Nokia N81 8GB camera samples

The Nokia N81 8GB has a main camera on the back panel with a maximum resolution of 2.0-megapixels (1600x1200 pixels). It is also capable of shooting video footage in MPEG-4 VGA quality (640x480 pixels) at up to 15 frames per second.

The N81 8GB also has secondary low resolution CIF camera (320x240 pixels) above the front LCD screen, mainly for video calling but also capable of self portraits.

At maximum 2.0-megapixel resolution the camera can produce good quality prints up to 7x5 inches in size.The main 2.0-megapixel camera can be activated quickly by pressing a dedicated camera button on the side of the phone. This switches the display into landscape mode for digital camera style shooting, with the screen acting as the viewfinder.

There's an LED flash above the lens for low light illumination. The camera is fixed focus, and there's no macro mode for close ups, limiting the quality of close in images. There are three resolution settings, 2-, 1- and 0.3 megapixels, plus a digital zoom up to 20x.

The camera has a fully automatic setting to adjust to changing lighting conditions, although there are a series of camera settings you can try out to improve shots. Lighting sensitivity, white balance, exposure and colour controls can be adjusted, while there are also controls for flash - including a red-eye reduction option - and self-timer.

Users can tweak pre-shot colours (sepia, negative or black and white), and take multiple shots either as a 6-shot burst or taking pictures at set intervals, with settings ranging from every 5 seconds to every 30 minutes.

The icon-driven camera user interface is clear, with pop up descriptions of icons. However, these can be a touch slow if you want to make a fast adjustment to capture an image quickly. Once taken, images can be saved, sent as messages or uploaded with a few clicks to an online Flickr or Vox account.

We found the performance of the camera to be quite average. In our tests, mid-range shots showed reasonable detail but could be a touch soft. Colour rendition was very variable, however; even in good lighting conditions, colour reproduction could sometimes be poor on automatic mode. In average lighting, colours were often subdued and washed out.

The camera also appeared to have trouble with high contrast subjects; there was some burn-out in landscape shots which were partially dark with sunny elements, and some odd automatic white balance register.

The digital zoom, although useful, introduces more noise into images, making them look grainy.