Camera of the upcoming Lumia 950 will be superb. The daylight performance will rival DSLR, better than most if not all smartphones. No joke. Check out this thread.

http://blogs.windows.com/devices/2015/10/1...d-lumia-950-xl/

But for low-light performance, it is still limited due to the smallish sensor. Still, not too bad. The sensor is slightly larger than the sensor in the latest Samsung and iPHone models, and the Sony Z5 also.

Open the image above and view in 100% resolution. Look at the tiny details. Remarkable detail on the face and the eyebrows etc. apart from the superb clarity and sharpness.

I've found a website comparing the Microsoft Lumia 950 to the iPhone 6s and Samsung Galaxy Note 5. Surprisingly the photos from the iPhone 6s looked better than the Lumia 950. Not sure if the reviewer deliberately rigged the results by producing poor quality photos with the Lumia 950. Any comments? I was expecting the Lumia 950 to show considerably better results than the iPhone 6s, tangible and marked improvements over the iPhone 6s. But the photos below do not show that.

Link : http://www.techradar.com/reviews/phones/mo...306004/review/5

Microsoft Lumia 950:-


iPhone 6s plus

Microsoft Lumia 950 :-


iPhone 6s plus :-

Microsoft Lumia 950 (low light, out of focus):-


iPhone 6s plus :-

To be frank, the 2nd and 3rd sample photo (car park shot and dancing shot) looked terrible. The Nokia Pureview 808 will be able to produce better results than these any time.

Any thoughts if it is more to the camera or the photographer? I suspect it's more to the latter.

I surely hope so as I am shortlisting the Lumia 950 XL to replace my Nokia Pureview 808. However, after looking at most image samples from owners of the 950 on DPReview site, it looks like the quality of the camera in the 950 is not up to mark. Certainly a step down from the 808.

Would like to check. Is the camera on Auto when you took these photos? Also, I noticed the size of the playground photo is 2.98 MB but the other photo showing the birds standing on the electrical lines is only 1.03 MB. Are the photos 100% full resolution, unedited?

I guess the HDR mode reduced the size of the photo although it made the photo looked brighter with better clarity in low light conditions.

The image of the playground shot looks slightly blurry as if it is slightly out of focus with smearing of details on the green leaves. In the other photo, clarity is good but there is some noise.

This post has been edited by ryder_78: Jan 13 2016, 05:22 PM

I just noticed that there is no EXIF data on the photos. Do you have the original files? Would appreciate if you can post them here if you could. Thanks.

Thanks for the link. Much appreciated. The photos certainly look much better here being originals, full resolution.

One question. Does the 950 have Manual settings for users to adjust the shutter speed and ISO?

The photo showing the birds is much better. Good clarity and detail. Noise is acceptable in this moderate low light shot. Though I notice some edge distortion (look at the corner double-storey house on the left side of the photo). The house is slightly skewed. This edge distortion is also present with the Nokia Pureview 808.

The photo showing the park is also better with more defined details but the photo still shows slight blurriness. Maybe the handphone shook a little when the image was captured, producing a *slightly* out of focus photo. Just a guess. The details on the tree trunk look a bit soft and out of focus, not too sharp.

The colours are certainly rich and vivid. A strength of the better Nokia phones such as N8 and Pureview 808 (now Microsoft Lumia 950).

In summary, I feel the camera in the 950 is good. Perhaps more good samples would do the phone more justice. Maybe not at the Nokia Pureview 808 level in areas of clarity and detail but nonetheless, it is very close. I would reserve comments until I see more good samples from the phone.

Cheers.

I just re-read your post. And also checked the photos. In the park photo, the shutter speed is 1/185s and ISO50. Maybe that was the reason the young boy and leaves show a bit of blurring with this shutter speed. But still, the details of the tree trunk (a dead non-moving object) looked soft and slightly out of focus, which suggests that there might be some other elements at play here, such as my guess on the camera which shook a little when the image was taken, producing the blurriness.

It would be great if the 950 allows users to adjust the shutter speed. It would be interesting if you can use a slower shutter speed of say 1/15s or 1/8s to take photos in low light conditions for better clarity and sharpness (though this would require a stable pair of hands).

That is good to hear.