{UAH} Why KSh. 80,000 Nokia 1020 is a professional photographer's companion

Why KSh. 80,000 Nokia 1020 is a professional photographer's companion Dennis Mbuvi

November 01, 2013 0 Comments

Nokia East Africa General Manager - Bruce Howe (left), Safaricom Head of Internet and Content - Morris Maina (centre) and Nokia Senior VP of India, Middle East and Africa - Arto Numella. The 1020 features professional photography features in a phone. 

On Thursday evening, Nokia launched the Lumia 1020 in Kenya. The device is Nokia's flagship camera device, having a 41 megapixel back camera. The closest competitor is the Sony Xperia Z1 at 21 Megapixels. The device was launched at a spectacular event held atop Kenyatta International Conference Centre's helipad. In attendance were Nokia Senior Vice President of India, Middle East and Africa - Arto Nummela, Nokia GM for East Africa - Bruce Howe, and Safaricom head of Internet and Content - Morris Maina. 

Post launch, Nummela proudly showed off images he had captured on the 1020 earlier during the day in a game drive. A giraffe more than 50 metres away can be zoomed into,  without losing detail. From a herd of buffaloes, we could zoom into an older member of the herd, on whom we could see lots of nips on their ear and old scars on their forehead. A video of a lioness walking next to the car is of high definition(HD) quality that can be played back on a HD TV.

Speaking during the launch,  photographer Sean Kim stopped short of stating that the 1020 can replace a photographer's tool of choice, the DSLR. It comes close to DSLR's in handling low light photos. Sean gave tips on taking better low light photos with the 1020, where he advised that leaning against a wall enables taking of better photos. The 1020 also has a closer feel to a camera with the dedicated camera key on the site. 

One of the 1020's many external covers also gives better battery life through an external battery pack, in addition to a larger camera button and support for a tripod.

Sean says that the 1020 makes for a good companion for a photographer, being the closest substitute to their cameras that they can always have in their pocket.

The Lumia 1020 has a shutter speed of 1/16000 of a second to 4 seconds and an aperture of f/2.2.  The smaller the f-number, the larger the aperture and the more light that the camera can admit, thus the better performance in low light. The shutter speed can be adjusted to give a number of motion effects in the image, such as vehicle lights in motion, by increasing the number of seconds.  A lower f number also allows the photographer to play around with the depth of focus of their image, where certain elements are focused on and the rest of the image appears blurry. All these features can be adjusted in the Nokia Procam application which ships with the camera.

Other features on the 1020 camera include optical image stabilisation, which sees the use of ball bearings and other features to stabilise your image and compensate against your movement when taking a photo. The lens also features a backside illuminated sensor,  where the imaging elements are arranged in such a manner as to improve the amount of light captured by the camera in low light.

While 41 megapixels might be an overkill for most photography, the device uses a technique known as oversampling, where 5 megapixels are combined into 1 super pixel.

Notable too is the device's AMOLED display, which enables smartphones to display blacker and deeper colours as compared to "in plane switching" TFT displays (IPS TFT) which tends to show washed out colours. AMOLED displays also consume lesser power than TFT displays. 

Bruce also mentioned that the popular Instagram app would soon be coming to Windows Phone devices.

The 1020 will be exclusively available in Safaricom shops for the next 2 months through December at a price of KSh. 80,000. This will include 1.5 Gb of data and KSh. 500 airtime. The first 500 buyers will also get the 1020 Power Pack which includes a leather cover and and a power pack that can recharge the Lumia 1020 to 75 percent.

Also announced was the availability of the Nokia Lumia 925 at KSh. 54,000 with 1.5GB and KSh. 500 airtime and the Nokia Lumia 625 at KSh. 29,000 with 500 MB data and KSh. 250 airtim

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Gwokto La'Kitgum

"Even a small dog can piss on a tall Building", Jim Hightower