Nokia N70 camera review: Quality without a label

Marek Lutonský, 20 October 2005.

Sample photos

Nokia N70 takes the best pictures outside, in good light conditions; in other words, in ideal conditions. When I took the first picture below I was holding Nokia N70 with one hand, the way a mobile phone is usually held. In the second picture, the hold was horizontal, the typical standard camera one. It is a pity that in the latter case pictures are taken vertically. The opposite way could have been far more convenient.

As far as the white balance option is concerned, you'd better not rely on automatic settings too much. The following two test-pictures show the difference between auto- and sunny mode.

The exposure compensation option is missing. In some scenes the darker areas are much too light, with the sky being obviously overexposed, and there is no way to fix the problem.

The lens doesn't exhibit any chromatic aberration. Dark lines along the contours of each object are nothing that should be praised, but they are surely better than the blue ghost effect.

I have tested the Portrait mode. As you can see, exposure compensation would have come in handy here too.

The macro pictures taken with Nokia N70 are terrible.

Even though Nokia N70 macro pictures are really bad, the ones it takes from a greater distance are pretty good.

Using the digital zoom makes sense, if you need to view the photos on the phone's display only.

Open scenes seem to be the most appropriate for Nokia's new photo mobile.

Nokia does not ask and sets higher ISO sensitivity level when pictures are taken in a darker place. This results in high noise levels.

The one and the same scene was taken in all four pictures below. The first picture was made in a standard mode. The second one a flash was added. The third picture was taken in a night mode, whilst in the fourth one the night mode was added a flash.