2MP Cameraphone Shootout: Sony Ericsson's K750 vs. Nokia's N90

[Shun]

Just 1 question. About the lens resolution, I suspect the effect on N90 is the result of too much post processing by software after seeing some photos online. How do you determine that it is a fault of the len but not a software issue?

I can't verify it myself since I don't own N90... I have asked for some evidence from N90 owners previously, but somehow I never get it... maybe they don't want to expose the weakness of their lovely phone, or maybe they simply dislike my attitude... :(

Overall, it is the best comparison I have read, great job!

PS: finally, a professional agree with me that N90 produces better colours, :)

[Daffy_Duck]

To answer your question, one way to help ensure that the results are not a due to post processing (which may involve some rudimentary noise smoothing) is to shoot the resolution chart under very bright yet even lighting so the camera will operate at it's lowest ISO setting and as a result will have less noise that requires filtering out. I am not even really sure if these cameras do any processing such as this.

By the way, what the review states as contrast is more accurately termed dynamic range, if I understood the writing correctly. The analogy about the iris of the eye in the review, which is very good, is better placed in a section about dynamic range than exposure which is where it is now. The eye has near infinite dynamic range because the iris can open and close to adjust to the situation. It effectively alters it's exposure when you move your eyes from a bright scene to a dark scene.

It is a myth that the eye adjusts white balance automatically similar to the N90. When I see a white wall lit with an orange light, the wall appears orange. In this test, the Sony is actually performing better with auto WB because it reflects the true scene better. This is how the default auto WB on my Canon 1DII works. It doesn't automatically adjust the WB to make a white surface white.

Also, the focusing test that was done in a grocery store appears to be under low light. This is not a good way to test general focusing ability because the results can be scewed by motion blur.

One thing I want to mention about the noise comparison. The Sony shot appears to be soft. I may be wrong but I think it may be due to motion blur. The way to counteract that would be to raise the ISO level and thus increas the shutter speed. The side effect of this is more noise. If there was a way to test the two cameras at a similar shutter speed, the noise results would probably look more similar. The Sony may have a more limited sensitivity than the Nokia and thus cannot operate at as high of a shutter speed under low light.

Sorry for all the negativity about the tests here. I think they are helpful and I am glad these more in depth tests are being done with cameraphones.

[Shun]

Zoom into the K750's photo on the resolution page to a level where noise become very prominent, then apply the same zoom level to the N90's photo. I zoomed them to a size about 5120 x 3840, K750's images becomes very distorted, but N90's image looks very prefect, the same effect that on images generated with graphics application...

If you want to see some photos under the sun, take a looks at http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_n90_vs_sonyericsson_w800-review-46.php, those was the pictures that make me suspicion about the N90 large amount of post processing.

PS: I'm not trying to compare the K750 and N90 here, my main objective is to find out what N90 does to it's photo. The K750 photo is merely use to demonstrate the what a zoom up photo should looks like, so that you can see the diffeneces between a captured images and generated images, :)

[eaniban]

but overall K750 beats the N90 even with its carl zeiss lens ek-ek as proven in this mobileburn comparison and the one in gsmarena. that is what matters. so people please stop your being so emotionally attached to nokia and continue to announce it is still better than the k750. wake up and accept the truth. i thank you.

[Shun]

My bad...

What I meant was that in a very close up view, "raw" photos shouldn't look too perfect.

When you zoom into photos, you should be able to see imperfection, some irregular formation. In this case, it is demonstrated in the K750 photos.

When you zoom into generated pictures, you will see some patterns, like the edges of the text that is seen on the N90 photos.

Personally, I think a camera is allow to alert the enviroment but it should not alert the objects, at least not to the degree of the N90, which is very very high... Of course, this is just my assumation, yet to be confirmed... :)

Again, I don't own either of the phones to be able to determine which phone's camera is better. I merely want to find out what is the cause for the effect found in photos taken with N90, technically... and whether Nokia is cheating with software to make the photo looks nicer than what it's hardware can produces...