from Windows Phone store or scan the following QR code to easily reach the Windows Phone store on your device.