Nokia N82 vs Canon 10D
28 Sep 2008 22:50
Since I own the Nokia N82 mobile phone I was
curious to see how the built in camera would
compete with my Canon 10D DSLR. Of course I did
not expect that the N82 would have any chance at
all so it was more a just for fun comparison than
a real contest. I did not want to do any post
processing of the pictures and so I shot JPG
photos with the 10D with slightly bumped up
contrast and sharpness. I increased that on the
cell phone too which was a mistake, because the
photos came out too colorful but anyway, it was
no laboratory test but just for fun. The cell
phone has an aperture range from 2.8 to 5.6 but I
could not see which aperture was used when I was
taking the photos. So I nailed the DSLR to F4
which is the widest aperture for that lens I used
(Canon EF 17-40@4L) and the worst picture quality
then.
The focal length of the mobile camera is 5.6mm which compares to 35mm on a full frame sensor and to about 22mm on the Canon 10D.
First of all, lets see how the sensor sizes of the two devices compare to each other. The Canon EOS 10D has an APS-C CMOS sensor with 6MP while the Nokia has a 1/2.5” CMOS sensor with 5MP. Size wise they compare like this:
As you can see, the surface of the N82 sensor fits multiple times into the size of the 10D sensor while the megapixels are nearly the same (5MP vs 6MP). That should lead into a lot more noise in theory and it really does in practice too
On the left side you can see the 10D version and on the right side the Nokia N82 one. If you click on the photos you can see a full size version of the pictures. Here we go ...
Something that you can even notice on the thumbnails is, that the photos taken with the mobile are a lot more colorful and with more contrast and might even look better. That immediately changes when you look at the full size pictures. The cell phone creates a terrible noise in the sky and the dynamic range does not even come close to the one from the Canon 10D. You can see that in the shadows on the first and last picture and in the highlights on the second one. A lot of details in the shadows and highlights are getting lost on the photos of the Nokia N82 compared to the ones from the Canon DSLR.
Something else that you cannot notice on the thumbnails is, that the depth of field on the cell phone is a lot larger than the one of the DSLR. If you want a blurry background to accent the main motive you always need a DSLR. The trees in the background on photo number two are blurry on the DSLR and sharp on the cell phone and it’s the same with the background in the hedgehog photo.
When you compare those photos you might come to the conclusion that the DSLR photos look a bit dull compared to the cell phone photos. That’s in the nature of DSLR cameras because they are very cautious when it comes to sharpening, saturation or contrast, to not destroy information in the photo like drown shadows or pulled out highlights. You can see some post processing here and here.
Well, all in all the cell phone did a way better job than I expected and on photo number three even as good as many compact cameras from my point of view but of course at the end it cannot compete with a DSLR (that costs a lot more by the way and cannot lead you to a geocache like the cell phone did after that little photo session ).
The focal length of the mobile camera is 5.6mm which compares to 35mm on a full frame sensor and to about 22mm on the Canon 10D.
First of all, lets see how the sensor sizes of the two devices compare to each other. The Canon EOS 10D has an APS-C CMOS sensor with 6MP while the Nokia has a 1/2.5” CMOS sensor with 5MP. Size wise they compare like this:
As you can see, the surface of the N82 sensor fits multiple times into the size of the 10D sensor while the megapixels are nearly the same (5MP vs 6MP). That should lead into a lot more noise in theory and it really does in practice too
On the left side you can see the 10D version and on the right side the Nokia N82 one. If you click on the photos you can see a full size version of the pictures. Here we go ...
Something that you can even notice on the thumbnails is, that the photos taken with the mobile are a lot more colorful and with more contrast and might even look better. That immediately changes when you look at the full size pictures. The cell phone creates a terrible noise in the sky and the dynamic range does not even come close to the one from the Canon 10D. You can see that in the shadows on the first and last picture and in the highlights on the second one. A lot of details in the shadows and highlights are getting lost on the photos of the Nokia N82 compared to the ones from the Canon DSLR.
Something else that you cannot notice on the thumbnails is, that the depth of field on the cell phone is a lot larger than the one of the DSLR. If you want a blurry background to accent the main motive you always need a DSLR. The trees in the background on photo number two are blurry on the DSLR and sharp on the cell phone and it’s the same with the background in the hedgehog photo.
When you compare those photos you might come to the conclusion that the DSLR photos look a bit dull compared to the cell phone photos. That’s in the nature of DSLR cameras because they are very cautious when it comes to sharpening, saturation or contrast, to not destroy information in the photo like drown shadows or pulled out highlights. You can see some post processing here and here.
Well, all in all the cell phone did a way better job than I expected and on photo number three even as good as many compact cameras from my point of view but of course at the end it cannot compete with a DSLR (that costs a lot more by the way and cannot lead you to a geocache like the cell phone did after that little photo session
).