Nokia N95 vs Canon PowerShot SD30 Cruise Trip Pictures

Compare the pictures from my Nokia N95 and my sweetie’s Canon PowerShot SD30 used on our cruise vacation. Both are 5 megapixel cameras, but my N95 is also a phone, computer, and more. If you look at the combined pictures, it’s not easy to tell right away which camera was used. I split the set so you can see which pictures are taken by the Nokia N95 and the ones taken by the SD30. You can also check out 6 comparison pictures after the jump.

A reminder that this is not one of those professional comparison tests. We were on vacation and took pictures with no care of changing settings or carrying tripods. Call this a “real usage” test. I looked for pictures that have similar positions. Take a look at some of the comparisons and decide which takes better pictures.

San Juan, Puerto Rico

san juan
Nokia N95

sd30 san juan
Canon PowerShot SD30

St Thomas, Virgin Islands

n95 st thomas
Nokia N95

sd30 st thomas
PowerShot SD30

Horseshoe Bay, Bermuda

n95 bermuda
Nokia N95

sd30 bermuda
PowerShot SD30

New York City

n95 ny
Nokia N95

sd30 NY
PowerShot SD30

Results

I’m not a photography expert, but I can’t really tell which device takes the “better” picture. The colors seem to be different, but not too much that you can point one out and say it’s a worse picture. I may be biased, but I think the Nokia N95 is the winner here because it can do more than just take pictures. I also could have uploaded all my photos right after taking the pictures, but I did not want to risk paying overages from using data while roaming outside the network. You don’t even have that option with the PowerShot SD30.

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There are 12 comments so far. »

  1. in my opinion the subjects in the foreground is better lit in case of the SD30

  2. Man those are really impressive shots.

  3. nice pics my dude. hope you and the wife had fun, now we gotta discuss out trip to chi town, we got issues

  4. I should say you’re not fair enough. You should have posted the exact same picture, but you didn’t. In fact 3 of 4 pictures shot with SD30 have a subject which is not just the panorama as in the N95 cases. The last one is made in complete different light, so it’s impossible to judge again. I’m not here to say that N95 camera sucks, not at all (i would like to have it too ;)) but just the proposed comparison cannot be tken as a proof.

  5. @Antonio, I just took two pictures that were close enough. I wrote in second paragraph these were not professionally compared. All pictures were taken in auto modes from the phone and the camera.

  6. Well, I am a photographer and I hate to admit it, but I’m more impressed with the camera. I thought your comparison pics were very fair indeed.

    There is nothing wrong with the colours that a little shadow/highlight in Photoshop wouldn’t fix.

    Nice one, mate.

  7. Well im from bermuda and i own a N95. i must admit the pictures taken by the n95 are pretty good… Ive got pictures of horseshoe bay taken with my canon powershot s80 and find myself using my n95 camera more because of the convenience it but i still carry my powershot for those pictures to want to come out perfect…

  8. I think the SD30 will be better, as it will resolve more detail, less digital artifacts, no water colour noise reduction.

    N95 looks better only because it has a higher default contrast, as well as “Nokia colour adjustment” hence images seems more punchy, contrasty and sometimes, saturated compared to what they really are in real life.

    MAzor

  9. I wonder if we can connect the n95 to a videoprojector for a powerpoint presentation for instance In case we can, how long would the battery last
    thank you

  10. I would prefer the Canon sd30 since its pretty small and it takes great picture ’cause you never know when a good landscape/thing comes up and you want to take a picture.

  11. вы все пидарасы

  12. Я человек-молекула! ;)

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