Photography Tips with Nokia 9 PureView – Understanding Pro mode
The Nokia 9 PureView is here and what better time to get into the nitty-gritty of photography.
Photography Tips with Nokia 9 PureView – Understanding Pro mode
The Nokia 9 PureView is here and what better time to get into the nitty-gritty of photography. There are just so many ways you can discover the photographer in you that it's difficult to decide where to begin!
In the coming days, I'll take you through the many concepts of photography, from composition and light to editing your photos.
First, however, let's kick things off with the very basic settings and how you can use them.
If you're just learning about the Pro mode on Nokia phones, the many customisable settings may be slightly overwhelming. You may also feel you would rather just point and shoot in 'auto' mode for faster results. However, if you truly want to get the best out of your Nokia 9 PureView, Pro mode is your best bet.
PSA time: The Pro mode on the Nokia 9 PureView brings with it a bunch of improvements – with a maximum exposure time of 10 seconds, opposed to 4 seconds on legacy devices. Plus, exposure value can now be set every 1/3rd stop, as opposed to 1 stop in previous devices.
ISO
Before there were digital cameras, we all shot photos on film, and ISO was a measure of the film's sensitivity to light. One roll of film would be rated with one ISO number (ISO 100, 200, and so on), which meant the photographer would have to shoot the entire roll with a fixed ISO. In the digital world, however, things are simpler. In DSLR or smartphone cameras, the ISO setting is used to adjust the image sensor’s sensitivity to light.
On the Nokia 9 PureView, the ISO setting ranges from 100 (least sensitive to light) to 6400 (most sensitive to light). To put it simply, the brighter the environment, the lower you must go on the ISO settings. And in darker scenarios, bump up the ISO setting to as high as you can. Beware: The higher you go on the ISO scale, the greater your chances of introducing grains in your photos and losing detail.
This collage above shows the same object photographed at ISO 100 (left) and ISO 6400 (right) in indoor lighting conditions. You can notice the detail on the bottle in the left picture, and near-complete loss of detail and the overwhelming amount of noise in the right.
The key takeaway here is that lower ISO settings result in sharper, cleaner images.
Shutter Speed
The second setting that is critical to controlling the outcome of a photograph is shutter speed. It is the amount of time you allow your camera shutter to stay open to let in light. The longer a shutter is open, the more the amount of light that reaches the sensor, and the brighter your picture will be, and vice versa. So, to photograph a fast-moving object, use short shutter speeds, and to capture those beautiful light trails, or silky waterfalls, use a longer shutter speed.
Like ISO, shutter speed, too, is tricky - short shutter speeds (anything shorter than 1/500th of a second) tends to lead to darker photos, whereas longer shutter speeds (anything longer than 1/60th of a second) will lead to blurred photos if the camera isn't mounted on a tripod or at least kept on a stable surface.
In this example, you can see the difference shutter speed makes in capturing objects in motion. On top is a photo shot at 1/30th of a second; at the bottom is one shot at 1/250. You can clearly see the difference between the blurred scooter and the sharper car.
Playing around with the shutter speed setting is a rewarding experience. I urge you, Fans, to try it out and find your comfort zone.
White Balance
Ever notice the photos you take indoors tend to look orange-yellow? That's because you haven't adjusted the white balance setting.
Often misunderstood and thus overlooked, white balance is the most powerful tool most smartphone photographers rarely use. This setting removes unreal colours from a photograph - essentially ensuring that objects that appear white in person are rendered white on a photograph.
To explain further - light has a temperature. An overcast sky is "cool" so photos appear bluish, while a halogen lamp is "warm" resulting in yellowish-orange photos. The role of white balancing is to ensure white objects (and by extension all other colours) are captured correctly.
This photo shows how the same scene looks under the white balance settings on the Nokia 9 PureView – (from left to right) incandescent, fluorescent, shade, cloudy, daylight, automatic.
Now, none of what I've mentioned above are absolute rules. You can play with shutter speed to get lovely light trails. Or you could bump up your ISO settings to get gritty, moody portraits. Indeed, you can even go wild with your white balance. Want a blue sunset, tweak your settings!
However, the underlying point is this: know how everything works first before you go experimenting!
However, the underlying point is this: know how everything works first before you go experimenting!
We hope this article has removed some of the apprehensions you may have had about using the Pro or manual mode on your Nokia smartphone camera.
Now, get clicking and share your photos!
If you have any questions or observations, please tell me in the comments below.
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Comments
Thank you very much for your first of a series of articles presenting and explaining how Nokia 9 users can maximize the use of PRO mode.
Such initiative is truly relevant, and it will be even more important if, as you say, our comments and suggestions are gathered by you, namely to produce solutions, and ALSO to provide Nokia software development staff our feedback as end users.
In other words, I personally see your role here also as a guarantee that our opinions and requests are delivered to and listened by the right HMD staff.
In short, I find your first article very useful, I find Tomasz ExFiddling comments on camera software bugs/omissions pretty objective and mandatory, and I again repeat my request to introduce a manual focus slider in Pro mode.
Finally, my personal view about upgrading and keeping confidence in a given brand irrespective of its unquestionable quality. One of the factors that does prevent me to invest in an overall better and new equipment is the sensation that basic / crucial features that can be made available (now) to current (and really good) hardware, are postponed or skipped by marketing goals. The opposite behavior will drive me to invest in new, and for sure better equipment, that I foresee that will always be kept on its intrinsic top potential.
Thanks, looking forward to read your future posts.
Thanks
Thanks!
I'm perfectly aware how to shoot in manual mode, as I have won some awards as an amateur photographer at some places shooting in manual mode with manual lenses and a mirrorless camera.
Honestly, I couldn't figure out how this trash works and what is it's logic. Not to say that after the latest fw it doesn't show the actual look while changing settings for ss and iso, which was working before. The lack of manual focus is not to comment. Pro mode here should be called "kinda lucky mode". And we wait for the "second generation", like the new hardware will solve the brain issues. We are not iPhone users! Good luck Nokia...
Combination of both. ISO and shutter speed go hand in hand. I mostly use IS0 of 100 and 200 and just play with the shutter speed. Again, a tripod is a must. Yes, a photography-related section is a must and I have asked for it in the past. It will be much more useful to look for camera-related topics all in one place.
You cannot use Exposure Value if you have manually set a shutter speed. As I said above it darkens or brightens the image and the same thing can be achieved by manually setting ISO and Shutter speed.
I agree that in dark situations manual focus helps a lot as tap to focus doesn't work. Maybe they can include the manual focus and limit some other functions of the Nokia 9 PureView while in Pro Mode if it is possible to do it.
Hi, if such manual focus issues occur with Nokia 9 hardware in very low ligh then an infinite focus lock position should be provided.
Thanks
That's what I want it for... Night sky... For closer objects and , say, 4-10 sec exposures, just illuminate them with a flashlight and then extinguish the light immediately after exposure begins.
For night long exposures without background illuminated subjects, infinity focus is a must.
Thanks!
Thanks 😊
I think the issue may be that the focus is not calibrated internally and hence they cannot manually adjust the focus on all the cameras to the same value. If, for example, the lens focus is temperature sensitive the calibration may be extremely difficult to do.
ISO just determines how sensitive is the camera to light. So, increasing the ISO will just increase the sensitivity of the camera. This doesn't interfere with the Exposure time. Hence, you can still adjust the EV aka brightness.
EV does the same thing as Shutter speed but at a smaller level. If you increase only the EV the camera bumps the ISO and click the image at certain shutter speed depending on the amount of light in the environment.
Yes, I agree. There should have been a Whitepaper explaining in detail everything about the Nokia 9 PureView. But, the only missing feature in the ProMode of Nokia 9 PureView is the Manual Focus slider and it would be appreciated if Sarvikas explains why it is removed.
I generally agree with your explanation and you are correct.
I only disagree with one statement
"Yes, as I said above EV won't work when you adjust the Shutter Speed. The slider greys out because you are taking Exposure in your hands by playing with the Shutter speed or the exposure time. Here, you are deciding how much time the shutter remains open to collect light. Hence, there's no use of the EV slider."
There are a couple of situations where adjusting shutter speend AND exposure compensation make sense...I am combining this with my DSLR quite often, for example when taking photos of flowing water and getting this nice veil-effect.
But yeah, the 9PV is still a smartphone and comparing its camera features with the possibilities of a DSLR is probably a bit far off
I have never used a DSLR so I was not sure how it works on those proper cameras. But most smartphones with Pro Mode that I have seen do not allow us to change the EV if we manually adjust the Shutter Speed. That's why I said there's no use of EV Slider and It is same for every phone. Now that II know it works in a different way on DSLR's it is a lot useful feature.
As this is possible on DSLR's I hope it will be implemented on phones as well (if it hasn't been implemented yet).