Disqus - Latest Comments for JamesBurland

Re: Camera head to head: Lumia 950 XL vs iPhone XS Max

JamesBurland — Tue, 25 Sep 2018 12:37:17 -0000

Spot on Steve! It's quite stunning just how well the PureView technology jumped ahead of the pack in 2012. And you know, even though I totally agree with your conclusion, those PureView shots have a real purity to them.

Re: Exploring the Megapixel myth: 2015 Edition - finding the sweet spot

JamesBurland — Thu, 06 Aug 2015 04:21:59 -0000

It's interesting to explore this topic every few years, as I believe you have done on this very site since at least since 2008.

The big factor to consider is the relationship between the display technology and the camera technology. They are of course, inextricably linked. 8MP is a great target to aim for, but what happens if you want to zoom in to see individual faces in a wedding photo on your 4K TV? I would say that to really be certain of maxing out the pixels on a 4K TV – plus allowing some fairly tame zooming while reviewing your photos – you really need a good 32 million pixels. Incidentally, it's for this reason that I mostly shot 808 photos at 38MP.

Sure, if you don't yet have a 4K TV and you've not printing your shots out at A2 or larger, 8MP is a good fit. But 90% of people reading this article will have a large 4K TV within the next 5 years.

The upshot of all that – for me at least – is that we are most certainly not there yet, but we're getting close. At least at 16MP you can show those photos on your 4K TV and still have some options for zooming without losing detail, with 8MP stills, the very minute you zoom, you lose!

That brings me to the elephant in the room (I hate that phrase, but it really does fit this time). The iMac 5K has a display resolution of 14.7MP. Are you sure that you can wholeheartedly recommend that 8MP is good enough when we've had consumer displays with nearly double that resolution since 2014?

Of course, as you mention many times there is more to a great photo than raw pixel detail. However, it does play a large part. Not the largest, as that has to be composition. Perhaps not even number two, as that is almost certainly colour accuracy/dynamic range, but it's probably number 3, and that makes it important.

Thanks for another thought provoking article Steve! It's great to ponder these things from time-to-time.

Re: So long and thanks for all the iOS

JamesBurland — Thu, 23 Jul 2015 16:19:47 -0000

It'll soon be 4 years since this site closed. I think it might be time to relaunch it!

Re: Video capture comparison: Lumia 930 vs Galaxy Note 4

JamesBurland — Thu, 11 Dec 2014 17:43:08 -0000

The 1080p footage from the Note 4 is superb, but it's that fully stabilised 4K that really impresses. Plus, it's future proofing in a very meaningful way.

Re: Movie Maker 8.1

JamesBurland — Wed, 21 May 2014 04:18:15 -0000

Just a couple of things. How fast is the 1080p final render on 1020, could you test it by saving a minutes worth of edited 1080p video and timing it? Also, I don't own a 1020, but is all 1020 video like this? There seems to be so much focus hunting and frame warping... very annoying. I know the 1020 is spectacular is other ways, sound capture and zooming for example, but the end result always seems to look nervous/unstable.

Re: Apple just hired one of Nokia’s Senior Imaging Experts

JamesBurland — Fri, 09 May 2014 05:36:31 -0000

Ari is such a great guy! I had a great conversation with him during the launch of the 808. He was so passionate about photography, and to my surprise he was actually interested in my opinion too. His face really lit up when we started talk about the dynamic range of the 808. Anyone who gets that excited about dynamic range of luminance deserves the best job that Apple can find him! ^_^

Re: Intelligent Lens Blur

JamesBurland — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 09:47:00 -0000

I love apps like this! I can only imagine how effective they will be a few years from now. I use AfterFocus Pro for Android mostly, and with a little practice the results are superb. The really nice thing is being able to adjust the style and amount of bokeh, something that's not possible with traditional lens blurring.

Re: Smartphone camera head to head: Lumia 1020 vs HTC One (M8)

JamesBurland — Wed, 02 Apr 2014 09:31:52 -0000

For the money, the M8 really ought to be able to hold its own against industry standards, such as the iPhone 5 or Galaxy S4, for example, but from what I've seen it can't even do that. To quote GSM Arena...

"Fewer but bigger instead of more but smaller pixels sounded great on paper but the company under delivered and all the supposed advantages of the bigger pixels simply weren't there, demoting the original HTC One to an also-ran in the camera phone race... They are back for another round this year, but unfortunately, we doubt the same 4MP sensor will take them any further. If last year's move brought them a financial bruise or two, it's only going to get uglier this year."

Re: Oppo Find 7 and a 50MP camera? No need for Nokia's 41MP camera phones to worry...

JamesBurland — Wed, 19 Mar 2014 11:37:15 -0000

Steve, am I missing something here, where are the Oppo's photo samples? I mean, surely you wouldn't write an article like this without examining the evidence?!

For what it's worth, I think Oppo is onto something here.

Re: Camera gimmicks help - but for best quality you need a (much) bigger sensor

JamesBurland — Wed, 05 Mar 2014 16:31:18 -0000

Sub section? Unlikely. More like physics is a sub section of the quantum world, at least, that seems to be the only explanation that makes any kind of sense given the evidence. :)

Re: Camera gimmicks help - but for best quality you need a (much) bigger sensor

JamesBurland — Wed, 05 Mar 2014 15:07:31 -0000

I'm not so sure. Perhaps you are confusing physics with science? Physics is an explanation of the nature of reality. My point was that we assume that bigger lenses and bigger sensors are the way forward, that may not be the case.

The quantum world underpins the physical world, not the other way around, hence we might be able to bypass the physical world to capture better images, just as quantum computers bypass physical reality.

Reality wins, whatever reality turns out to be. :)

Re: Camera gimmicks help - but for best quality you need a (much) bigger sensor

JamesBurland — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 04:49:48 -0000

Physics always wins... except when it doesn't.

Entangled photons ignore the speed of light limits and all photons seemingly decide which path to take *after* they have arrived at the sensor surface. It's pretty clear that our understanding of reality is probably a guesstimate.

So it seems to me that innovation always wins, not physics, that is until we know everything there is to know about the nature of reality. I would hazard a guess that a camera from 2044 will look and perform in a way that is totally alien to us in 2014, it may not even have a lens or sensor, acting perhaps on some kind of quantum effect such as non-locality.

Great article Steve, I love this kind of analysis, there's not enough of it around these days. I know it takes a long time to compose this kind of thing, thank you for taking the time to do so.

Re: Ultimate smartphone/camera add-on head to head: Nokia 808 and Lumia 1020 vs Sony QX-100

JamesBurland — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 06:12:25 -0000

A clear win for the QX100, but what a fantastic job the 808 did!

Re: Video capture from Nokia Lumia 1520 (vs Lumia 1020)

JamesBurland — Thu, 23 Jan 2014 11:22:22 -0000

I'm generally unimpressed with Lumia video capture. All that frame warping and twisting, plus the crushed dark tones and strange balance. It all makes for a pretty frustrating experience. Shame.

Re: Zoomed Aircrane 1080p video example

JamesBurland — Thu, 12 Dec 2013 03:31:06 -0000

We probably need to back up a little bit here. The very first thing that needs to be decided is if the wobbling in the example video is either: A) Entirely due to OIS, B) Partly due to OIS, or C) Entirely due to YouTube. Then we could move on to looking at examples of digital stabilisation, pros and cons. Surely this can be easily decided by getting access to the source video via Dropbox for similar?

The problems with current digital stabilisation methods are very well documented, but I think that the problems with OIS (for video) have been largely ignored, probably because it does such a fantastic job with still photography.

Re: Zoomed Aircrane 1080p video example

JamesBurland — Wed, 11 Dec 2013 09:12:52 -0000

Exactly. Like jamming a physical keyboard onto a phone when virtual ones work just as well.

Re: Zoomed Aircrane 1080p video example

JamesBurland — Wed, 11 Dec 2013 07:03:56 -0000

I agree, but what I'm not happy about is the way in which OIS handle this.

I don't really have enough experience to comment in any detail on Nokia's implementation of OIS. It clearly works very well for photos. But from the evidence that I keep finding online it's not as effective for video capture. The frame looks 'nervous' like the 1020 is unsure of quite what to do...

I'm not trying to take anything away from the 1020 or Nokia, it's just disappointing for me personally to to see footage that looks so obviously like mobile phone footage.

Re: Zoomed Aircrane 1080p video example

JamesBurland — Wed, 11 Dec 2013 06:51:54 -0000

This is a problem related to the OIS, I'm sure of it. Rolling shutter, looks somewhat different.

Re: Zoomed Aircrane 1080p video example

JamesBurland — Wed, 11 Dec 2013 04:11:59 -0000

This is a lovely bit of footage, especially for a phone. However...

For the first 14 seconds, at least until the full zoom is initiated, the frame is wobbling like a jelly on a drunkard's party plate! Honestly, it's barely better than having no stabilisation.

I just can't get behind OIS for video capture. The future lies in digital stabilisation. But it will probably take another couple of chipset iterations until there's enough computational power to get the job done properly, but it will happen.

Re: Galaxy Note 3 sales hit 10 million units

JamesBurland — Tue, 10 Dec 2013 07:12:37 -0000

Good idea, let me think about it.

Re: Galaxy Note 3 sales hit 10 million units

JamesBurland — Tue, 10 Dec 2013 04:49:45 -0000

Impressive sales figures. At this rate the Note could become the Samsung flagship in both specification and sales.

I've been enjoying the Note 3 for just over a week. It's such a versatile device, and the video capture is insanely good. Interestingly, I didn't really expect to use the S Pen much, but it's turned out to be one of my favourite features. It's good to get back to sketching and hand written notes, it's possible to capture thoughts and ideas more completely.

Re: '2K Drive' Races On To The App Store

JamesBurland — Fri, 06 Sep 2013 05:15:20 -0000

I like this game, it's different. Turn off all the assists but leave on ABS and it's like a whole new game.

It's not as 'instant' as RR3, but it some ways it's a more satisfying experience, plus the mapping of inner London is just superb! The graphics are better than RR3 in some areas. It's had to explain, but this feels like it has the potential to be a real iOS classic.

It's early days, but I think this one will be staying on my iPad for many months.

Re: What’s next for Lumia and Asha?

JamesBurland — Wed, 04 Sep 2013 10:29:33 -0000

Thanks for clarifying some important points. Nokia Conversations is just one of the things that makes Nokia unique. Microsoft allowing it (or similar) to continue throughout 2014 will be a good sign that its management understands this.

Re: Win a Nokia Lumia 1020 in our next #NokiaLumiaChallenge: 1020

JamesBurland — Fri, 02 Aug 2013 18:28:04 -0000

Here's a night scene taken with the 808 which came out rather well I thought.

Re: FOUR way flagship phone camera shootout: Nokia 808, Lumia 1020 and 925, Galaxy S4 Zoom

JamesBurland — Fri, 02 Aug 2013 15:09:33 -0000

Steve, I think this is probably the best post on AAWS thus far, great work! Thank you for taking the time to test these devices and share your results here, your passion for photography really shines through.

For the record, I completely agree with your conclusion, I can't wait to test the 1020 for myself. ^_^