BlackBerry Z10 camera test photos now appearing on Flickr

By Bla1ze on 17 Jan 2013 06:28 am

*UPDATE* - Another image has now been found on Picasa as well. Thanks, Alex!

Normally, I wouldn't write a post like this up since we'll be doing our own testing soon enough, but as BlackBerry 10 news is spreading, there have been a lot of folks wondering how well the camera works on what will end up being the first BlackBerry 10 device off the line -- the Z10. We've seen some test shots here and there along with some video samples and things are looking good. Now, some new images found on Flickr offer up a further look at how the camera quality will be on the device.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the photos isn't that the EXIF data says RIM BlackBerry Z10, it's that they all appear to be filtered in some way. As we showed you quite a while back, there was a photo editor that was being worked on, and in showing that we were also able to show off some of the frames and filters that were being added. Since then, we've not seen that app running anywhere, but one of the other images uploaded on January 13th is in fact making use of one of those frames from that photo editor.

Source: Flickr via: @evleaks

Topics: BlackBerry Z10 News & Rumors

Bla1ze 2974 (articles) 6574 (forum posts)

50 comments

GTiLeo Jan 17, 2013 at 6:33 am

Very nice. I like the Lego in the sand. You can see the granules of sand clearly

Suyash Srijan Jan 17, 2013 at 6:40 am

Check my post for some Dev Alpha B snaps and videos (the camera in Dev Alpha B is same as the one in Z10): http://skotgat.com/blackberry-10-l-series-device-camera-samples

grnrprl Jan 17, 2013 at 6:46 am

Black & White? How about Black & White mode, AT LAST? What made RIM they removed it after OS5?

d1n_only Jan 17, 2013 at 6:55 am

I'm just glad to see that not everything is in focus, will make for some more creativity taking photos once its released. Anyone know the aperture size of the camera lens?

PagerRocka Jan 17, 2013 at 7:22 am

F2.2 and 4.1mm

Theres also this picture from december but the EXIF on this one says its a 4mm lense
http://www.fou6an.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/20121228-162041.jpg

vgorous Jan 17, 2013 at 7:56 am

Agreed. I noticed that between my DSLR and a digicam. Everything is in focus in the digicam and doesn't give the effect as if it were taken from a DSLR. This I like.

cray.mock Jan 17, 2013 at 8:58 am

No idea about the aperture size, but as Kai W. would say "BOKEH!!!" :)

JMDBERRY Jan 17, 2013 at 10:41 am

That's not "bokeh",...that's just "OOF"! Out of Focus! But,..I understand your point. If the Z10 can create sweet creamy bokeh,...that would extremely su'weet!

Definition of Bokeh: Bokeh is the quality of out-of-focus or “blurry” parts of the image rendered by a camera lens – it is NOT the blur itself or the amount of blur in the foreground or the background of a subject. The blur that you are so used to seeing in photography that separates a subject from the background is the result of shallow “depth of field” and is generally simply called “background blur”. The quality and feel of the background/foreground blur and reflected points of light, however, is what photographers call Bokeh

JMD

imcurved Jan 17, 2013 at 4:35 pm

Bokeh effect. Nice.

TMO_9000_32GB_PB

Novaone Jan 17, 2013 at 7:01 am

DOPE. Lego macro.

BBPandy Jan 17, 2013 at 7:04 am

grrr Jan 13 & they are at the beach...meanwhile it's -15*C here :(

G-bone Jan 17, 2013 at 7:15 am

-15? You be havin' a heat wave...
#BB10Believe

hennesseystealth Jan 17, 2013 at 1:37 pm

85F in Costa Rica ; )

neteng1000 Jan 17, 2013 at 7:11 am

Looks as good as my Nikon D90

Graheem Jan 17, 2013 at 1:37 pm

Sorry to hear that about your D90.

G-bone Jan 17, 2013 at 7:17 am

This might be the only time I read a review of a phone ON the phone being reviewed LOL

#BB10Believe

vicentechable Jan 17, 2013 at 7:28 am

Does this mean no Instagram for BB10?

Lebussle Jan 17, 2013 at 9:32 am

I think there's lots of room for more than one image filtering app, especially ones that don't put your pictures in facebook's control.

So, I would not take this as any indication of Instagram's availability.

polytope Jan 17, 2013 at 7:57 am

Beautiful. This will make point-and-shoot camera makers to really step up their game.

AAAAAAA7 Jan 17, 2013 at 8:09 am

There really is nothing special about this bokeh pic.... take any phone that can do macro and take a macro shot ensuring some background remains in your frame and BOOM.

My over 2 year old phone can do that.

kvndoom Jan 17, 2013 at 8:15 am

She's hot. Wonder if she's single.

vbittersweet Jan 17, 2013 at 8:19 am

+1 :-)

Esgetn2hoT Jan 17, 2013 at 9:19 am

i do like me a woman with square edges.... :D

berryjunkie Jan 17, 2013 at 8:17 am

What about shutter speed? My 9810 took great pix but the shutter speed was slow....

Lebussle Jan 17, 2013 at 9:36 am

I'm wondering the same thing. It's always a bit awkward when a group has to hold their pose for a little longer than is comfortable while waiting for the camera to snap. But then I guess there's time shift :)

123berryaddicted Jan 17, 2013 at 10:51 am

I'm no photographer, but I think you both are using the term "shutter speed" incorrectly? I think what you are referring too is the delay between touching the screen, and when the camera actually takes the photo, this is clearly software and has nothing todo with how long the cameras shutter opens and closes? Maybe a professional can chime in (as I am clearly not)... But I too hope the camera is not laggy...

RazielDark Jan 17, 2013 at 11:23 am

I'm a professional photographer and they're using the term correctly. However, what you are mentioning is equally important given that "The relay/response time" of the z10 be consistently fast when taking multiple pictures on the fly. But then we would be talking about QNX and it's processing power and ability... I'm NOT worried.

bdguru Jan 17, 2013 at 8:48 am

These shots look very nice. I do not use my camera that often. That being said people have complained about BB cameras for years. So if they design a Very good one.....It will be one less thing the critics can't b***h about. Go RIM.

colorwatch2000 Jan 17, 2013 at 9:04 am

I don't know anything about photos but it still looks better than my 9900. Not too difficult to do though.

coaltowking Jan 17, 2013 at 9:33 am

I've always whined about my phone's camera. Then, I bought a GoPro. Now, s are going to have decent cameras... Damnitall...

hudsong Jan 17, 2013 at 9:58 am

Well... it officially has a bigger aperture than the iPhone (2.2 vs 2.4). I hope they know how to market that feature

sroberts1519 Jan 17, 2013 at 10:18 am

These photos are not comparable to what a DSLR does. The subject was very close (macro shot), which makes the depth of field small, enabling the background to easily be blured. The bokeh is not very silky smooth. In fact, the boy in the blue shirt looks pretty "rough" to me, but I think the "shutter" was dragged a little on the photo, resulting in some motion blur on the kid. There is also alot of sharpening artiffacts in the photo, way to much USM applied, but probably needed to get the photo that sharp. They are not even close to DSLR quailty photos. After saying all of that, they still look pretty darn good for a snapshot out of a cell phone. I am impressed.

nquyen Jan 17, 2013 at 10:37 am

The depth of field looks fine. If anything it looks "choppy" (I don't see it) because of some filters they put on it. Looks miles better than the iPhone where to even get depth of field you need to put some retarded sepia filter.

DonMarcello Jan 17, 2013 at 10:33 am

@BBPandy & G-bone; it's a sunny breezy 29*C here in Barbados...wonderful! Back to topic, the photo quality looks good to me, and the addition of filters gives the users some options. Remember we won't know the true quality of the camera or its full range of features until BB10 launches on the 30th, we just might be in for a major surprise.

Rub3n5 Jan 17, 2013 at 10:42 am

Most of the pictures I've seen taken through video or online look like the camera stinks. The functionality of being able to go back in time looks really good, but the camera quality isn't there. I'm just hoping this is just a cheapy camera in the Dev Alpha and not the final hardware.

sreidenb Jan 17, 2013 at 10:57 am

Anybody know what the default dpi will be when bringing the photo into photoshop? I work with large images and reproduce them on canvas, and we have people send us pictures from their phones that suck when enlarged. We have to blow everything up because print quality has to be 300dpi. Every phone we have tested, (Galaxy S3, iPhone 5, etc.) has been defaulted at 72dpi. Hoping the BB10 will be better.

RazielDark Jan 17, 2013 at 11:31 am

This is one of the most over looked things when it comes to photos on phones. It would be amazing if they can beef up the dpi but then it would be eating up additional memory space on the phone as the file sizes would be larger. Not to mention also slow down the phone when texting/emailing/uploading the images...

Rootbrian Jan 17, 2013 at 11:57 am

It won't slow it down when uploading or viewing anything. Such things are done in the background when viewing photos. Speed of memory depends on read/write speed of the flash memory. Uploading speeds depend on the cellular carrier, which aren't any higher than 35 kilobytes per second and are 10 kilobytes per second on average.

RazielDark Jan 17, 2013 at 12:58 pm

I've certainly had issues with carrier service when using MMS to send higher quality photo files (definitely video) but I've also had some minor issues with my BB device opening up high quality images given their size. I attribute this to lack of processing power and flash memory as you mentioned earlier. I'm confident that BB10 will make this a non-issue.

cbvinh Jan 17, 2013 at 12:44 pm

You're asking for more resolution, not dpi. dpi is arbitrary. It's the number of dots per inch and you can change that setting in any image file, causing the image to be larger/smaller on an output device.

RazielDark Jan 17, 2013 at 2:07 pm

We are just mentioning how it would be nice to have a larger dpi on BB10 so when people print out images, quality is not lost.
How awesome would it be for BB10 to have a feature like that though?
Or a native app that allows users to print quality photos directly from their devices without the need of additional software or transfers?

cbvinh Jan 17, 2013 at 12:38 pm

dpi stands for dots per inch. You can set that /arbitrarily/ in Photoshop or some other image processing program. The resolution of the input image will determine how many inches you can have at 300 dpi. For example, a 4096 horizontal resolution image will give you 13.65" of width at 300 dpi. A 2048 will give you 6.82". It sounds like the input images you've been getting from the Galaxy S3, iPhone 5, etc. aren't high enough to fill your canvas size and you're scaling up the image to have 300 dpi. That will make the image soft.

Rootbrian Jan 17, 2013 at 11:58 am

This still doesn't beat out my canon powershot sx150 IS. :D

But it's a fantastic macro shot.

all3n7 Jan 17, 2013 at 12:18 pm

The first image has a nice Bokeh... " Bokehalicious! "

TomJasper Jan 17, 2013 at 1:15 pm

Pics look fine to me considering it's from a phone. Anybody who is serious about photography as a business etc will be buying a hand held anyway. There is only so much one can do on such a small form factor, so for fun pics of friends,places for social media these pics are great!

RazielDark Jan 17, 2013 at 1:19 pm

Absolutely.