Review of Nokia N95 – camera. Stills and video

Live photos of Nokia N95

Whereas in the first installment of the review our only focus was the music department, now we are examining the handset’s imaging capabilities, thankfully there is a credible reason for that, for the N95 is one of the first popular phone sporting a 5 Mpix camera unit onboard. The LG’s offering, as well as others akin to it, are not the options due to poor prevalence. As a matter of fact, we could even say that Nokia N95 shows the way the forthcoming handsets will look – over at Nokia they call it a convergent device, although we would rather call it a cross.

Nokia’s designers have absorbed almost all solutions employed by Sony Ericsson’s very own CyberShot series, adapted them and made a number of tweaks. This trend has been around for a couple of products right now, and there is nothing bad about it – the only thing that matters is that in the end consumers get a fetching offering. The phone features the now-standard dual user interface, meaning that in camera mode the screen is shown in landscape orientation while you hold it sideways, like you normally do that with any stand-alone camera. Thanks to its large diagonal measuring 2,6 inches from corner to corner, it bears striking resemblance to a digital camera. Here is an example I came up with after having a trip lately. While a decent yet large camera was hanging on my shoulder, I had Nokia N95 in my pocket, and the fact is, most shots back then were taken with the N95. Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? But in truth that vast majority of snaps were more of memorable scenes that I would think about or call up in my mind some day. I didn’t need top quality at all. It is quite another matter though, that nobody says that Nokia N95’s size is uncannily matched to compact digital cameras. The designers call upon our previous experience, as all of us actually can manage such devices, and they don’t put anybody off. And what is more, portable compacts as a rule weight more due to all metal casings, however the N95 boasts fair size/weight ratio. I may say with confidence that Nokia N95 provides users with experience utterly identical to what they have had before. Facing off Nokia N95 against Sony Ericsson K800, in terms of ergonomics, Nokia’s solution is a step closer to stand-alone digital cameras – it is all about display and shell size, these are the aspects that shape our impressions. It wouldn’t be the wrong thing to compare it with Nokia N73, as nothing has changed, neither the layout nor the rest. But again Nokia N95 allows us to apply the experience of handling digital cameras, whereas having a keypad Nokia N73 doesn’t share that general looks with stand-alone portable compacts. One could say that the above facts have a little to do with the handset’s abilities and don’t deserve being put into the limelight, but to me, these tiny details create what they call user experience and make people attached to a particular product.

The phone carries two cameras – the forward-facing QVGA unit can be activated via the menu, while the main camera starts up automatically once you open the shutter. This might be a potential problem, as should this mechanism break down, then you won’t be able to use the main camera. Though, this is the least possible scenario. The shutter covering the lens consists of two halves that barely touch each other, allowing for dust to sneak in just in one-two days, when the handset is in your pocket. While it doesn’t protect the lens from dust, the shutter does a fine job at preventing it from contacting other items or fingers. All dedicated camera keys are placed on the right-hand side, when the camera is active they are all lit in blue, which enables shooting in the dark, since it is next to impossible to confuse the controls with one another. The shutter key has two positions and is generally easy to use thanks to being not particularly tight. At the same time, the volume rocker, doubling as the zoom key, is somewhat small, which doesn’t allow you to press it with one finger. Or, better to say, it is very challenging to keep the camera targeted at one point and adjust zoom rate simultaneously, though I might eventually get used to that process.

Also, I have had almost no accidental shutter openings in pocket – it is not tight, but requires some effort to open. Again, such cases are very rare. It takes the camera about 3-5 seconds (3 seconds for repeated launch, if you have just quit) to start up. By default the N95 engages still picture mode, but video recording is always one key-press away (about 3-4 seconds more). Occasionally the time between opening the shutter and being able to take a snap is what matters the most, in this sense Nokia-branded products lag behind Sony Ericsson’s proposals, although both are beaten by digital cameras. For many, however, the start up time won’t play any significant role, as cameraphones are used mainly to snap some photos here and there, rather than to “catch the moment”.

Specifications of the camera are as follows:

Maximum resolution: 2592 x 1944
Matrix: CMOS 5.0 Megapixels
Focal length 5.6 mm
F-Stop/Aperture f/2.8
Focus range: 10 cm ~ infinity
Optics: Carl Zeiss
Auto focus

The first thing that catches your eyes is the missing macro mode – nominally, it does exist, yet the focus range capped at 10 cm makes it completely useless. Regrettably it is true and in most situations you will have nothing more to do but shoot from this distance. Optical zoom is also not on the N95’s spec sheet, but in truth it doesn’t make all the difference, so let us count it as an extra ability.

Though the greatest challenge we stumbled upon was to figure out what the N95 had to be compared with – a portable compact or a mobile phone? In other words, what should be the bench mark for its imaging department? In the end we decided to put it up against a digital point-and-shoot camera and other handsets, with doubtless superiority of the digital camera in mind. So, the opponents were Nokia E90 (shoots much like Nokia N93 and the N73) and Sony Ericsson K800i. The position of the portable compact was claimed by a great many of devices, though it wasn’t crucial which one to pick, thus we decided on Canon IXUS 750 with 2592x1944 resolution settings and maximum picture quality. Naturally, we decreased the resolution of this 7.1 Mpix camera to make the comparison informative as much as possible.

Resolution. Maximum resolution available with the N95 is Print 5M – Large, which stands for 2592x1944 pixels, in this resolution a snap takes up from 700 Kb to 2 Mb; also the user is enabled to pick one of the following resolutions:

• Print 3M – Medium (2048x1536 pixels)
• Print 2 M- Medium (1600x1200 pixels)
• E-mail 0.8 M – Med. (1024x768 pixels)
• MMS 0.3 M – Small (640x480 pixels)

Time required to save a shot in any of these resolutions is pretty much the same for each of them – 3-4 seconds if you have enabled after-shoot view. Or 1-2 seconds in case you are ready to take another snap right after that (in the latter case shots are saved from the buffer, thankfully it has multi-shot mode enabled).

Viewfinder, shutter. The image on the display while on foot matches what you get in the end, the camera doesn’t allow any distortions. The shutter key has two positions, first it has to be pressed the tiniest amount for autofocus to kick in, and then you fully press it to take a shot. The shutter sound triggers in a second or so, and then the display captures the image – at that moment we strongly recommend you not to shake the handset, as there is a high probability that the shot hasn’t been taken yet; this is indicated by moving objects, that change they location a bit. In sum, it takes the N95 around 3-4 seconds to capture a still image, therefore try to avoid moving the device during this period, as otherwise you will get a blurred picture.

The handset has no technologies for image stabilization, thus when shooting in vehicles, you might end up getting very mediocre images, so keep in mind that quality shots require some stability. A real-life example is pretty easy to find – shooting ads in trains.