If you’re a photography buff then no doubt the Nokia Lumia 1020 will have piqued your interest in recent months – a smartphone with a 41 megapixel camera, optical image stabilisation and various other features which make it more akin to a point and shoot camera than a smartphone. Now Nokia is giving its top snapper a big boost in the photography department with RAW image capture.
The Finnish manufacturer recently touted a new software update it called ‘Lumia Black’ which would arrive some day in the near future and that day is today. The update is now rolling out to Lumia 1020s around the world and its primary function is to add RAW image capture capabilities.
With the update the Lumia 1020 will offer a RAW mode which mimics high-end Digital SLR cameras by storing the full resolution image captured by the 41 megapixel sensor. The benefits of RAW image capture lie in editing, as virtually everything from colour hues to gamma levels can be finely tweaked to improve and perfect images using professional tools on a PC or Mac.
In the case of the Lumia 1020, the RAW image mode captures a 5 megapixel JPEG and a 16 megapixel DNG image together for each shot, which then offer an uncompressed single image which can be imported into image editing software and altered. Effectively this will enhance the shooting capabilities of the Lumia 1020 even further, making it a real photography powerhouse and a viable option to a compact digital camera.
Aside from upping the stakes in the camera department, the Lumia Black update also adds support for Bluetooth 4.0 which will in turn mean compatibility with wearable gadgets such as smart watches and health bands, all of which aim to use as little battery as possible when interconnected with other devices. There’s also going to be a new ‘Glance’ update which puts useful information such as the outside temperature and pedometer readings on the phone’s lock screen, ready to be viewed at a glance – get it?
Those with a Nokia Lumia 1020 can now download the Lumia Black update over the air by connecting to Wi-Fi and heading into Settings and Phone update.