Nokia N73's camera (2006)

The "focus free" cameras of early mobile phones  (for example: 1, 2) were pretty bad even by the standards of those days.

The first phone in my hands that introduced at least some quality results was the Nokia N73.

The sensor size seems to be 1/2.5", it is not too bad for a mobile phone even today. The first decent digital camera I could use, the Canon A60 (2003) had a smaller 1/2.7" (2MP) sensor. The N73's larger sensor is 3MP.

The Nokia N73 has an 5.6mm/2.8 lens (Carl Zeiss Tessar named!) with autofocus, which is of course a noticeable improvement over "focus free" lenses. The 35 mm equivalent focal length is about 35mm (longer than a modern main camera have).

Examples of photos (2007-2009) to demonstrate the level of image quality. All are unprocessed camera JPEGs.

Landscapes:

(Lake Baikal, the Circum–Baikal railway)

(Lake Baikal)

(Ice of Irkutsk Reservoir)

(Lake Baikal)

Closer subjects:

(Honda Stream is stuck)

Difficult lighting conditions:

(the Circum–Baikal railway)

(Kitoy River)

And a bit of history (Irkutsk, August 2008):

The main complaints are not even about the resolution of the N73 camera, but about the specific "digital" colors, which ruin the image.

See also related notes:

• Nokia 6111: работа камеры (2015-02-24)
• Фотоистория (Pentax Optio 450) (2012-12-28)
• 2Мп камера в Nokia 6288 (2007-01-08)

Image albums:

• Mobile