Photo contest against the Nokia Lumia 920 shows how the Galaxy S III and iPhone 4S shoot in the dark

By Daniel P.

Sep 06, 2012, 3:32 AM

Photo contest against the Nokia Lumia 920 shows how the Galaxy S III and iPhone 4S shoot in the dark

Nokia explained yesterday that what the Lumia 920 carries in its camera it calls PureView Phase 2, where a special emphasis has been given to improve on the Achilles heel of smartphones - low-light photography. This is in contrast to the more pro-centric Phase 1 in the Nokia 808 PureView, where the giant 41MP sensor is used for the maximum level of detail and sharpness possible, and lossless zoom capabilities.

The Finns had staged an impromptu studio yesterday, where you try and shoot a barely visible vase, which is just sitting in the dark across a peephole. The Nokia Lumia 920 was used in the video below to snap a photo of the vase, followed by the Samsung Galaxy S III and the iPhone 4S, which have excellent cameras by today's smartphone standards, but both fared much worse capturing the object at hand.

Granted, the AF assist light of the 920 shaped a picture, whose quality is boosted by many element not present on other phones, such as true optical image stabilization allowing up to 8x longer shutter speeds, a large f/2.0 aperture, and a proprietary sensor/optics combo built from the onset with low-light photography in mind, but still the results are impressive, considering that no flash was involved in the shot.

Nokia has been right so far touting the quality of its N8 and 808 PureView cameraphones so far, so we hope its first PureView phone with a modern smartphone OS will deliver as well when we take the retail unit for a photography spin.

source: WPCentral & Pocket-lint