Camera: Purely PureView

In one case once again, Nokia has placed a strong focus on the camera institute in their flagship. On newspaper, it appears Nokia has grabbed the camera module from the Lumia 1520 and chucked it in the Lumia 930, without any major changes. Probable there have been tweaks on the software side, only nosotros're seeing largely the same hardware.

The "PureView" sensor in the Lumia 930 is a ane/2.v" 20-megapixel backside illuminated CMOS (i.1µm pixels), paired with a Zeiss 26mm-equivalent f/ii.4 lens with autofocus and optical prototype stabilization (OIS). Next to the lens on the rear you'll observe a unmarried-tone dual-LED flash, which Nokia rates is useful up to 3m. The front-facing camera is a 1.two-megapixel unit with an f/2.4 lens fastened.

The sensor has a native four:3 aspect ratio, although the Lumia 930 shoots 15-megapixel 16:ix shots by default. A quick swap in the settings gives you access to the full sensor, which captures 4992 x 3744 images aslope a 5-megapixel prototype that you can employ for quick uploads to social media. There'south also the option to capture DNG RAW images if you plan on editing them afterward, however proceed in mind these occupy much more space than the default compressed JPEGs.

When I offset reviewed the Lumia 1520 eight months ago, I was very impressed with its camera, especially in adept lighting. The competition has certainly become stiffer since and so, with the Samsung Galaxy S5, LG G3, Sony Xperia Z2 and HTC One M8 all focusing on the camera in i style or another. The Lumia 930 camera might not be a cut above this crop similar its predecessors were against the competition of the fourth dimension, but it's even so a very capable shooter in nearly all conditions.

When the Lumia 930 gets tone and white residue correct, images produced look accurate, well saturated and generally splendid. Vibrancy is a step backside the top-performing Galaxy S5, notwithstanding dynamic range is very good, and the exposure automatically selected is nearly always perfect for the scene.

Unfortunately, similar previous Lumia smartphones, the 930 doesn't always get white balance and tone spot on, which leads to dodgy images around 15% of the fourth dimension. The issue is especially prevalent when the majority of the subject field is greenish, with the Lumia 930 having a tendency to unnecessarily push the tone well into the green end of the spectrum, affecting the overall color accurateness of the epitome.

Putting metering issues aside, I was about impressed with how the Lumia 930 manages to take proficient photos across a range of weather condition. Smartphones aren't known for their prowess in cloudy, indoor or dim situations, but the Lumia 930 produces a greater percentage of decent images when the atmospheric condition aren't ideal than any other phone I've tested recently.

With 20 megapixels of resolution to work with, there'due south ample room for reframing and cropping images after they're captured without losing also much detail. The loftier resolution besides means that when downscaled to fit a 1080p display, a supersampling effect is achieved, providing a fantastic level of detail and clarity.

Despite the Lumia 930 delivering well-baked photos when downscaled, full resolution crops reveal that the camera actually captures images that are too soft. It appears as though a noise reduction filter is applied after the image is captured, which removes grain at the expense of sharpness. The softness is especially noticeable around the edges of fine tree branches and other hard edges, where y'all'd commonly await a level of sharpness above what the 930 provides.

Choosing to capture images in RAW DNG mode volition stop the filter from being applied, which in turn makes images slightly sharper at full resolution. However, the issue besides seems partly related to the actual lens and sensor hardware, which merely capture soft images. Chucking the DNG prototype into Photoshop and applying a slight sharpening filter can correct the problem, though I would accept preferred a non-software solution.

Capturing RAW images also allows y'all to easily change tone and white residue afterwards images are captured, meaning you tin can correct the Lumia 930's odd automatic metering. I prefer it when metering is done correctly the outset time – in fact I expect it from a flagship system – but the power to change it afterwards is non something you lot're blessed with very oftentimes from a smartphone camera, which rarely shoot RAW.

The hardware of the Lumia 930 isn't as suited to low-light photography as some of Nokia'southward previous flagships, packing small i.1µm pixels in its sensor and a passable f/ii.4 lens. Compared directly to the HTC I M8, which is a low-light animal, the Lumia 930'south photographic camera hardware captures just one third the calorie-free.

Yet, with OIS in mitt, the Lumia 930 is remarkably capable of decent low-light photography. Throughout my testing I managed to take a number of great night-time images, with the 930 using a combination of high (yet not overly grainy) ISOs and a slow shutter speeds to great effect. With a HTC One-similar sensor you'd probably be able to achieve fifty-fifty better results, merely hey, I'grand non going to mutter.

Some aspects of the Lumia 930'south camera software are outstanding. Nokia Camera, which is the default app used to take photos, gives you total control over many areas of the camera during the capture procedure, such equally ISO, focus, white balance, and shutter speed. Using this manual mode in the right conditions can lead to some truly fantastic results.

Surprisingly, the Lumia 930 doesn't come with a native HDR mode, meaning you'll need to get an app or 'Lens' to accept these sorts of photos. I find information technology quite strange that neither the Windows Telephone stock camera app nor Nokia Camera support HDR, considering many other smartphone cameras will automatically select HDR fashion when a scene has varying contrast. With automatic HDR in its camera arsenal, the Lumia 930 would be much more than complete.

Video recording on the Lumia 930 tops out at 1080p/30 (no Ultra Hard disk 4K in this device), capturing at 20 Mbps in Main profile H.264. Movie quality is very good, on par with still images and stabilized thanks to OIS. Occasionally the camera would exist a little wearisome at focusing, but other than that, the 930 is a very capable camcorder for the occasional video snap with decent audio to boot.