PureView2

At the September presentation, together with Microsoft and its Windows Phone 8, Nokia drew applause and gasps from those present, both physically and virtually, by showing examples of low-light photography and video stabilization.

It has already reached the Spanish market, in the presentation that we follow live from XatakaWindows, and I want to do a slightly more in-depth review of the feature - of the flagship product, the Lumia 920 - which, together With Windows Phone 8, it catches my attention the most: PureView2 technology for capturing still and moving images.

Heir to the first version of the PureView technology, applied to the 808 model and its giant sensor, mobile phones speaking, this second version has lowered its gross capacitiesby being based on a much smaller sensor, maintaining the quality of Carl Zeiss optics and improving image stabilization.

It all starts with the lens

In the mid-19th century, in 1845, Carl Zeiss opened a small shop for precision mechanics and optics in Jena, Germany. Initially dedicated to the production of microscopes. In 1866 he joined the inventor, scientist and entrepreneur Ernst Abbe, joining them the chemist Otto Schott in 1884, and forming the nucleus of the company that would give birth to the modern optics market.

Carl Zeiss's impact on technology in the field of optics is hard to fathom as he has led the way in virtually every facet of it.Thus, in early 1894, he developed a pair of prism cufflinks; in 1902 they presented the Tessar photographic objective – the so-called Ojo de Aguila-; in 1935 they revolutionized the quality of the images with an anti-reflective treatment of the optics; in the 1960s all the Space Photographic Operations of Project Mercury wear their lenses; in 1978 he presents an electronic microscope; lithographic optics allow automatic chip manufacturing in 1984; In 1996 Sony used its lenses in the Camcorder - the personal video cameras of the time - and in this first decade of the 21st century advances were made in the fields of chip manufacturing, lenses for all kinds of photographic devices, microscopy and medicine.

One of these excellent lenses is the one that the Lumia 920 integrates as optics of its image capture system; both static and moving. It is a 26mm widescreen lens with a 16:9 ratio and an f/2 aperture.0. including a mechanical image stabilizer.

Image stabilization

Capture of a video made on a bike with a Lumia 920

This is undoubtedly the most significant improvement in the new top of the range Nokia mobile phones: optical image stabilization(OIS).

OIS works by detecting jerky camera movements using a gyroscope - a high-precision sensor - to detect degree and direction. Which, in most OIS systems, moves a lens element in the opposite direction to compensate for and cancel unintentional camera shake.

Instead Nokia has developed the technology so that instead of a single lens element moving to compensate for camera shake, it moves the entire optical assembly in perfect synchronization with the movement of the camera.The benefit of this approach is that more complex movements and trajectories can be compensated for in greater numbers.

Nokia's stabilization system is capable of detecting and responding to up to 500 movements per second, about 300 times faster than the average human reaction time to an expected event. And for this reason it presents a level of stabilization that is at the highest of current mobile phones.

The sensor and image processing, electronics to power

Certainly going from a sensor with more than 40 million pixels to one with just over 8, draws attention. But Nokia has closely followed the use of its mobile phones by users and has come to the conviction that for most Smartphone buyers, the quality of the images and videos obtained is much more important than having huge resolutions.

This is how a sensor has been designed that works naturally in formats with 16:9 and 4:3, as can be Observe in the image that is observed below.

In addition, it is a BSI (Black Side Illuminated) sensor, that is, it uses a new construction technology that increases the ability to capture photons by more than 30%with respect to conventional FSI technology, by placing the photoreceptive layer ahead of the integrated circuit layer.

To complete the formula that has led this model to currently be the Smartphone with the best built-in camera on the market, we must point out the electronics and image processing software developed and incorporated by Microsoft, and of which –obviously- only its excellent results could be known.

In summary, the price of a high-performance compact camera could be discounted from its advertised price since you will not be able to replace it.

In XatakaWindows | The Nokia Lumia 920, 820 and 620 can be purchased for 669, 449 and 269 euros, Live monitoring of the presentation of the new Lumia in Spain