nokia 9 pureview

Unlike other multi-camera phones, like the LG V40 or Samsung’s newly announced Galaxy S10, the Nokia 9 PureView uses the same key specs for all five cameras: each one has a 12 megapixel sensor and an f/1.8 lens. But only two of those five cameras shoot in color — the other three are monochrome.
 

Whenever you press the shutter, all five cameras shoot different exposures at the same time, which then get merged together into a single, ultra-detailed shot. Depending on the scene composition, Nokia says that individual cameras can even shoot multiple exposures on their own to add even more data to the final image. The result — at least in theory — is a smartphone camera that offers new levels of detail and color.

As one might have expected from seeing a device with this many cameras, Nokia partnered with Light (makers of the 16-camera L16), making it the first phone that the camera company has contributed to. Nokia is actually employing Light’s Lux Capacitor camera-control chip here to manage the five cameras, since the Snapdragon 845 is only built to handle up to three lenses out of the box (although the company also worked with Qualcomm to optimize the cameras as much as possible with the 845).

Every image captured by 9 PureView has 12.4 stops of dynamic range and a full scene 12MP depth map. The phone also offers export of uncompressed RAW DNG format, and editing on the phone thanks to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. Nokia 9 PureView can identify over 1,200 layers which it uses to build a detailed depth map. You can switch to the three monochrome sensors and shoot black and white photos with the “native monochrome mode”. The Nokia Pro camera UI was upgraded with new features to make use of Nokia 9’s new hardware.

Nokia is also teaming up with Adobe for the Nokia 9. Lightroom will come preinstalled on the device, and the two companies are developing Lightroom presets specifically tuned to the lenses on the Nokia 9 PureView.