The Nokia N8 has received a lot of publicity over the quality of photographs from its 12-Megapixel camera, but the large sensor also makes it the perfect device for recording high-definition videos. To find out how to get the best out of the Nokia N8’s when it comes to filming, join us after the break…
The fact that the Nokia N8 has the largest camera sensor of any smartphone doesn’t just have an impact on the quality of photographs, but also helps a lot when it comes to recording high-definition video clips.
Explaining how Nokia manages to get such impressive results, Damian Dinning – the man behind the Nokia N8’s camera – pointed out that the Nokia N8 has an incredibly powerful graphics processing engine, allowing the handset to record at up to 12 mpbs using the extremely compression efficient H.264 video codec.
However, it’s not just the straight forward image quality that’s impressive when it comes to high-definition video, with the Nokia N8 also incorporating a digital zoom that Dinning claims is pretty much as good as an optical zoom.
Impressive stuff, but does it work? Dinning points out that at normal (1x) settings, recording HD video on the Nokia N8 offers clearly defined details, albeit with less sharpness than the stills the camera is capable of (due to the fact each frame will only be visible for 1/25th second).
“Between 1x and 2x the image becomes progressively a little softer but remains highly usable. But at 2x zoom we’re at a point where we’re simply downscaling the video. This means there’s no loss of resolution which usually occurs through the binning process. I think you’ll agree the performance at 2x is really stunning”, states Dinning.
Dinning went on to tell Nokia conversations: “This performance is pretty much maintained up to 2.5x as you can see where it starts to tail off a little at 3x which is pretty much the limit imposed by the original resolution of the sensor. This is why we’ve capped the zoom at 3x in video to ensure you always have great video quality.”
Finding it hard to believe? Check out the sample screen shots below to see the difference in digital zoom settings.
