I'm a photographer, maybe you saw that from my N86 unboxing, so the camera on my phone is pretty much a replacement for a compact camera without having to lug around my full SLR body, lenses and flash. So... I needed to see how the camera actually performed. Not crap reviews like people who are so called "technology journalists," saying that one camera is better than another because the colors are more vivid. No, I don't care about that. I care about the pictures a camera produces. Anyway, I'm going to go over a few of the issues that anyone who is serious about using their N86's camera. So, I'll just begin then.

Overall Impressions.
The N86 has a good camera, for a cell phone. In my opinion, it's still not going to replace your compact camera, but it will cover pretty much everything you need without having to lug around another device. It covers my needs just fine.

Exposure and Metering.
Metering seems to be centerweighted. Not matrix, at least, on the modes I tested it on. I'm not sure if this will change in the future. Shouldn't really matter to most users anyway.

Flash.
If you're going to be shooting LOTS low-light situations, you're still gonna want something with xenon flash. The exposure time needed for LEDs just isn't fast enough to freeze action. At this focal length though, camera shake is less of an issue, but still is a major factor when trying to get a decent photo. Exposure length depends on the distance away from the phone and the amount of ambient light. If you want the picture to be sharper, you get close to the flash because the light won't fall off as fast. Pictures of my room in complete darkness can end up blurry, while a photo of a gridsheet can be exposed at 1/200", pretty much stopping all camera shake.

Sharpness.
In my opinion(and many photographers) the most important factor of any photo is sharpness. I'll just jump right into photos here...

So here's the full image:

(click for full size)

Here's 100% crop:

As you can see, it's pretty sharp, but the issue here is seemingly jagged edges. I really wonder if the "8 megapixels" is done though interpolation. It wouldn't suprise me, but it could also be the compression algorithm that Nokia uses. Who knows. We'll see if this is improved as new firmware is released.


Here's a link to full-size of grid paper(not the best subject for sharpness testing, but it shows that the frame doesn't get super noticeably softer in the edges of the frame. Don't mind the dark edges, it's not light fall off. It's the LED flash falloff. Also, notice the slight amount of barrel distortion. A bit disappointing for fixed length lens, but really nothing I wouldn't expect at this focal length.

Bokeh.
This really doesn't matter, but it gives good insight into the quality of a lens. Bokeh isn't a huge issue anyway because you will always have a HUGE depth of field on a sensor this small with a focal length of roughly 28mm(on 35mm format).

Here's a 100% crop of a bokeh example:

Ugly to say the least. Doughnuts and harsh edges everywhere. So yeah, not exactly quality optics, but you won't see much bokeh anyway, for the reasons I already mentioned. The actual focal length on this lens is 4.6mm. Gotta remember the sensor is super small, which is the reason it doesn't look like an ultrawide or fisheye. In terms of "crop size" this sensor is about a 6x crop sensor versus a 35mm frame. To put it in perspective, most DSLRs are ~1.5X crop. The sensor on this camera is roughly 4mm x 6mm.

Sunstars and Ghosts.
While we're on things that don't really matter, I'll go ahead and get this out of the way. Sunstars are... not really existent. There is often too much glare to even make out what they look like. From what I understand it's basically just the fact that the optics are all plastic. Ghosts are a bit more noticeable, but not an issue unless the sun is in the frame. Since this isn't a zoom lens, not much light outside the frame is going to find it's way into the photo. I should note as well that there aren't that many ghosts because there isn't much plastic for the light to bounce around on.

Here are a few examples. As before, click for full size.



**Notice in the second frame the vast difference in exposure. It's frames like these that make me think center-weighted metering.**

Here's a frame with the sun just out of the frame.

As you can see, the ghosts here are almost undetectable. Fixed focal length can be good in some instances.



I'll be posting a second part, which I'll amend to the end of this post. The second part will cover ISO performance and dynamic range. Please let me know if there is anything else you'd like to see, or something I need to change. I hope someone finds this useful.

There is a camera mod available on symbian-freak that has made my n97 a much better camera. I posted in the "lets see photos you've taken with your s60" and i posted full size 5mp pictures, and at 100% zoom they look very good on a small sharp angle. I am not sure if it is available for the n86, but it helped my phone out a lot.

Do you have a link to the mod?

OT: Nice in depth review, although it's too technical for me.

They changed their forum so I need to find it. Once I do i'll post it.

EDIT: It is on 4shared.com. You need to hack the phone to do it. I will keep looking for the post on symbian freak. Just search camera mod.

:P I'll just say, those trying to get better LED flash "stoppage" should try holding it closer to the subject. It's just something that is brutally obvious to me after using the device a few days, and technically speaking, makes total sense. If there is only one thing you take away from the review, it's that.


sounds good.

Here are 2 pictures i just took. had flash on, and night mode. put the exposure to +1.

http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/158/09272009063.jpg http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/9724/09272009062.jpg

The focus is in the middle of Abe for the most part.

Gotcha I'm still torn betwee the n86 and n97, grrr.


A while ago I pointed out a mod for the N85 cam. I think we are talking about the same thing? Basically you hack the phone and reduce the JPG compression as much as possible. That way the photos taken won't be compressed as much, resulting in a more detailed picture with a larger file size.

Yup, that is exactly what the mod is. It is for all the phones. It works out so much better.

Here is a link to the tutorial, you must have a hacked phone for it to work though. It does improve picture quality, but its no N82. I was at a wedding this weekend and brought my N82 with just to take pictures, because of the lack of xenon (mainly to "stop" motion for candid-type shots). Does anybody have v20 firmware on their N86 yet? How big of an improvement in picture quality are we talking about?

http://www.symbian-freak.com/forum/...php?f=6&t=37150

Very nice review!

Did you take any indoor/moving pictures -- things that would gauge the lens speed, shutter time, ISO, and the flash?

Did you look at any other phones besides the N86? (I.e. how does it fare against other N-series devices like the N82/N95/N96/N85/N97..)? How about some non-Nokias (e.g. the SE C905, Samsung Pixon, etc)?

In either case, looking forward to part 2.

Looking foreward for Part II
Some pics from my N86

Hey waiting for part 2 . Please try to update this thread after v20 firmware.

After the stupid update to v20.115 the Autofocus doesn't work that good for objects more then 20 meters away. Your photos might be completely unfucussed Face detection is a nice optical gimmick bu usefull...

Only white balance in flash photos has improved. But like with the older firmware 50% of my photos made with flash are blurry cause of the slightest movement of my hands or of the objects. They have to improve shutter speed.

For me with v20 it photography got worse because of the unusefull autofocus

Never had such unfocussed fotos like this, and I took more then 900 with v11.xxx

djmuzi,
Have you tried doing a hard reset (*#7370#) after the update to v20? I have found that this helps when I updated my N82 to v20 and v31. It defeats the purpose of the "user data preservation" feature, but may help with some of the bugs you are experiencing. Just be sure to back up all your data, contacts, etc. on the phone's internal memory.

awesome review OP. Keep it up, I like this kind of detail.