Nokia N900 Video Recording and Auto-focus
 

Hi Everyone,

I'm waiting for the N900 to be available so that i can buy one.
The only thing i'm worringing about is the video recording and
auto-focus.

I saw several videos on the internet that tells me that the N900 does NOT re-focus. Whats up with that!!!

Does somebody know more... Is nokia going to fix this....????

Please get back to me..

Many thanks...

Re: Nokia N900 Video Recording and Auto-focus
 

That's correct. Focus only happens before starting the video recording session. If you're referring to autofocus while recording, good luck finding a phone that does that.

Nokia did once mess around with continuous auto focus on the N93i, here's a video of it working on pre-release firmware

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_j2nX1Gc4Q

but was later scrapped due to the motor being too loud. I think if this would be implemented now, you'll still be able to hear the motor of the unit autofocusing. Rather than dealing with all the complaints of motor noises coming out of autofocus while recording, Nokia just decided to give the camera a fixed length focus or, additionally, the ability to focus before recording.

My personal concern is the lack of video stabilization in the N900. Is this feature even present at the moment? I've seen dozens of recorded N900 videos with horrible shaking and has led me to believe video stabilization is not implemented (where every s60 cameraphone has this feature).

Another question (sorry to hijack your thread) but in a similar topic, is there a way to choose lower quality settings for video recording? For example, choose 640x480 / 30fps recording instead of the default widescreen 848x480 / 24 fps. I would imagine there would be additional options for recording as other video phones do.

Re: Nokia N900 Video Recording and Auto-focus
 

I would actually like an autofocus feature, even given the noise. If it has issues with motor noise, I can understand it being disabled by default, even being hidden away from regular users. I would however be fine with that if I could use an external microphone instead when using autofocus. Perhaps a community provided app can serve here if Nokia provides access to the necessary parts?

Re: Nokia N900 Video Recording and Auto-focus
 

let me guess... another deal breaker?

Re: Nokia N900 Video Recording and Auto-focus
 

Actually, I thought the video demonstrating that it was missing was incredible. Amazing quality from a phone! If I want better than that, I'll carry a camcorder.

Re: Nokia N900 Video Recording and Auto-focus
 

If i want to have ring - USM focusing, fullHD recording capable sensor, f1.0 max aperture, ... then I should not buy a internet tablet but pro -level camcorder instead ;)

Re: Nokia N900 Video Recording and Auto-focus
 

I never said it was a dealbreaker, but it would be a very useful feature to me, so more of a dealmaker!

Re: Nokia N900 Video Recording and Auto-focus
 

The gst_photography interface only seems to allow you to perform autofocus on a paused pipeline, so that's not all that useful for focusing while you use the video camera. But I was only looking for single "right now" focus, it may be possible to enable continuous autofocus.

Otherwise you could always drive the ioctls yourself and implement your own focus algorithm by intercepting the gstreamer video stream.

Re: Nokia N900 Video Recording and Auto-focus
 

The N900 isn't "missing" any feature anymore than the rest of the industry. The only autofocusing videophone is the N93. Period. Nokia plans to update it in Q4 2010. That the N900 allows any video focus at all is amazing in itself. Not many phones with the N900's great capture quality have that, either.

You'll be eating your words sooner than you think. Nokia has already shown proficiency with video autofocus. Full HD video recording won't be hard to do, and is only a hardware and chip issue that will be solved with tech progression. Now the aperture... Not sure about that one. But I've watched the mobile photography space for awhile, and progress has been exponential. Pretty soon, especially with new sensor architectures, high quality imagery will be possible sooner than we all ever imagined. Movies are being filmed on Nokia Nseries devices, as well as music videos.

Re: Nokia N900 Video Recording and Auto-focus
 

Personally I would like this ability too. Often I am just capturing video not audio so this would be a nice feature to have - maybe auto-mute the inbuilt microphone too? Suspect that this might chew the power as well though.