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Author Topic: Nokia 808 = Bye bye medium format!!!  (Read 18633 times)

Stefan.Steib

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EricWHiss

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Re: Nokia 808 = Bye bye medium format!!!
« Reply #41 on: February 29, 2012, 01:31:13 pm »

Stefan,
Thanks for the links.

Pixels aside, I think a lot of what's impressive about the 808 and that MFDB and DSLR makers alike could learn from is the user interface. 
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BJL

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Nokia 808: Toshiba cited as _the_ technological partner, AFAIK
« Reply #42 on: February 29, 2012, 01:54:08 pm »

The phone has a Coprocessor /numbercruncher for the image handling supporting the CPU- this was said to be made by Toshiba. If they also do the 41Mpix sensor - I don´t know.
The only information I have seen is about Nokia describing Toshiba as "its technology partner", apparently in the singular, which implies that Toshiba is the _only_ external source relevant to this camera. If you have other information, I would like to see it, but it would seem very strange for Nokia  to credit Toshiba in that way on the basis of the processing chip while being completely silent about another company like Sony providing the unique sensor itself.

So do you have any evidence pointing to any role of Sony, or it is just the common assumption that Sony is the only company wiling and able to provide a good sensor? In reality, there are numbers makers of  sensors with small pixels, for mobile phones and such; the photographic sensor market is far bigger than we see when we only look at "pure cameras" as opposed to cameras embedded into multifunction devices.
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PierreVandevenne

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Re: Nokia 808 = Bye bye medium format!!!
« Reply #43 on: February 29, 2012, 02:38:30 pm »

From 0:41 to 0:57 in the interview, Dimming says that they had to develop the sensor with partners (plural). It's of course a bit hard to be certain of anything with such an interview, but it has been interpreted on other sites as meaning that the sensor is not exclusively of Toshiba origin.
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Stefan.Steib

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Re: Nokia 808 = Bye bye medium format!!!
« Reply #44 on: February 29, 2012, 02:42:46 pm »

I already had searched for this info but this is not available.
So it cannot be verified which maker does the chip. I thought I read someone mentioned the chip being made by Sony,
but obviously this was just hearsay.

Regards
Stefan
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BJL

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Nokia 808 PureView's mystery partners in sensor design
« Reply #45 on: February 29, 2012, 03:04:48 pm »

Pierre: thanks for that. So Stefan I agree: the mystery continues. Maybe Nokia worked with the same un-named partner as Olympus did for the sensor in the OM-D E-M5! (And I suspect that the partner there is Panasonic, not wanting to acknowledge that a new sensor has gone to Olympus before arriving in a high level Panasonic body later this year ... just to confuse the speculation further!)
« Last Edit: February 29, 2012, 03:07:50 pm by BJL »
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David Watson

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Re: Nokia 808 = Bye bye medium format!!!
« Reply #46 on: February 29, 2012, 05:08:58 pm »

Yes!!! Time to forget medium format, why use it?? Dang, a camera phone with 41MP that should be good in studio for high end fashion shots! It is all about the number of pixels!!! Never mind DSLR, waist of time. My new plan is to buy three Nokia 808 and mount them parallel, thus bringing me near 120MP (less overlap). This is great! Will put money in bank and less weight to carry. For shots that require less than 100MP I can simply demount one of them, point and shoot.  ::)

For sure, in comparison the Nikon D800 E stands out as the joke, does it not???  ;).

Anyone else who will follow??? Please line up!  ;D

Best regards,
Anders

+1

Just part exchanged my H4D for a 67 Mach 1 Mustang in bright red, bought a white suit, a fedora, and a big cigar.  With my unlit cigar, in my motor and my 41MP Nokia I AM THE MAN.
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yaya

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Re: Nokia 808 = Bye bye medium format!!!
« Reply #47 on: February 29, 2012, 06:04:03 pm »

From the little I know, phone companies do not develop their cameras...at best they might draw the basic specs and contract the project to an external company (there are quite a few of those around...Aptina, Omnivision etc.), normally they just buy a module with its SDK and API's etc.

Lenses, if they are branded ones, come as part of the module and they pay for the badge (Zeiss or whatever)

Not saying this is the case here but I doubt that Nokia developed the camera or the sensor from scratch by themselves
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BJL

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Re: Nokia 808 = Bye bye medium format!!!
« Reply #48 on: February 29, 2012, 07:15:27 pm »

From the little I know, phone companies do not develop their cameras...at best they might draw the basic specs and contract the project to an external company (there are quite a few of those around...Aptina, Omnivision etc.), normally they just buy a module with its SDK and API's etc.

Lenses, if they are branded ones, come as part of the module and they pay for the badge (Zeiss or whatever)

Not saying this is the case here but I doubt that Nokia developed the camera or the sensor from scratch by themselves
There are several interviews on YouTube with someone from Nokia's design team that mostly corroborate that: Nokia participated in the design with unnamed technology partners (though the names Toshiba and Toshiba do float around), including Nokia setting the specifications for the sensor.

However, the interviews do claim that the lens in this case is a custom design by Zeiss for the special needs (higher angular resolution than any previous phone camera module), so I would not be too quicPk with the suggestion that the Zeiss branding is simply "badge engineering". After all, for a relatively high volume and low size component, it can make sense to pay for the best in design skill, and high quality materials. The lens design is apparently unusual, with five aspherical elements. Nokia also claims to have been involved in developing the algorithms for the custom signal processing chips.

In short, this is very far from an off-the-shelf phone camera module like the ones from Omnivision and Sony and such in so many phones.

P. S. to put it another way: the unit volume of lenses for phones like this can easily be a thousand times greater than for a good MF lens, or a hundred times greater than for a high end SLR lens, so that even allowing for the great differences in selling price, the total revenue from sales of one such lens design can be comparable to that for one MF or high end SLR lens design. Then it can make sense to spend a comparable amount on the design and other fixed costs associated to producing a good phone camera lens. Economies of scale can be a wonderful thing.
« Last Edit: March 01, 2012, 03:42:00 am by BJL »
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Stefan.Steib

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Re: Nokia 808 = Bye bye medium format!!!
« Reply #49 on: March 01, 2012, 03:27:10 am »

Hi BJL

you are right about the Economies of scale. Just the scale is even more impressive - if a company like Hasselblad does a turnaround of around 100 Mil € a year (I think it is less but lets assume this for easier calculations) and the average system price of  a sold Camera is 20000 € with an average of 1,5-2 lenses per system (which could be questioned maybe its 30000 and 2-3 lenses per system but I want to be friendly to get better numbers) then thereare 5000 systems sold with a max of 5000 lenses of the same kind (maybe the 80mm?) made for these cameras /year. See attached numbers for Mobile phone makers (here from Q2 2011) Nokia sold 16,7 Mill units - per quarter - Apple 20,3 Millions /quarter. Lets say the market has even grown since then (which is confirmed by the actual numbers ) and we have an overall sale of 100Mil units for e.g. Apples iPhonein 2012 then this is 20000 times more - for the more expensive and rarer lenses I´d guess the comparative numbers are more closer to 100000 times more............
« Last Edit: March 01, 2012, 03:31:33 am by Stefan.Steib »
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eronald

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Re: Nokia 808 = Bye bye medium format!!!
« Reply #50 on: March 01, 2012, 03:57:10 am »

From the little I know, phone companies do not develop their cameras...at best they might draw the basic specs and contract the project to an external company (there are quite a few of those around...Aptina, Omnivision etc.), normally they just buy a module with its SDK and API's etc.

Lenses, if they are branded ones, come as part of the module and they pay for the badge (Zeiss or whatever)

Not saying this is the case here but I doubt that Nokia developed the camera or the sensor from scratch by themselves

Yair,

 It seems you don't really know.

 Most phone cameras are bought in as you say, but I know of several "high end" over the years that have been custom jobs, with real lens design work done on them. As an industry consultant I don't think I should name names, but I'm sure your own industry contacts will update you if asked.

 Also, why do you assume that a product that sells 100 million copies or so like a high end smartphone should be badly designed or manufactured?  To the contrary, one can expect - and gets - superb design on the high end, and performance limitation may actually be mechanical ie. due to lens tilt or voice coil focus actuators.

 I just wish some unnamed manufacturers of medium format gear had been as good in the past at sourcing "standard" LCDs as the phone guys.

 To finish on a sarcastic note, as usual, are you really sure that on a pixel-to-pixel basis a Leaf or is it Phase sensor is better designed and fabricated than a Nikon D800 or D4 sensor or even better than a current Canon Rebel sensor?

Edmund
 
« Last Edit: March 01, 2012, 04:11:05 am by eronald »
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Martin Kristiansen

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Re: Nokia 808 = Bye bye medium format!!!
« Reply #51 on: March 01, 2012, 06:02:44 am »

But how does it perform as a phone? If it has such an amazing camera built it should enable us all to take better photos.

If the phone part of it, which we are all pretty much ignoring, is as good as the camera then I will get one. I expect to only receive calls from famous, good looking ,rich and intelligent people with such a good phone. I mean if it works for the camera it should work for the phone calls right.
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yaya

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Re: Nokia 808 = Bye bye medium format!!!
« Reply #52 on: March 01, 2012, 01:18:26 pm »

Yair,

 It seems you don't really know.
Thought I said "from the little I know"...
Quote
Also, why do you assume that a product that sells 100 million copies or so like a high end smartphone should be badly designed or manufactured?
Did I say that?
Quote
I just wish some unnamed manufacturers of medium format gear had been as good in the past at sourcing "standard" LCDs as the phone guys
When the Aptus came out 7 years ago most phones had a 2x3cm monochrome LCD...and obviously the IQ now uses a screen that is on par if not better than most phones...
Quote
To finish on a sarcastic note, as usual, are you really sure that on a pixel-to-pixel basis a Leaf or is it Phase sensor is better designed and fabricated than a Nikon D800 or D4 sensor or even better than a current Canon Rebel sensor?
Did I say that???
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Anders_HK

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Re: Nokia 808 = Bye bye medium format!!!
« Reply #53 on: March 03, 2012, 10:39:02 am »

+1

Just part exchanged my H4D for a 67 Mach 1 Mustang in bright red, bought a white suit, a fedora, and a big cigar.  With my unlit cigar, in my motor and my 41MP Nokia I AM THE MAN.

+1 to above!!!  ;D

I hate to do it, but need to make a serious disclaimer... for those of you who have not realized that there is no way the 41MP Nokia equals medium format even by stitching it ( ;D ;D)... I need to clarify that there is no way I am selling my Leaf!!! My posts above are obvious on joke side and there is obvious more than number of pixels in a sensor and in imaging chain, including the size of sensor and for specific what purpose it was designed. As such expect the Nikon D800/E to exceed the Nokia in image quality, and indeed medium format digital backs to excel in image quality over DSLR and Nokia, assuming of course we do speak of low ISO for which medium format is designed. Any discussion on contrary is pointless.

Not sure I would pick a 67 Mustang... but it would be something else a tad sporty  ;D

Regrettably (Happily) I am "stuck" with Leaf due to its very high image quality, but I also fully enjoy that ride. Thanks Yair and Gavin (HK).  ;)

Best regards,
Anders
« Last Edit: March 03, 2012, 10:46:36 am by Anders_HK »
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