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Thursday 19 February 2009

Nokia Magnifier: the small print stays small

If your mobile phone camera has autofocus, you can point it at something small, keep the shutter button pressed halfway down, and see the tiny focussed object magnified on your phone display.

Nokia Magifier automates the process. It switches your camera on and autofocusses without your finger on the capture button. You can "stabilize" the image, which just reduces the capture frequency and doesn't stabilise anything. Colors can be inverted, contrast increased, and of course you can take a picture of whatever you're magnifying. You can zoom in and out, but not with the volume rocker/zoom button combo. You'll have to use the navigation button instead.

Nokia Magnifier
But the picture is blurry because macro shooting and Nokia's cameras don't mix well. To get a sharp image, you have to keep the camera at a sufficiently large distance, so the magnifying effect is mostly lost. It doesn't work under normal indoor reading light conditions either. You'll need to turn the lights on to the max or wait for daylight and get out in the sun to read the small print.

Nokia Magnifier is a good idea, but the cameras on Nokia phones are not ready for it yet. Don't rely on Nokia Magnifier to read the legalese on your contracts.

Nokia Magnifier


2 comments:

Wilson Lacerda said...

Do not work in E51.

android underground said...

It only works on phones with autofocus. The camera on the E51 doesn't have autofocus.