camera

[rich00cap]

Have to say I am very disappointed with the quality of the photos from the N95 camera. I have a regular digital camera that  has 4M megapixels and the pictures are so much better. Any other opinions on this or advice?

[N95Tony]

A dedicated device will always out shine the N95 - simply because it has been designed for 1 purpose...

The way I look at it is.... Can your 4MP camera make phone calls, send texts, browse the net or be used as a GPS device?

I think the expectations were very high for the N95 - after all it's trying to be so many things that there are bound to be compromises in each application / function.

[rich00cap]

The way I look at it is.... Can your 4MP camera make phone calls, send texts, browse the net or be used as a GPS device?

Good point, I just expected it to be better. I would only give the N95 7/10 overall though.

[donelson]

What I really, really hate is having a good lens, and a good CCD chip and CRAP software.

The over-compression of the images is UNFORGIVABLE.

I had really looked forward to Not Carrying my camera around with me, as well as my phone. BUT NO! Nokia had to screw up the software.

YUCK !

[N95Tony]

Well just to make you feel even worse... I've just updated my firmware to the latest version and I think the image quality has gone DOWN

I've only taken a couple of pictures (in the pub) and the lighting wasn't brilliant but the pictures turned out very "grainy" as if they had been taken my a lower quality camera phone...

[Chil]

  Well this is my first Symbian camera phone as I recently upgraded from a N6230.At the time 2 years back,I just missed the N6230i by a few minths after upgrading but in terms of the N6230 camera,I had no regrets.The pictures on this marvelous device was excellent for a camera that was'nt even 1 megapixel.To be honest,these pictures actually inspired alot of my firends to go out and get a digital camera instead of the old film based camera which required cleaning,etc.
I obviously missed out on the 6630,6680 and the whole Nseries hype as technology improved so fast during the 2 years with my N6230.

Coming to the point of the N95 5 megapixel camera,I have'nt owned a 5MP camera so I obviously dont know where the quality should be at.But all that I can say is its heaven having a 5MP camera in my pocket that I can whip out at command.Interestingly enough,I had a chance for my N95 to go one on 1 with a Samsung 5Mp digital camera and I must tell you that I was not disappointed.There were instances were the Samsung took a better pic but only marginally.In fact there were also instances were my N95 took a much better pic than the Samsung.
So far as I am concerned,I am more than satisfied with the camera quality of the N95.In fact even grateful, cos Nokia could just have stuck with slapping on a 3MP camera like it did with the E90, and you know what,the N95 would still be a great flagship phone.
If you think about it logically,you have all the functions of camera,video,etc in one device.And dont let me get started on the video capabilities of the N95 cos it is sweet....
Let us not forget that this is a flagship phone and the first super all-in-one device.Im sure that the N95 has set the benchmark for future Nokia releases.The N95i rumour is circulating on the net so it has already begun.If Nokia has raised the bar from a N6230 with under 1MP less than 2 or 3 years ago to the present N95 5MP camera,one can only imagine what the next 2 years are going to bring to us.............
I thin Nokia best sums it up when it says "Theres a thing in my pocket.Its one thing but its many things" or something like that 

[dieharder]

All i've got to compare the camera quality on the N95 to is my old K800i. To be honest the N95 sucks for picture quality, however at the moment im thinking this may be down to my own user error (getting used to the auto-focus etc) so Im prepared to keep trying with it !

[donelson]

No, the camera chip itself takes good pix.

It's the Crap over-compression that takes 5 million pixels of 3 bytes each ( 15 Mbytes ) and turns it into a crappy little 1 Mbyte or less.

Crap software. Crap.

[Gingagizmo]

All i've got to compare the camera quality on the N95 to is my old K800i. To be honest the N95 sucks for picture quality, however at the moment im thinking this may be down to my own user error (getting used to the auto-focus etc) so Im prepared to keep trying with it !

I'm just reading through some of these posts as I'm less than impressed with the camera tbh.

I agree with what I have quoted here, the k800 / k810 is a much better camera even tho it is 'only' 3Mp. The overall picture quality is much better and the focus on this is poor. I think that mite be as I'm trying to use the macro too close.

[mozo]

I must admit that I am dissapointed with the camera on two rather key points. 

Firstly the lack of a proper flash.  Coming from a SE K800i with a xenon flash the LED flash on the N95 is pretty much pointless.  From anything more than about a foot away from the subject you may as well not bother in bad light conditions.  Whereas the SE always manages to do a good job.

Secondly the camera software is not really camera functional enough for me.  Again on the SE it was set up like a proper camera.  Spot metering, full exposure compensation etc.  The N95 seems to be nothing more than a camera phone with camera phone functionality.  I know that it IS just a camera phone but considering the rest of the phone is so great I just don't know why they skimped on the flash and the software.  Even the N96 is still going to have the useless LED flash as far as I understand.

Its sad for me to be carrying around what I thought was the best multifunction device on the market and then have to borrow back my old K800i from my girlfreind because the camera just ins't up to spec, especially in low light conditions.  Even though its only 3.2MPx it still seems to take comparable pictures to the N95.  Maybe beacuse of the huge compression on the images.

Overall the camera is possibly the one thing on the phone that might make me look around for something better which is a shame as the rest of it is so damn good!

[N95Tony]

Someone has just done an interesting comparrison between LED and Xenon flash's on camera phones - I cannot remember where I saw it but I will dig out the link for you later...

Basically the LED phone produced better images in nearly all conditions - this was due to the Xenon flash being a "big bang or nothing" solution - lot's of bright white spot's on the images and major flash-back on any reflective surfaces.

Sure the single LED flash isn't great - as you rightly pointed out, at distance it's pointless... but at the end of the day it's a phone... As I keep pointing out to people the N95's camera will never replace a half decent digital camera, but when was the last time you could chat to your friends, send SMS messages, listen to the radio and find your way via Sat Nav on your digital camera 

[Gingagizmo]

I know what you are saying there Tony but the K800 / 810 camera and flash is a lot better in my experience (and easier to use) than the 95. In a pitch black room, the 810 did pictures that looked like they were taken in the day, whereas the 95 had a bright band in the middle but darkened to the edges. For the camera part alone, I still think the K810 has it but for the rest of the stuff the n95 has, it beats the K810. Partly due to I like the slider part, and will even more when I can get Slidehangup signed, but mostly due to the quality of the video recording. Overall the 95 is a better phone but I still think the K810 takes better still pictures.

[N95Tony]

The new N96 (released later this year) will feature DUAL LED's for increased lighting and LED light on video recording - instead of that weird red light that the N95's have 

It may be worth your while upgrading to the N96 as it supposed to be a better camera setup - the dual LED's flash slightly staggered to reduce red eye for example...

[smallfish]

I had really looked forward to Not Carrying my camera around with me, as well as my phone. BUT NO! Nokia had to screw up the software.