Camera - Photos and Video Quality
Nokia 6 Camera
Nokia 6 has pretty much decent 16-megapixel primary camera that delivers vibrant, yet controlled, color output. The shots are not over saturated.
Nokia 6 features a 16 megapixels camera on the back which is autofocus and uses phase detection to focus subject. The image sensor inside has pixels of size 1.0µm. Lens on top has f/2.0 aperture while a dual-tone dual-LED flash supports the whole unit. When shot at maximum resolution, the images come out as 4:3 aspect ratio until you choose to take 12-MP shots for 16:9 wide shots.
If you have been a fan of Nokia’s dedicated camera shutter button, then we are sorry that the new Nokia Androids do not have that. However the software allows you to use Power button to open the camera app, when you press it twice and volume button to take the shot – I am not interested in that however.
So let’s just talk about the native camera app and the user interface. First thing, the camera interface is just simple exactly as we have seen in Nokia 5 or Nokia 3.
Camera App Operations
The camera starts with the viewfinder and three elements on the bottom – shutter release in the middle, video switch on the left and a gallery shortcut on the right. There are a couple of toggles on top row – right side. Rear/Front camera switch, shot timer, HDR (on/off/auto), and Flash (on/off/auto). As told, if you choose to shoot at the resolution above 12MP, you’ll be shooting at 4:3 aspect ratio, hence you’ll have the viewfinder accordingly.
In still photos mode, you get to choose from normal photo, panorama shots and beautify mode. While in video mode, you can set the speed of recording with 1x, 2x and 3x. 1/2x (60fps) when maximum resolution is set to 720p, and 1/3x (90fps) at 480p. Standard 1080p videos do not support higher frame-rate.
Settings Menu
As said, the user interface follows in current Nokia Android lineup. Menu has the options to turn on/off the compass, grid lines (rule of thirds), capture settings (auto/manual), shutter control (burst shots), watermark. You can choose whether to use volume key as shutter release. Finally you can set resolution for photos and videos for both front and rear cameras separately.
Watermark Options
Nokia 6 camera features watermark option to set on pictures. You can choose place custom text, weather, city, etc. The option lets you to place the watermark in different sizes and transparency as well as you can align them across the frame.
The option also offers to store both the only-watermarked images and the images with and without watermark. Latter option sure would take around double the space on the phone.
Manual Control
Nokia 6 also features the same Manual Control we have seen in Nokia 3 and Nokia 5 which is not what you think at first impression. It’s not like a full “Manual control” like we have seen in old Nokia devices or more recently in Huawei devices. It doesn’t let you choose shutter speed nor you can choose ISO of your desire.
Nokia 6 only offers to set metering (auto/evaluative/center-weighted), focus (auto/infinity/macro), white balance (auto/daylight/cloudy/shade/fluorescent/incandescent) and exposure compensation (full stop increments -2/+2ev).
While most of the things in manual settings above we usually see in most devices but the focus options are from the old Nokia phones which usually offered “infinity” mode to keep everything in focus while the “macro” mode lets you get as closest to the object as possible by the camera.
Photo Quality
Nokia 6 has an impressive shooter for its price. It delivers nice level of detail and sharpness is also good. Noise is remarkably controlled and only visible if go deep into image at 1:1. Contrast is also appreciable as well as the colors are quite vibrant without being too over-saturated – only for the price point, I am talking. Dynamic range is not that impressive though, for which HDR mode could do some better job.
Low-light shots show some noise but not badly. The images still have nice detail and sharpness. Colors are well managed to what your eyes were seeing. Some special environments with fancy lighting could also be captured with well-controlled color noise in dark parts of the frame.
Usually we expect pixelated image with a digital zoom as it’s the enlarged image of a crop portion from actual resolution. We don’t even bother to test that but a shot that I took of a monument from around 200 meters with the zoom slider full up, that photo impressed me on the phone screen. Normally you can identify the crippled pixels right on the phone when you take the shot but the one from Nokia was pleasing though. However here it is the shot that you can see in 1:1 size to see those pixelated edges on your screen.
Portraits are good and sharp. The last one was shot during the sunset, hence has some visible noise if you zoom in and look at ti. The first two shots were taken indoor with flash-strobe while the remaining two didn’t require any lighting in the bright sunny day.
Some closeup shots
HDR Shots
What better subject could be to tell the detail in an image, than the texture of the distant tree leaves. To tackle the dynamic range issue, HDR mode works well in Nokia 6 to brighten up the shadows while keeping the highlight clipping in control on the background.
Panorama
Panorama shots also seemed good with no loss of detail and controlled noise. No stitching issues, no exposure variation. The are good indeed.
Front Camera
Once again, the 8 megapixel front-facing camera on Nokia 6 is autofocus. It has a little larger pixel size than its primary camera – 1.12um. Lens on the other hand has an aperture of f/2.0 with 84-degrees field of view. Autofocus is literally plausible on the front camera, much better to tap and focus than the vast variety of fixed-focus front cameras around us. Quality wise, it delivers good contrast and pleasing colors. Focus does the job well in bright light but most of the indoor shots we tried were not accurately focused.
Video Recording
Nokia 6 supports up to 1080p resolution in video recording with 30fps which is not too great to tell. Higher frame rate can be used only with lower resolution footage. With 720p recording you can go up to 60fps (1/2x on the viewfinder) or with 480p resolution you can further achieve 90fps (or 1/3x on the viewfinder). What’s important is the quality of video you record and Nokia 6 doesn’t exactly disappoint. Sharp across the frame, contrast is good and colors are vivid.
Full HD 1080p videos ends up on the phone with the bitrate of 20.5Mbps and stereo audio at 96Kbps. 20Mbps means the video clip is going to have more size than most smartphones do with up to 17Mbps. Following clip.
You can download untouched SOOC video footage file from (One Drive 36MB) if you are interested to checkout non-edited video clip unlike the one embedded from YouTube above.
