Reviewing Nokia 8 Camera: The Spectacular Comeback of Carl Zeiss

Dual 13MP camera system with Zeiss lenses on Nokia 8 has proven to be impressive in all scenarios, although it's not the best in the world of smartphones.

2. Reviewing Nokia 8 Camera: The Spectacular Comeback of Carl Zeiss

Dual 13MP camera system with Zeiss lenses on Nokia 8 performs exceptionally well in all situations, though not the top in the world of smartphones.

 Nokia 8 - The Return of Carl Zeiss

​Nokia has officially announced its flagship, Nokia 8, not long ago. It's a true masterpiece from the Finnish company after being acquired by HMD Global. It boasts excellent design, powerful configuration, and a dual-camera system following the trend. In this article, we'll examine if the Nokia 8 camera lives up to expectations. Technically, Nokia 8 features two 13 MP camera sensors with Zeiss lenses at the back. One sensor captures normal color photos, and the other captures black and white photos with optical image stabilization. These lenses have a pixel size of 1.12μm and an aperture of f/2.0. We've seen Huawei do a great job with a similar setup on dual-camera systems. However, Nokia 8 doesn't provide the same zoom capability as Huawei's second lens, even though it does create bokeh effects.

The highlight of Nokia's flagship is, without a doubt, its camera.

For the front camera, Nokia 8 boasts a 13MP lens with an f/2.0 aperture from Zeiss, sharing the same pixel size. It works simultaneously with the rear camera to create the Dual Sight feature. Specifically, you can use both front and rear cameras in real-time and even livestream. This unprecedented feature sets a new standard in smartphones. Aside from Carl Zeiss lenses from a renowned brand in the camera industry, Nokia 8 stands out with OZO Audio technology. 'Ozo' is a well-known term with Nokia's 360° VR camera. The phone has three high dynamic range microphones and recording algorithms similar to the OZO camera. As a result, users can use Nokia 8 to capture 360° surround sound.

Is it genuinely impressive?

If you've never tried it, it's challenging to grasp how much more realistic the sound is compared to other products. You can distinctly hear every sound from sources positioned in space - front, rear, and both sides! Note that you need suitable headphones for the best effect. Nokia 8 runs stock Android with slight tweaks to the icons' aesthetics. Most everything else remains unaltered, except for a significant exception - Nokia has developed its camera app. It creates a fantastic difference compared to other devices and maximizes the potential of the dual-camera system on Nokia 8.

Nokia's camera interface is clean and intuitive - on the left, you'll find a range of shortcuts, while the camera and video toggle buttons are on the right. Next to the shutter button, we have a small key for available modes such as Beauty, Panorama, Auto, Bokeh, and Manual. Unfortunately, you can't adjust the shutter speed in Manual mode.

You'll notice the automatic HDR option on the left sidebar, a switch for toggling between front/rear/front + rear cameras. Or options to switch color filter modes - color/mono/color + mono. If you choose to capture photos with both cameras, you'll get a combined image, expected to improve in detail, especially at night, but capturing in this mode is quite slow. Nokia 8 focuses using both laser and PDAF (phase-detection autofocus) technologies; everything is pretty swift for you to capture a particular moment. However, at night, accuracy is compromised, and perhaps it will be improved in upcoming updates from Nokia. Now, let's move on to real-life photo samples in various conditions from the camera on Nokia 8.

Daylight Samples

Photos captured in daylight exhibit rich and vibrant details with true-to-life colors. The color dynamic range is quite extensive, and there's minimal noise in the final images. It certainly ranks among the best 13 MP samples on recent smartphones.

Impressive monochrome shots, excellent color depth. The absence of color filters allows more light, enabling the B&W camera to capture moments with a fast shutter speed and similar exposure. Additional benefits of lacking a color filter include higher contrast and good detail.

Low Light Samples

Shot from the color lens

Nokia 8 excels in capturing photos in dusk and nighttime scenarios. Everything is well-detailed, accurately portraying the scene, minimal noise, leaving a lasting impression on viewers. Here, optical image stabilization technology has significantly contributed.

Shifting to the monochrome lens allows us to capture photos with slightly higher contrast and less noise.

Experimenting with both lenses for better low-light images, as theorized, didn't yield significant benefits on Nokia 8. There was no improvement in the new samples from the combination of the two lenses, but it did aid in better autofocus. When using this mode, Nokia 8 also warns that the image processing and saving process may take up to 5s, quite a while.

HDR

Nokia 8 provides a smart automatic HDR option, and I believe you should activate it at all times. When automatic HDR is on, the camera does a commendable job enhancing bright and dark details to make your photo stand out more.

Panorama

Panoramic shots taken with Nokia 8 are fantastic. They use full vertical resolution, around 4,000px in height, resulting in very detailed images. The details are on par with still photos; there are no obvious issues (except for moving details like cars), with all contact details in the image blending smoothly. Once again, the color range deserves praise.

Live Bokeh Resembles Portrait Mode

On Nokia 8, the Portrait Mode is also known as Live Bokeh. It automatically recognizes humans and displays a prompt to activate 'Portrait Mode.' The good thing is you can adjust the Bokeh effect on your photo.

Photos in Live Bokeh mode are impressive. The background blur edges are very accurate, and the results achieved are top-notch. Even with messy hair patterns, it handles well. Many smartphones come with this feature due to dual cameras, but they don't work as precisely.

Dual Sight

I also captured some shots in Dual Sight mode. The image quality from the selfie camera is excellent, but it's strange that the resulting image is 8MP. How do you combine photos from two 13MP cameras and get an 8MP image? Perhaps Nokia will explain this later. Overall, the photos are cleverly stitched into one frame.

Selfie Photos

Nokia 8's front camera mirrors the rear color lens. It features a similar sensor, Zeiss lens, phase-detection autofocus (PDAF) but lacks optical image stabilization (OIS). Image quality is excellent, akin to still photos, with abundant details, beautiful colors, and wide dynamic range.

Conclusion

As many reviews suggest, the standout feature on the Nokia 8 is undoubtedly its camera system. It evokes memories of the 808 PureView and N8, boasting a top-notch Zeiss camera system. Image quality is impressive for both front and rear cameras across various lighting conditions. Nokia 8 seems to continue the Finnish company's proud tradition of delivering an outstanding camera experience to users. Of course, Zeiss is the connecting thread here.