My Nokia Blog

The Benefit of Having a Mechanical Shutter?
Temple Run Brave Runs Onto Windows Phone
Windows Phone is now the most popular smartphone OS in Finland
Nokia Lumia 925: Vodafone UK Pre-order available (32GB), T-Mobile USA site ready
Sneaky Peeky Video: Nokia EOS (40MP) in action (40MP PureView in title)
Nokia Drive Gem – Surfer Dude voice. Speaking of which….Bring back Own Voice

The Benefit of Having a Mechanical Shutter?

Posted: 07 Jun 2013 10:07 AM PDT

With the latest series of leaks we’ve learnt a lot more about the upcoming EOS (yet we still don’t have an exact Megapixel count); the latest of these leaks showed off a video of the EOS’s mechanical shutter in action. So I thought I’d take a plunge into the world of imaging and see why a mechanical shutter is a better option than an electronic shutter (of course I just read up on this so my facts aren’t 100% but I thought it was worth a share).

First off some background info, most phones such as 920, 820 and others have electronic/digital shutters which rather than physically closing when an image is captured instead just “turn off” the sensor. On the other hand most SLRs/DSLRs and some camera phones such as the N8 and 808 have mechanical shutters; which physically close and block the light from reaching the sensor while capturing an image. As you can see in the cinemagraph above the 808′s shutter visibly opens and closes when capturing an image, the 920 on the other hand has no “shutter lens” meaning that the camera is visible “open” as seen below.

So what does this all mean in terms of performance in a camera? and more importantly a camera phone? Well first off there’s the undeniably cool effect of having your shutter pop open and close ; I think this engadget comment captures it perfectly:

On a more serious note the main advantage of having a mechanical shutter on a camera (not a phone) is the ability to use it with an optical viewfinder (rather than a live feed/viewfinder on screen); the benefit of this is a more realistic look at what you’re capturing, plus saving on battery life (because you’re not using the screen – or really anything else). The second benefit comes in terms of production, although using a mechanical shutter is more expensive than just switching off the sensor it does allow for the usage of cheaper less complicated sensors (that can focus on doing their job), further more mechanical shutters take up less space inside a camera module than electronic sensors (for reasons I can’t understand); this is kind of important when trying to keep a camera phone as compact as possible (although I doubt the difference between the two can be *that* great).

In terms of actual photographic results mechanical shutters provide slightly better results by completely blocking off any light to the sensor; preventing any overexposure of pixels and ghosting of images while the first one is being processed:

Once the mechanical shutter is closed, circuitry is then used to shift the charge from each pixel into a storage area. Since the pixels on the sensor remain “live” during readout, if the shutter remained open, light would continue to alter the charge accumulated by each pixel during the shifting operation which could result in blur or ghosting.

Of course mechanical shutters also have the added benefit of providing a “dust barrier” to the lens, protecting it from scratches and other nasty stuff.

On the other hand Mechanical shutters are slower to react than electronic ones, meaning they limit your shutter speed, as well as throw off the synchronized timing of the flash firing and the image being captured.

Honestly the topic is pretty complicated, and I’m an imaging newbie, but I thought it would be an interesting read; for a more detailed explanation check out this great article over here:

http://www.steves-digicams.com/knowledge-center/why-digital-cameras-have-mechanical-shutters.html#b

If anyone would like to add something to this please feel free to chip in down below

And of course who wouldn’t his camera to look like this?

Edit:

Here’re some useful points/corrections that Werner Ruotsalainen pointed out in the comments:

Why not? See below.

“Honestly the topic is pretty complicated, and I'm an imaging newbie, but I thought it would be an interesting read; for a more detailed explanation check out this great article over here: http://www.steves-digicams.com/knowledge-center/why-digital-cameras-have-mechanical-shutters.html#b”

Well, this article doesn’t mention a LOT of things: blooming and, also very importantly, rolling shutter. Both affect electronic shutters in most cases really bad.

“On a more serious note the main advantage of having a mechanical shutter on a camera (not a phone) is the ability to use it with an optical viewfinder (rather than a live feed/viewfinder on screen); the benefit of this is a more realistic look at what you're capturing, plus saving on battery life (because you're not using the screen – or really anything else).”

??? Are you sure you did mean “if you have a mechanical shutter, you don’t need to power / sample sensor at all because you can also use the optical viewfinder?” This isn’t really true.

1, if you use live view on mirror cameras, the sensor will be sampled all the time.
2, if you don’t, the system may decide to entirely power down the sensor to save power / keep the sensor cool.
3, nevertheless, mechanical shutters – and this is the most important part! – are always open even on DSLR’s with true mirrors, that is, an alternate way of light. They only close immediately before taking an image and AFTER setting exposure, based on the previous sensor readout (the optical way of light can only be used for PDAF, not for exposure / ISO setting). That is, there’s no difference between purely electronic and mechanical systems at all in this respect.

“Of course mechanical shutters also have the added benefit of providing a "dust barrier" to the lens, protecting it from scratches and other nasty stuff.”

VERY few mechanical shutters double as retractable / automatic lens protectors. Most of them are either in the lens (most P&S models) or directly in front of the sensor (all current ILC’s). The reason for this is simple: retractable / automatic lens protectors are prone to stuck (because of liquids / dust) / damaged by the user AND, in general, there are points in the line of light where a much smaller shutter can do, while the front lens, generally, is of much higher diameter than some of the inner lens.

If the lens protectors get stuck, the camera itself can still take images. However, if they also double as mechanical shutters, the camera itself becomes useless as it won’t be able to take pics at all.

Temple Run Brave Runs Onto Windows Phone

Posted: 07 Jun 2013 09:26 AM PDT

Temple Run Brave, the Pixar/Disney twist on the original Temple Run has just hit the Windows Phone marketplace, and although it’s priced at $.99 unlike the free vanilla version (which pretty much sucks), it’s worth the buy apparently:

Okay Temple Run Brave is a fantastic port on WP. Delete the original TR shit on WP and buy this.

— Rahul Mathur (@weemundo) June 7, 2013

Unfortunately this version also seems to require 1Gb of ram for unknown reasons; sorry folks.

So be sure to grab it at the source link down below (and enjoy not being mocked as much from your friends for your lack of “running skills”).. Now subway surfer where art thou?

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/temple-run-brave/ffd76df9-54eb-4bcd-ad0d-8c52b923d65c

Scan with Windows Phone

Windows Phone is now the most popular smartphone OS in Finland

Posted: 07 Jun 2013 04:41 AM PDT

AlypuhelintenJakautuminen_marketvisio052013 (1)

Quick heads up, marketvisio.fi reports that Windows Phone is now the top OS in Finland unless the translation is wrong:

http://www.marketvisio.fi/fi/ajankohtaista/uutiset-marketvisio/1703-windows-phone-noussut-suomen-johtavaksi-lypuhelinalustaksi

Windows Phone has now passed narrowly two main rival, and lead to new sales of Finnish smartphone platform battle 35% of the market. “Finnish smartphone platforms in the market differs from other markets. most other countries, the Android platform dominates the smartphone market, while in Finland the Windows Phone is taking a strong foothold in the Nokia Lumia family tension,”Market Vision says a leading analyst Toni Nygrén.

Cheers hulkkii for the tip

Nokia Lumia 925: Vodafone UK Pre-order available (32GB), T-Mobile USA site ready

Posted: 07 Jun 2013 04:00 AM PDT

Screen Shot 2013-06-07 at 11.42.36