Nokia E72 Full Review - Part 2: Camera

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. And in this case, I believe all you’re interested in is to see how good the pictures taken by the E72 really are. So I’m posting around 30 thousand words worth of pictures and going to be bed early tonight.



For those of you who’d rather read than look at photos, I’m squeezing in an additonal thousand words towards the end of the review.

Enjoy!

Close-up shot with no flash on



Close-up shots with both the flash on then off





Shot taken outside, around 6 pm, 45 minutes before sunset


Shot taken in the morning around 9, showing some good level of detail. Clearly, this final one is grainy, something you’ll notice in all snaps taken with the E72


E71 versus E72: crops from shots taken by the two phones, starting with the E71 on the left.

Besides traffic piling up in the second photo, the colors are actually better, the level of detail is higher, and the whole thing looks real. The E71’s shot looks like it’s been taken with a transparent sheet plastered on the camera lens.


E71’s photo looks smooth but lacks the details while the E72’s photo is superb with a bit of extra sharpness.


No Comment


5-meg shots comparison between the N97, N82, and E72 respectively. I’ll let you be the judge of this. Note that pics are resized at 35% of their original size.

N97


N82


E72


Finally, the big rumble. Contenders are, in order, as follows: Nokia E71, E72, N82, N97. Mr Smiley, my desk companion, gets a free photoshoot. You can see the effect that the flash of each phone has on the color of the pictures

E71


E72


N82


N97



The following set is taken outside with no flash on. Switching Night Mode on and off on both Eseries devices but not on Nseries devices, because, well, you rarely need to.

E71 - night mode off


E71 - night mode on - still sucks


E72 - night mode off


E72 - night mode on


N82 - night mode off


N97 - night mode off



REVIEW

One of the things that all E71 users and most Nokia lovers have been waiting for is the camera of the E72. I was excited too, and despite all the improvements over the E71 that were brought to the table, the camera is the clincher. In other terms, I believe that the camera alone could make some ditch the E71 in favor of the E72. So I’ve dedicated this second part of my Full Review for the camera of the E72.

For starters, I’d like to remind you that the current phone that I have is an early proto running a crazy firmware (which seems to be doing well so far), and I’m pretty sure the camera software will get many updates with new firmware versions, just like the E71 did. After all, the E71 seemed like it grew a new camera on the back with the last 2 updates. This made me love it even more. What needs to be done to improve the E72's camera is to reduce the sharpness of the pictures while reducing their size at the same time. One thing I’ve noticed is that the E72’s photos are awfully large in size, averaging 1.5MB per shot, while the rest of the 5-megapixel herd averaged 900KB per shot.

So the verdict? The E72’s camera is great. But if you’d like to know why, here are some facts:

- The lens is no Carl Zeiss but it’s damn good
- It’s an AF (auto-focus) camera, unlike the E52’s
- Live images on the viewfinder look way better
- Toolbar is customizable
- Panorama mode is here
- It shoots video at 15 frames per second, VGA resolution
- Secondary (front) cam can be used

The toolbar that appears on the right-hand side can be customized with 16 shortcuts, which are:

- Switch to video mode
- Scene modes
- Flash mode
- Self-timer
- Sequence mode
- Panorama mode
- Go to photos
- Color tone
- Viewfinder
- White balance
- Exposure
- Sharpness
- Contrast
- Brightness
- Light sensitivity
- Edit toolbar (for easier access to this menu, without having to go through options -> customize toolbar)

Zooming can either be done by pressing up on the d-pad (and down for zooming out) or by using the side volume keys.

In order to let the camera focus, you have to fully press the middle button of the d-pad – the Navi Key – and when you get a lock (frame turns green) you release your thumb and the camera takes the photo. It’s easier than using the “T” letter like it’s the case with the E71.

After you take the photo, the side toolbar shows 6 new shortcuts:

- Send
- Sing in to share online
- Go to photos
- Add to album
- Details
- Delete

The coolest out of these has got to be the “details” shortcut which allows you to add tags, a description, alter the title, and check the name of the album this pic belongs to (if any) and the resolution (which is the setting you’ve made prior to shooting).

Clicking options (left soft-key) brings up a menu which lets you send “to printer or kiosk” (via WLAN or Bluetooth of course), upload, set as wallpaper, assign to contact, or rename.

The battery bars on the top right corner have now a shaded background for better visibility; it’s the same one that appears on top when you bring out the toolbar from the side.

As far as I'm concerned, the E72's camera performs very, very well. It might not be up to the standards of Nokia's true 5-meg warriros - the N82 and the N97 - but it gets the job done. In all conditions. The LED flash is powerful enough and works great with close-up shots, fair with objects/people at a distance, but doesn't perform that well, say, across a room. But then again, the E72 is not a cam-phone, so we ought to let the cons slide out the window.

I believe that most of us think the E71 is the closest to being the perfect device. I could forgive the 2.5mm audio jack, the standard charging port, the absence of the accelerometer, but the camera was real frustrating at times. If I were asked to change one thing on the E71, I'd definitely choose to replace its cam with the E72's.

The concludes my second part of the Full Review. If there's any shot which you'd like to see taken with the E72's camera please let me know; I'll update the blog with the requested photos. Stay tuned for the remaining parts of this review.


UPDATE: Here-below is the plant shot taken again today. Fuzziness totally gone. Seems like a totally different camera taking the shot today. What I've done was wait till I got some shade and took the photo. It seems to me that the sensors on the N82 and N97 can handle bright lighting conditions better than the E72's. As you can see from the wall behind the plant, the sunlight was pretty intense in the first shot, so much that the wall was shining. Again, note that I'm only using a prototype so this might be due to it. I took 3 consecutive shots today as well and as you can see, nothing's wrong with the camera. Shall be doing the same tomorrow with more sunlight to see if that's the main issue.