Having met Damian a couple of times now, I can gladly say that not only does he know what he’s talking about, he is a tinker too.  He is someone whom I admire as he is always testing things when it comes to his speciality, optics, but more importantly, Nokia Camera optics. Damian has been responsible for the Optics in both the N86 8MP device, and now the N8 12MP device, he even played a part in the N82 build too.

In this latest interview from Nokia Conversations, with Damian, we get to find out some interesting things, and I’m sure you will enjoy reading it.

 Remember that HyperX hack I posted about recently, where 30fps was now possible with the N8′s camera, with smooth quick panning?  Well Damian explains why this functionality was not available from the sales package of the N8.  Take a read of the full interview here.  Heres a couple of key points from the interview…

NC: We know you wanted to set the record straight regarding some negative views. Some commentators have suggested that the colour saturation on pictures taken with the Nokia N8 is weaker than that on other camera phones. What’s your take on that?

DD: Well, actually, that’s completely true. It was entirely our intention. People have become used to a ‘Hollywood’ level of colour that simply isn’t true to life. I’ve seen a number of camera phones where, just as one example, some people’s (white, Caucasian) skin would appear yellow. We wanted the Nokia N8’s colour balance to closely reflect the scene – and that’s less colourful than many people may have come to believe when viewing images captured with some other devices.

That said, we do try and replicate the ‘mind’s eye’, where there are some colour adjustments that are made under specific circumstances. For example, when people see a snow scene, their perception is that there’s a blue-ish tint. Cameras can’t see that because it’s actually about human perception rather than what’s objectively out there. So we add some colour correction to put some blue in, which meets people’s expectations of what snow scenes looked like at the time. There are a couple of other special corrections like that. All said and done, this is a very subjective area. As an example you may find if you were watching TV at a friend’s house you may not quite agree with the way they have set the colour and brightness. It’s also important to note that viewing images online taken by others of scenes and/or subjects you have not seen before, how would you know what’s right and what’s wrong unless there is a known colour reference in the scene?

Lastly, for people who do want more vivid colour, there’s a setting for colour tone. It’s now possible with the new Symbian devices to set this as a preference (amongst others) which is automatically set each time you start the camera. Full interview can be found here at Nokia Conversations, Nokia’s Official Blog.