The Nokia 9 PureView's five rear cameras take aim at photography fans

midian182

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Something to look forward to: When it comes to choosing a smartphone, the quality of its photos can be the deciding factor for many people. With that in mind, HMD is aiming its upcoming flagship, the Nokia 9 PureView, straight at photography fans. With a massive five cameras on its rear, could the device offer the best photos ever seen from a handset?

Rumors that the Nokia 9 would have a penta-lens array first arrived last September and was pretty much confirmed a few months later. At Mobile World Congress, HMD, which owns the Nokia brand, revealed details of the latest phone to carry the famous PureView name.

Nokia created its five-camera setup through a partnership with Light, which made the 16-camera L16 device. It also worked with Qualcomm so the phone’s Snapdragon 845 was optimized to work with the array.

Each of the five cameras—two are color and three monochrome—has a 12MP sensor and an f/1.8 lens. You’ll find no ultra-wide or telephoto lenses here, but all the cameras work together, merging 240MP of data into a final 12MP HDR image. And thanks to the time-of-flight camera, the Nokia 9 can capture 1200 planes of depth, allowing for photos with amazing depth mapping.

The images are captured in the RAW/DNG format and can be edited using an optimized version of Adobe Lightroom, which can be installed when setting up the phone. The sample photos HMD showed have been compared to those taken by a top-end DSLR.

Away from the cameras, the Nokia 9 PureView features a 5.99-inch OLED HDR10 panel, 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, an under-screen fingerprint reader, and a 3,320mAh battery. Being a Nokia device, you also get an almost stock version of Android 9 Pie

Nokia says the phone will come to the US, though availability will be limited. The good news for photography fans is that it will cost under $700.

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Anyone who's seriously interested in photography will probably carry around a separate camera. Phones are getting better but they're still not a replacement for a high quality dslr.
 
It's good to know how all the lenses work together, the current setups look more to be zoom/no-zoom. The specs look like one of those flagships without the iPhone cost. Stock Pie is sweeeeet (No pun intended).

Anyone who's seriously interested in photography will probably carry around a separate camera. Phones are getting better but they're still not a replacement for a high quality dslr.
The best camera is the one you have with you, and myself along with others (I'm assuming) don't like to travel bulky while enjoying the benefits of having a good camera with you. Some point and click cameras are pretty impressive, while not able to achieve the same results it's certainly welcomed, this could make that even easier.
 
Anyone who's seriously interested in photography will probably carry around a separate camera. Phones are getting better but they're still not a replacement for a high quality dslr.
Yes but how many people carry a proper camera with them at all times? This phone isn't supposed to replace dedicated cameras that amateur and pros use so there is no comparison.
 
If you are serious about photography, you should buy a DSLR.

As far as internet photography ie posting to Facebook and Instagram...

They downscale your photos so they'll never be maximum resolution. If you have a website, OK - but you should still be using a DSLR.

More than 2 rear cameras is overkill.

Some might argue that more than 1 is overkill.
 
It's good to know how all the lenses work together, the current setups look more to be zoom/no-zoom. The specs look like one of those flagships without the iPhone cost. Stock Pie is sweeeeet (No pun intended).

The best camera is the one you have with you, and myself along with others (I'm assuming) don't like to travel bulky while enjoying the benefits of having a good camera with you. Some point and click cameras are pretty impressive, while not able to achieve the same results it's certainly welcomed, this could make that even easier.
Yes but how many people carry a proper camera with them at all times? This phone isn't supposed to replace dedicated cameras that amateur and pros use so there is no comparison.
I'm not talking about an average person. I'm talking about professional photographers. The problem I see with this phone is that it doesn't appeal to neither. Pros won't find that phone a replacement for camera and some Bob doesn't care about picture quality that much, he'll buy something else or will just stick with what he already has.
 
I think this is great and contrary to other commenters on here I think you can use a phone and be “serious” about photography. I think a device like this can inspire users to start putting more effort into their photos and most of the time you don’t need an expensive DSLR with 3kg of glass hanging off it to get a good shot.
 
I'm not talking about an average person. I'm talking about professional photographers. The problem I see with this phone is that it doesn't appeal to neither. Pros won't find that phone a replacement for camera and some Bob doesn't care about picture quality that much, he'll buy something else or will just stick with what he already has.
You've basically described the problems that all new phones are facing right now as we've hit well past the point of diminishing returns.
 
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