camera

Who on Earth – identifies your friends from a photo or capture from the phone camera

January 22, 2012 | By Linknode

Who on Earth identifies your friends from a photo or capture from the phone camera.

Impress your friends by recreating the face-recognition scene from Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (just without the contact-lens!).

Did you ever start talking to someone and couldn’t remember their name? Help is on the way with Who on Earth.

Use your Facebook friends (once connected to Facebook) to identify individuals on pictures or from a grab from the camera preview.

Who on Earth only uses images accessible through Facebook authentication and privacy settings.

Using Who on Earth, all the faces in the picture are identified and a named match is labelled on the image – social crisis averted!

* Select Pictures to Identify

Choose pictures from your albums or camera roll (includes photos from your phone, social networking profile, Zune images etc)
Capture an image from the camera preview without saving a picture

* Face Recognition

Faces on the picture are highlighted with names
See the strength of recognition confidence
Identify multiple faces automatically

* Settings Control

Administer Facebook login (including ‘forget me’)
Conforms to authentication and privacy settings
See how many Facebook friends have public images
No personal information is saved by the app

Free trial mode is ad supported. Full application is USD $0.99 or equivalent.

Full Details and Download Here

WhoOnEarth on Windows Phone Marketplace

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Nokia Lumia 710 – Camera Review

January 20, 2012 | By andrewbares

How does the Lumia 710′s camera and video capabilities compare with the HTC Radar? Read and watch our review to find out!


Lumia 710	HTC Radar

Pictures


Lumia 710	HTC Radar

The Lumia 710 easily defeats the HTC Radar. The Lumia manages to capture far more accurate colors in pictures, as can be seen in the video and in the pictures above. The HTC Radar consistently has a blue tint to everything. Detail-wise, both phones are equal.

Indoors, the Lumia also wins. When taking dark pictures, the Lumia will shine its LED flash to focus the picture first, and then it will actually take the picture. The Radar skips this step and therefore the Radar’s pictures are often out of focus. The colors of the Lumia’s pictures are also once again far more accurate compared to the overly-bright Radar. My only complaint is that the Lumia always has darker edges on the pictures with a flash, but otherwise the pictures are clearly better.

Videos

The Lumia 710 once again easily wins against the HTC Radar. The biggest issue with HTC phones is that you cannot record decent videos indoors, since their frame rate is terrible in low-lighting conditions. The Lumia is butter-smooth even when it’s extremely dark.

The detail on videos from the Lumia is also significantly better. You can zoom in using the camera app and things still look crisp!

HTC better take note, because Nokia is kicking their you-know-what in terms of camera quality.

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Nokia Lumia 710 – Call and Sound Quality Review

January 19, 2012 | By andrewbares

The Lumia 710 unfortunately falls short of the HTC Radar in both call quality and sound quality.

Call Quality

On my Nokia Lumia 710 from T-Mobile, recipients of my phone calls complained about the quality of the sound. To them, I sounded muffled, distorted, quiet, and simply not as good as what they consider normal. I typically use my HTC Radar, and my parents could instantly notice the significant drop in quality when I called them from the Lumia 710.

When I had my parents use the Lumia so that I could experience the call quality myself, I too noticed that everything simply sounded worse than the HTC Radar. The Lumia 710 sounded like a bad cell phone, while the HTC Radar was quite clear and close to landline quality.

Using the Lumia 710 on speakerphone also received complaints, since the sound quality was once again worse. The HTC Radar’s speakerphone faired much better. However, everything sounds fine for the person who is using the Lumia… the speakerphone is loud, the earpiece is loud, and the quality sounds good from there.

So far I haven’t seen any other users experiencing the call quality issue, but I doubt many people will recognize the poor call quality since it actually requires the person on the other end of the phone to say something… Everything sounds perfect from the point of view of the Lumia owner.

Overall, the HTC Radar easily wins in call quality.

Sound Quality

The speakers on the Lumia 710 play music at a very similar volume to the HTC Radar… they’re decently loud, but could be a little louder if anything. The Lumia and Radar’s speakers also sound pretty equal in terms of sound quality. If anything, the Radar sounds slightly better and less distorted at higher volumes.

Through a pair of headphones, the Radar was able to play music significantly louder (23/30 volume on the Radar was about the same as Max volume on the Lumia). The Radar also sounded crisper and less distorted. Plus, with the HTC Radar, you can use HTC’s Sound Enhancer app to tweak your sound, which once again gives HTC an extra boost to victory. For my review purposes, I left the Sound Enhancer disabled, and the Radar was still slightly better.

Overall, the Lumia 710 lacks some extra volume through the headphones, but otherwise sounds good. Dedicated MP3 players will still sound better, but for a phone the Lumia sounds good.

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So it begins! Samsung SMART WIFI camera range will upload directly to SkyDrive

January 12, 2012 | By Surur

WB850F_-_3_qtr

Samsung has announced a new range of super-zoom cameras which come equipped with sensors such as GPS, digital compasses and connectivity via WIFI which enables a range of features, including automatic back-up of pictures taken.

The WB850F, WB150F and ST200F allows users from any Wi-Fi hotspot, to email photos or share them on social networks such as Facebook and Picasa or post videos to YouTube in a few simple steps.

The camera’s Digital Compass can also give users their location and tell them how far they are from certain locations, while the MapView function allows users to download maps and use their camera to help explore new cities.

To us the most interesting feature is the ability to upload pictures directly to SkyDrive. With Windows 8 featuring heavy SkyDrive integration, especially in the picture gallery, and of course similar with Windows Phone 7, any pictures taken will automatically show up on devices.

Bring along SkyDrive enabled electronic picture frames and the whole photo taking circle is complete. Hopefully we will see many more devices with such SkyDrive-based connectivity enabled.

Will this be a feature our readers will be looking for in their next camera? Let us know below.

Read Samsung’s press release here.

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Another HTC Titan II HD sample video

January 12, 2012 | By Surur

WPCentral have uploaded this video sample from the HTC Titan II’s 16 megapixel camera. They caution that the phone recording the video was using beta firmware and the device was a prototype, but it seemed to handle the task pretty well.

I however remain concerned by the lack of image stabilization, which really spoils the otherwise good results.

See another sample in this post here.

Via WPCentral.com

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HTC Titan II HD video sample

January 10, 2012 | By Surur

Engadget have been one of the lucky few to actually get a video sample directly from the HTC Titan II’s camera and have uploaded this excerpt.

Myriam Joire, their phone camera expert, was quite impressed with the 16 megapixel shooter. She notes:

After spending some quality time with HTC’s latest Windows Phone flagship we came away pretty impressed with the camera. Our test shots contain tons of detail, with accurate colors and very little noise. We left the handset in the default "Intelligent Auto" scene mode for the majority of our pictures, and it handled the varying conditions with aplomb. Exposure was particularly well balanced, despite difficult lighting condition.

The ability of the camera to manage different lighting conditions is well illustrated in the video above (which should be watched in HD) as the camera pans from lighter to darker areas, but overall of course it is still a brightly lit Las Vegas scene.

What is however somewhat disappointing is what still appears to be a low frame rate and jitters, especially when the camera is being managed via a specialized image processing chip with image stabilization. Hopefully it is simply a case that these features were not activated.

See more still shots at Engadget here.

How do our readers feel so far about the camera quality? Let us know below.

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Panorama and Burst Camera Modes gets an update on the HTC Titan and HTC Radar

December 7, 2011 | By Surur

cameraup

One of the best features of the HTC camera app in its new generation of devices is its multiple special modes, including a pretty good Panorama mode.

Now the apps appeared to have had an update via Marketplace, bringing unspecified improvements to the software.

The update is only for the HTC Titan and HTC Radar. Have our readers noticed any specific improvements? Let us know below.

Via WPCentral.com

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Quad Camera for Windows Phone

December 3, 2011 | By Jakub Florczyk

screen4vg

Simple to use, the app takes 4-8 serial shoots and create one image. What makes Quad Camera great is that it’s a fantastic tool to get instant fantastic results from the Windows Phone camera.

Taking pictures of running cars, watching sports, adorable behaviours of your children’s or pets. This is a cool camera application that you can apply for any moments.

Features:

4 or 8 serial shoots
set 0.1 – 3 seconds serial shoot duration
black & white effect
various layout variation: 2×2, 4×1, 4×2
trial version

You can get Quad Camera in the Marketplace for $0.99.

See more screen shots after the break.

Continue reading →

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Samsung Omnia W review reveals significantly improved camera picture quality

December 2, 2011 | By Surur

samsung-omnia-w (1)


Samsung Omnia W – detail	Samsung Omnia 7 – detail

While we were never overly impressed by Samsung Omnia W, a detailed review by MonWindowsPhone reveals elements where the handset is definitely improved over the much lauded Samsung Omnia 7.

One area is the camera, which was already pretty good on the Samsung Omnia 7. The picture above demonstrates the camera captures significantly more detail, even though both phones have 5 megapixel cameras.

See the full review and many more example pictures at Monwindowsphone here.

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AutoPanorama brings panorama camera capabilities to Nokia Lumia 800, other phones

December 1, 2011 | By Surur

autopanorama

A big disappointment with Nokia’s Windows Phones is lack of special camera features, like the Panorama mode on HTC’s new handsets.

Thankfully with Mango’s new APIs 3rd parties have better access to the camera, which is just what theAppBros needed to fill the void.

autopanoramaqr Their app, AutoPanorama, is just like HTC’s old Windows Mobile Panorama mode, using a transparent overlay from the last image to line up the next one. The results are only as good as your skill in overlapping the pictures (the most important being to pivot the phone around its own axis, rather than your body) , but its better than not having the capability at all.

The app is free and can be found in Marketplace here.

Via MobilityDigest.com

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Nokia Lumia 800 due to get a camera software update

November 11, 2011 | By Surur

phonedaz The Nokia Lumia 800 was expected to bring the best of Nokia’s camera phone expertise finally to Windows Phone 7.

It was therefore rather disappointing when the camera did not live up to our expectations.

Now the My Nokia Blog reports Damian Dinning, Nokia’s “imaging guru” and the owner of the imaging experience for Nokia Smart Devices has posted on twitter that a software update was coming for the Nokia N9 and Nokia Lumia 800 which will improve performance of the camera in these handsets.

The Nokia Lumia 800 appears to have a number of issues, which mostly appear to be software related, including a cold colour temperature, slow auto-focus and compression issues which could all be corrected with software. Hopefully we will see just such an update in the next few weeks.

The Nokia Lumia 800 (SeaRay) is an upcoming Windows Phone with a 3.7” ClearBlack AMOLED screen, HSPA+ data speeds, and a 1.4 GHz single-core processor. It has an 8-megapixel rear camera, no front-facing camera, and 16 GB of storage. It is coming to many countries like Germany around November 16, 2011. United States release date is currently unknown. Full specs…

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GSMArena does not think the HTC Titan camera is that great

November 10, 2011 | By Surur


iPhone 4S	HTC Titan

Its gets rather difficult to make a decision when the answers keep changing.

We posted recently that, in objective tests, the HTC Titan beat out a score of other cameras, including the iPhone 4S and the Nokia Lumia 800.

Now GSMArena have performed a series of tests on a large number of 8 megapixel phone cameras, and were not as impressed.

They tested the new iPhone 4S, the Samsung Galaxy S II, the Sony Ericsson Xperia arc S, the HTC Sensation XE, the Nokia N9 and the Windows Phone HTC Titan.

They scored the HTC Titan last on the list, noting about its still picture performance:

The HTC Titan has a wider angle lens that its competitors, which gives it an edge in landscape shots, at the price of lower fine detail and more lens distortion when you get up close.

The noise reduction is too aggressive, giving photos that dreaded watercolor painting look. Fine detail is smeared over but even then, there’s still some color noise visible. The Titan finds a better balance between the clipping of the highlights and shadows than most but it suffers from the same yellowish oversaturated colors as the XE. There was a noticeable pink spot to most of the samples too.

Photos in the dark with the Titan were noisy with decent detail. The flash was strong but but there’s a tint affecting the whole photo. Other than that low-light shots are pretty usable.

They crowned the iPhone 4S as the best camera, and concluded about the HTC Titan:

The Titan managed to surprise us. We weren’t expecting much of a WP7 phone by HTC, but it offered very balanced still camera performance (with a knack for poor lighting) and solid video output (for a 720p shooter).

Read their full test here.

Thanks JustVisiting for the tip

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DigitalVersus crowns the HTC Titan camera ahead of the iPhone 4S, Nokia Lumia 800, and SE Xperia Ray

November 9, 2011 | By Surur

(HTC Titan on the left, Nokia Lumia 800 on the right)

When we posted the comparison of the HTC Titan with the Nokia Lumia 800 yesterday, it was merely based on our own judgement of the test pictures compared.

Now DigitalVersus, who keeps a database of cameras from a large number of devices tested under lab conditions, have weighed in with their own verdict, and it crowns the HTC Titan an unexpected winner.

They found:

We compared the Lumia 800 with the HTC Titan, Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray and Apple iPhone 4S, which we consider to be the best cameraphones we’ve tested to date.

We found the Lumia 800 camera very pleasant to use. It has a fast autofocus and saves pictures quickly. Plus, on the whole, the Lumia 800 camera takes photos that are really quite good quality.

As with Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Ray, we found that photos taken with the Lumia 800 were a touch less sharp than those taken with the iPhone 4S and HTC Titan, which came out more richly detailed.

Compared with the Apple handset, Nokia’s new smartphone doesn’t handle noise quite as well either, and the test shot taken in low-light conditions was full of coloured pixels. Again, the Xperia Ray behaves in a similar way to the Lumia 800 in this respect.

Colours in the Nokia Lumia 800 are too cold while colours in the iPhone 4S are a bit too warm. Bang in-between the two, the Xperia Ray gives colours that are more neutral and more accurately rendered.

So how does the Lumia 800 fare against the excellent HTC Titan? Although the Titan did struggle slightly with some of the ‘Barbie’ test shots, on the whole, HTC’s outsized handset still has a better camera than the other three smartphones cited above.

So while all of these mobiles actually have very good cameras, with all criteria taken into account, we’d place the HTC Titan and the Apple iPhone 4S just ahead of the Xperia Ray and the Lumia 800, which offer similar levels of quality.

Read the full article and see many comparison shots at DigitialVersus here.

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