Nokia smart camera features on the Lumia 925
Nokia camera phones have long been considered to be some of the best on the market and the company is arguably one of the few manufacturers that does not add a camera to its handsets as an afterthought. The Nokia Lumia 925 follows in the footsteps of a number of its predecessors by sporting a Carl Zeiss lens and an impressive sensor, but what are some of the other features available to users that will make it one of the best camera phones of 2013?
Lumia 925 Features
As well as featuring Carl Zeiss optics, which combines six lenses to enhance the sharpness of imaging, the Nokia Lumia 925 features an 8.7 megapixel PureView sensor.
It may not have the highest pixel count on the market, but with plenty of other impressive specs housed within this setup its definitley worthy of attention.
The 1/3 inch sensor and f/2.0 aperture combine to deliver excellent low light performance that can outperform virtually every other camera phone currently available. Although you will not always need to shoot in dim conditions, being able to capture usable pictures when the lights are down is something that snap-happy owners will appreciate. There are dual LEDs built into the rear to act as a flash and while it might have been nice to see a Xenon alternative, most people will not miss this. A 1.3 megapixel camera on the front of the phone is mostly there for video calls, although you can shoot video and capture stills with it if you wish.
Interface & Settings
Getting to grips with the basic interface for controlling the Lumia 925’s camera is easy, since it is consistent with the look and feel of the rest of the Windows Phone 8 operating system. You can adjust the ISO, alter the exposure value, switch the aspect ratio and change the flash mode from auto to on or off, depending on the situation and your preferences.
Touch-to-focus is a feature, which means you can select particular objects or subjects to act as an anchor for the focal range within a particular image. There are plenty of default shooting modes for those who do not want to tinker with the settings, most of which do a good job of matching their descriptions, even if serious photo fans will probably choose to make their own alterations.
Advanced Capabilities
With any Windows Phone 8 device you will find that the Lenses menu within the camera app will let you access some of the more advanced features which are available on a particular handset.
Because the Lumia 925 is being sold based on the prowess of its camera, it is good to see that this menu is well stocked with additional options that use software to bolster the array of things that can be achieved with the 8.7 megapixel PureView snapper. An interesting inclusion here is Bing Vision, which is effectively Microsoft’s answer to all of the third party QR and barcode scanning apps. You can point your Lumia 925 at relevant codes and it will automatically detect them and bring up appropriate information using Bing, without requiring you to actually take a picture.
A more creative feature is Cinemagraph, which lets you capture a video clip lasting a short amount of time which the phone then runs in a loop. This lets you store what are effectively moving pictures on your handset and there are plenty of adjustments you can make to your Cinemagraph projects, ranging from adding filters to adjusting the length of the clip. Cinemagraph content is made to be shared and of course with the impressive social networking integration which is offered by Windows Phone 8 it is simple to add your snaps to Twitter or Facebook.
A panorama mode is present and correct, letting you stitch a number of pics together to form a single, super-widescreen image that is perfect for capturing the majesty of the views when you are in the great outdoors.
Nokia has also implemented something called Smart Cam, which lets you fire off a number of photos one after the other and then let the phone automatically select the image which is of the best quality.
Most people are not professional photographers, but you can minimise the number of dud photos you take with this Smart Cam feature on the Lumia 925.
It also ties in with other abilities, like Action Shot which lets you blend several photos to combine the movement of a subject through the frame into one image.
On the flip side, it is possible to actually reduce the amount of movement in an image using this feature, so that motion blur and other little annoyances are minimised.
Photo Touch-Ups
Editing your pictures after you have captured them can be achieved using Creative Studio, which comes as part of the phone’s pre-installed package of applications. It has loads of filters to play with as well as other abilities which will let you touch up shabby snaps and make them presentable.
Third party apps on the Windows Marketplace will let you experiment further and it is easy to see why those with a need for a well-equipped camera phone will want to choose the Lumia 925 features as your camera smartphone.