Hirdetés
Our blog series of Samsung i8510's prototype now continues, in this part we'll cover the camera. Still, I have to start the post with a correction: the name of the handset is i8510, and its codename is Innov8 - I have referred to the phone as Primera in the first post, but this is the internal name of the phone, used at Samsung. I am sorry for the mistake.
So the machine has an 8 megapixel image sensor, which has its physical parameters unknown. Of course these are autofocus lens and there is a LED (so not Xenon!) flash to use for pictures in the dark. The highest possible resolution for photos is 3264 x 2448 and 640 x 480 pixels for videos. These can be recorded at 30 frames/second, but the phone can record slow-motion video (120 fps) at QVGA resolution, the ratio can be 1/4 or 1/8.
So the machine has an 8 megapixel image sensor, which has its physical parameters unknown. Of course these are autofocus lens and there is a LED (so not Xenon!) flash to use for pictures in the dark. The highest possible resolution for photos is 3264 x 2448 and 640 x 480 pixels for videos. These can be recorded at 30 frames/second, but the phone can record slow-motion video (120 fps) at QVGA resolution, the ratio can be 1/4 or 1/8.
Before discussing the settings I'd like to emphasize again that the handset I'm testing is a prototype, so it's not final, neither the hardware, nor the software, so it would be too early to sum the phone up, based on what I write here. Still, the camera's software is very mature, it has lots of settings, let's take them one by one:
- Recording mode: normal, image sequencing, frame, mosaic, panorama, smile detection
- Preset modes: portrait, landscape, sport, interior, beach, sunrise/sunset, autumn colors, snowy picture, night mode, counterlight, fireworks, text
- Effects: black and white, sepia, solarise, negative
- Image size: 8, 5, 3, 2, 1 megapixels, VGA, QVGA
- Settings: white balance, sensitivity (ISO 50 - ISO 1600 (!)), JPEG-compression (3 steps) light metering (spot, matrix, kenter weighted), software picture stabilizer, increased dynamics range, shutter noise, contrast, sharpness, saturation, GPS-stamp, self-timer (3, 5, 10 seconds), flash (on, off, automatic)
- Exposure-correction: +/- 2 EV in 0.5 steps
We can choose between the photography and video recording modes with a slider, which is not far from the comfortably placed exposure key. During video recording we can choose between normal, MMS-size and slow-motion video. Effects and frames can be used at video recording too. Here are the test photos:
I have intentionally taken the pictures in AUTO mode, as most people will probably use it this way. As the phone is not a final one, I didn't start measuring, I will discuss noise and sensitivity in the final review. At first look Innov8's images are promising, they have fine edge sharpness and wide dynamics range, and there's no trace of noise filtering. Noise level, however, is not the best, which is sad because according to EXIF information most of the images were taken at the lowest sensitivity, ISO 50 - this means that noise level at ISO 1600 is more than disappointing, but the handset is a proof of my "prediction" from the review about phone cameras about the ISO war going to reach the world of cell phones too. Another problem is that there is a very slight chromatic aberration visible on the images (5. image, around the wires), although this hasn't been characteristic of cell phones until now. It would still be too early to come to a conclusion: I am almost sure that noise-related problems will be solved thanks to a slight software filtering.
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I have intentionally taken the pictures in AUTO mode, as most people will probably use it this way. As the phone is not a final one, I didn't start measuring, I will discuss noise and sensitivity in the final review. At first look Innov8's images are promising, they have fine edge sharpness and wide dynamics range, and there's no trace of noise filtering. Noise level, however, is not the best, which is sad because according to EXIF information most of the images were taken at the lowest sensitivity, ISO 50 - this means that noise level at ISO 1600 is more than disappointing, but the handset is a proof of my "prediction" from the review about phone cameras about the ISO war going to reach the world of cell phones too. Another problem is that there is a very slight chromatic aberration visible on the images (5. image, around the wires), although this hasn't been characteristic of cell phones until now. It would still be too early to come to a conclusion: I am almost sure that noise-related problems will be solved thanks to a slight software filtering.
I can't say much about the test videos, here are the two files, the second is a slow recording (mp4 format):
